In most visitors, Alaska inspires wonder at its beauty, awe at its wildlife, and admiration for the hardiness of those who make their lives in its vast backcountry, enduring some of the harshest conditions on earth.
Alaska
Alaska federal workers brace for potential layoffs
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Federal workers across Alaska are bracing for potential layoffs on top of missing paychecks, as union officials warn that up to 200,000 federal employees nationwide could lose their jobs permanently during the ongoing government shutdown.
Based on union estimates and federal employment data, Alaska could see about 799 federal workers laid off if the cuts are distributed proportionally across states.
“There are a lot of people afraid,” David Owens, American Federation of Government Employees national representative, told Alaska’s News Source Thursday, describing President Donald Trump’s layoff threat at the time.
“They’re very worried. They feel like they’re being pawns, and they’re tired,” Ownes.
The threat comes after about 280,000 positions from the federal workforce were cut by DOGE, according to reporting in July by CNBC.
Now, Owens said the government could be looking into cutting 150,000 to 200,000 more positions.
A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget told the Associated Press the reduction would be “substantial,” but did not offer more immediate details, including how many federal employees would be laid off.
According to Office of Personnel Management data, Alaska has 11,658 federal employees as of September 2024. If the 200,000 layoffs nationally that Owens cited is accurate, and federal employment data shows the country currently employs approximately 2.2 million civilian federal workers, about 9.1% of federal employees would be laid off.
If that percentage was applied equally in each state, about 1,052 federal employees in Alaska may be laid off.
Court filings from the AFGE currently highlight 4,000 employees will be laid off, but also states, “Other Defendant agencies (in addition to some of those agencies identified above) are actively considering whether to conduct additional RIFs related to the ongoing lapse in appropriations”
Several impacted agencies reportedly include departments of the Interior, Homeland Security, Treasury, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development and Health and Human Services, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, according to NBC reporting citing an anonymous official.
The president said Friday he would target firings towards those aligned with the Democratic Party.
“It’ll be a lot of people,” CNN reports he said. “I must tell you, a lot of them happen to be Democrat oriented.”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Alaska’s News Source last week he didn’t expect his department to be hit hard.
“I don’t expect it to necessarily, but if that’s what it comes to, … we do have an effort underway still to try and find more efficiency in how we deliver services,” Burgum said, referencing the DOGE initiative.
For Alaska federal workers, the uncertainty is taking a personal toll, Owens said.
“I’m really worried about some of them because they live paycheck to paycheck,“ Owens said. ”We have some employees … that don’t make much money, and it really causes an impact on them.”
CBS Justice Correspondent Scott MacFarlane told Alaska’s News Source Friday it could be days, if not weeks, until there’s a full understanding of what type of layoffs are being executed.
“There’s still some sense that this may be more threat than reality,” he said. “Nevertheless, the administration continues to leverage this, saying they’re going to proceed with layoffs eventually or more layoffs eventually unless the government reopens, which begs the question, where are the negotiations in the effort to reopen the government?”
MacFarlane said any interruption in pay could be “cataclysmic to the family budget and life-changing,” something Owens reiterated was a phenomenon not uncommon in Alaska.
Prior to the shutdown, the Office of Management and Budget released a memo saying agencies should consider a RIF for programs whose funding would lapse during the shutdown and weren’t “consistent with the president’s priorities,” the Associated Press reported.
MacFarlane called the president’s calculus behind the move “unclear.”
“There may be a political advantage to wielding layoffs or at least threatening them,” he said. “Perhaps it’s leverage to end a government shutdown that the Republicans believe they can’t end without the Democrats’ help.
“The other component, though, is when you lay off federal workers, especially in our area, you do impact the services people receive. It is more difficult to get what you pay your tax dollars for when there are fewer federal workers to complete it.”
The White House has not released a statement on the shutdown as of publication, nor has the Office of Management and Budget. The layoffs also come the same day federal employees are set to receive their last paycheck, valid for the hours they worked prior to the shutdown, according to the U.S. General Services Administration.
Alaska’s News Source reached out to the entire congressional delegation and the governor’s office for comment on the push from the White House to lay off federal employees.
Alaska’s congressional delegation is already pushing back on the layoff threat. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, criticized the administration’s move on social media Friday.
“While few details have been shared about Russell Vought’s latest layoffs, there is no question this is poorly timed and yet another example of this administration’s punitive actions toward the federal workforce,” she said. “The termination of federal employees in a shutdown will further hurt hard-working Americans who have dedicated their lives to public service and jeopardize agency missions once we finally re-open the government.”
A spokesperson for Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, deferred comment to a statement saying he is working with the Trump administration to “lessen the impacts to Alaskans that result from the shutdown,” blaming the shutdown on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York.
Ten days later, little has changed
Republicans say Democrats have refused to pass what they call a “clean continuing resolution” in the Senate, a bill that maintains current government spending levels without policy changes or additions.
If the resolution receives 60 votes, it will end the government shutdown. With almost all Republicans voting for it (Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., cast the lone no vote), Democrats would need to provide the remaining votes.
Democratic leaders dispute that characterization, arguing the Republican bill isn’t truly “clean” because it ignores Democratic demands to restore nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts and extend enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits set to expire Dec. 31. Democrats say the credits would preserve health insurance for 3.8 million people.
