Alaska

Alaska elected officials take action as government shutdown looms

Published

1 year ago

September 28, 2023

Alaska elected officials take action as government shutdown looms

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – The U.S. is headed toward a government shutdown when the clock strikes 12:01 a.m. on Sunday if funding legislation isn’t passed this weekend by Congress and signed into law by the president.

But elected officials here in Alaska say they already have plans in the works to minimize the impacts of a potential shutdown.

Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan is taking action for the men and women who keep the country safe. The senator and more than a dozen of his colleagues have introduced a piece of legislation called the Pay Our Military Act of 2023, which would ensure America’s service members and contractors are paid in the event of a government shutdown.

During a 2019 shutdown, Sullivan noted all branches of the military except the U.S. Coast Guard were paid, which the senator deemed “an outrage.”

“My bill today that I tried to get passed on the Senate floor covers the entire military,” Sullivan said. “Our military members are still going to be deployed all over the world. They’re gonna be on ships, on submarines, flying in the skies, and they’re not going to get paid? That’s outrageous.”

One of the co-sponsors of the legislation is Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who said in a statement Tuesday that ensuring the military pay in a shutdown is a “non-negotiable” for her.

“Our Armed Forces should not have to deal with political disruptions interfering with their paycheck or ability to engage their mission of keeping Americans safe,” Sullivan said.

According to a 2022 Department of Defense report, there were more than 20,000 active military personnel stationed in Alaska last September.

Sullivan said a similar bill passed prior to the 2013 government shutdown, but this one is facing some resistance.

“So yeah, on that kind of stuff, I was enormously frustrated and I will keep trying to bring my bill to the floor and get it passed the way it was passed unanimously in 2013 to make sure our military members get paid because they’re still going to have to defend our country,” Sullivan said. “I certainly hope my democratic colleagues don’t block it again when I try to bring it to the floor later in the week.”

The State of Alaska is also prepared to take action.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy said the state is committed to continuing essential government services funded by the federal government and administered by the state, such as Medicaid and air traffic control. Alaska would seek reimbursement following a shutdown, according to a release from the governor’s office.

“The longest previous federal shutdown was 34 days. The State of Alaska is prepared to continue state-administered federally funded programs for that length of time. If a federal government shutdown were to continue beyond that timeframe, the State will reevaluate the situation if necessary, and prioritize programs that most directly impact the life, health, and safety of Alaskans,” the release stated.

The governor said that the approximately 4,700 state executive branch positions at least partially federally funded would see no disruption in their pay and continue to report to work.

Dunleavy said a small number of federal employees work within state departments.

The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development has developed a fact sheet specifically to address unemployment insurance questions associated with the potential government furlough for federal employees.

However, in the event of a shutdown, if Congress provides retroactive payment of wages, workers who receive unemployment insurance must repay them.

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Alaska

Alaska Jewish community prepares to celebrate start of Hanukkah

Published

4 hours ago

December 25, 2024

Press Room

Alaska Jewish community prepares to celebrate start of Hanukkah

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Rabbi Josef Greenberg and Esty Greenberg of Alaska Jewish Campus, joined Alaska’s News Source to explain more about Hanukkah and how Anchorage can celebrate.

They will be hosting Chanukah, The Festival of Lights for “Cirque De Hanukkah,” on Sunday, Dec. 29, at 5 p.m., at the Egan Center.

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Alaska

A Christmas & Hannukah mix of winter weather

Published

11 hours ago

December 25, 2024

Press Room

A Christmas & Hannukah mix of winter weather

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A variety of winter weather will move through Alaska as we go through Christmas Day and the first night of Hannukah.

A high wind warning started Christmas Eve for Ketchikan, Sitka, and surrounding locations for southeast winds 30-40, gusting to 60 miles per hour. Warnings for the combination of strong winds and snow go to the west coast, western Brooks Range, and Bering Strait.

Anchorage is seeing a low-snow Christmas. December usually sees 18 inches of snow throughout the month. December 2024 has only garnered a paltry 1.5 inches. Snow depth in the city is 7 inches, even though we have seen over 28 inches for the season. A rain-snow mix is likely to hit Prince William Sound, mostly in the form of rain.

A cool-down will start in the interior tomorrow, and that colder air will slip southward. By Friday, the southcentral region will see the chances of snow increase as the temperatures decrease.

The hot spot for Alaska on Christmas Eve was Sitka with 48 degrees. The coldest spot was Atqasuk with 23 degrees below zero.

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Alaska

Santa catches a ride with troops to bring Christmas to Alaska village

Published

21 hours ago

December 24, 2024

Press Room

Santa catches a ride with troops to bring Christmas to Alaska village

YAKUTAT, Alaska — Forget the open-air sleigh overloaded with gifts and powered by flying reindeer.

Santa and Mrs. Claus this week took supersized rides to southeast Alaska in a C-17 military cargo plane and a camouflaged Humvee, as they delivered toys to the Tlingit village of Yakutat, northwest of Juneau.

The visit was part of this year’s Operation Santa Claus, an outreach program of the Alaska National Guard to largely Indigenous communities in the nation’s largest state. Each year, the Guard picks a village that has suffered recent hardship — in Yakutat’s case, a massive snowfall that threatened to buckle buildings in 2022.

Santa and Mrs. Claus talk to a child in Yakutat as part of the Alaska National Guard’s Operation Santa program Wednesday. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

“This is one of the funnest things we get to do, and this is a proud moment for the National Guard,” Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, said Wednesday.

Saxe wore a Guard uniform and a Santa hat that stretched his unit’s dress regulations.

The Humvee caused a stir when it entered the school parking lot, and a buzz of “It’s Santa! It’s Santa!” pierced the cold air as dozens of elementary school children gathered outside.

In the school, Mrs. Claus read a Christmas story about the reindeer Dasher. The couple in red then sat for photos with nearly all of the 75 or so students and handed out new backpacks filled with gifts, books, snacks and school supplies donated by the Salvation Army. The school provided lunch, and a local restaurant provided the ice cream and toppings for a sundae bar.

Student Thomas Henry, 10, said while the contents of the backpack were “pretty good,” his favorite item was a plastic dinosaur.

Another, 9-year-old Mackenzie Ross, held her new plush seal toy as she walked around the school gym.

“I think it’s special that I have this opportunity to be here today because I’ve never experienced this before,” she said.

Yakutat, a Tlingit village of about 600 residents, is in the lowlands of the Gulf of Alaska, at the top of Alaska’s panhandle. Nearby is the Hubbard Glacier, a frequent stop for cruise ships.

Some of the National Guard members who visited Yakutat on Wednesday were also there in January 2022, when storms dumped about 6 feet of snow in a matter of days, damaging buildings.

Alaska National Guard soldiers and airmen shovel the roof of a building in Yakutat. (Dana Rosso/U.S. Army National Guard via AP)

Operation Santa started in 1956 when flooding severely curtailed subsistence hunting for residents of St. Mary’s, in western Alaska. Having to spend their money on food, they had little left for Christmas presents, so the military stepped in.

This year, visits were planned to two other communities hit by flooding. Santa’s visit to Circle, in northeastern Alaska, went off without a hitch. Severe weather prevented a visit to Crooked Creek, in the southwestern part of the state, but Christmas was saved when the gifts were delivered there Nov. 16.

“We tend to visit rural communities where it is very isolated,” said Jenni Ragland, service extension director with the Salvation Army Alaska Division. “A lot of kids haven’t traveled to big cities where we typically have Santa and big stores with Christmas gifts and Christmas trees, so we kind of bring the Christmas program on the road.”

After the C-17 Globemaster III landed in Yakutat, it quickly returned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, an hour away, because there was nowhere to park it at the village’s tiny airport. Later, it returned to pick up the Christmas crew.

Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with their tuckered elves, were seen nodding off on the flight back.

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