If the Senate doesn’t pass the current resolution, Congress would need to introduce and pass a new resolution through both chambers. The president would then need to sign the proposal for it to become law.
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Copyright 2025 KTUU. All rights reserved.
High School
Legion Baseball
Sunday
Issaquah (WA) 7, Wasilla 5
Monday
Dimond 14, Eagle River 4
West 13, Kenai 4
Service 2, East 1
Tuesday
Roseburg (OR) 16, Wasilla 5
Kenai 7, Dimond 2
Kenai 15, Dimond 4
Palmer 5, Service 4
Palmer 20, Service 11
Chugiak 8, East 7
South 3, Ketchikan 1
Fairbanks 10, Chena River 4
Wednesday
West 4, Palmer 3
Chugiak 13, Eagle River 3
South 4, Ketchikan 3
Ketchikan 4, South 1
Thursday
Service 2, Dimond 1
Ketchikan 9, South 6
Friday
Wasilla 20, Dimond 4
Palmer 11, Eagle River 5
Auke Bay 12, East 2
Fairbanks 13, Chena River 5
Kenai 15, West 5
Kenai 24, West 8
Saturday
Chena River vs. Fairbanks (Late)
East vs. Auke Bay (Late)
Auke Bay vs. East (Late)
Palmer vs. Wasilla (Late)
Alaska Baseball League
Sunday
Mat-Su Miners 7, Anchorage Bucs 4
Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks 18, Peninsula Oilers 7
Monday
Mat-Su Miners 14, Anchorage Glacier Pilots 3
Peninsula Oilers 11, Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks 4
Tuesday
Anchorage Bucs 8, Anchorage Glacier Pilots 7
Peninsula Oilers 7, Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks 6
Wednesday
Mat-Su Miners 10, Anchorage Glacier Pilots 0
Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks 5, Peninsula Oilers 3
Thursday
Peninsula Oilers 6, Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks 5
Mat-Su Miners 7, Anchorage Glacier Pilots 2
Friday
Anchorage Bucs 2, Mat-Su Miners 0
Saturday
Anchorage Bucs vs. Anchorage Glacier Pilots (Late)
Mat-Su Miners vs. Peninsula Oilers (Late)
Anchorage, AK—U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Congressman Nick Begich (all R-Alaska) today applauded the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) approval of a permit to facilitate construction of a life-saving road between the isolated community of King Cove, Alaska and nearby Cold Bay. The one-lane gravel connector will provide reliable transportation access from King Cove to Cold Bay, which is home to an all-weather airport.
“This is more good news for King Cove and all who care about the health, safety, and wellbeing of the hundreds of people who live there,” Murkowski said.“After decades of relentlessly making the case and pushing with everything we have, this life-saving road is finally almost a reality. A combination of careful analysis and common sense from the Trump administration—the Department of the Interior and now the Army Corps—have brought us to this point. I thank them for their continued commitment to protecting and improving these Alaskans’ lives.”
“For Alaskans, the decades-long King Cove Road impasse has been a symbol of an uncaring, out-of-touch, faraway federal government that prioritizes the lives of birds over people,” said Sullivan. “The great residents of King Cove time and again have kept hope alive, despite setbacks, most recently when the Biden administration disregarded the voices of the community and withdrew the previously approved land exchange. The permit issued by the Corps of Engineers today is vindication for King Cove, putting us closer than ever before to delivering a lifesaving, 11-mile, single-lane gravel road to the all-weather airport in Cold Bay. I want to thank the Administration, especially Secretary Burgum and Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Telle, for listening to Alaskans, for caring about their safety and well-being, and for putting us on the cusp of a historic breakthrough for safe and reliable access for King Cove.”
“This permit approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is a critical milestone in a decades-long effort to provide the people of King Cove with the infrastructure they need to build an essential life-saving road,” said Begich. “For nearly 50 years, the community has advocated for a road connecting King Cove to the all-weather airport in Cold Bay. This project addresses an obvious public safety need and will provide a reliable route for emergency access in adverse weather conditions. I commend everyone who helped move this project forward, from residents who never stopped advocating, to Secretary Burgum, the Army Corps of Engineers, Governor Dunleavy, and Alaska’s congressional delegation over many years.”
King Cove is located between two volcanic peaks near the end of the Alaska Peninsula, and its small gravel airstrip is typically closed by bad weather for more than 100 days each year. Many flights not canceled are delayed by wind, turbulence, fog, rain, or snow squalls; travel by boat is often impacted by waves that can top 12 feet and the lack of suitable dock infrastructure in Cold Bay. By comparison, Cold Bay, which is less than 30 miles from King Cove, has one of the longest runways in the state and it is closed an average of just 10 days per year.
At present, there are roads leading out of both King Cove and Cold Bay but no connection between them. The lack of dependable transportation access to Cold Bay routinely forces emergency medevacs from King Cove that risk the lives of patients and responders alike. It also creates significant quality-of-life issues, ranging from King Cove residents’ inability to regularly receive mail to week-long travel delays for students returning home from various activities.
King Cove residents have sought this life-saving connector road for decades. In late 2025, a major breakthrough occurred when the Trump administration conveyed490 federal acres to the King Cove Corporation in exchange for 1,739 acres of KCC-owned land near the Kinzarof Lagoon and the relinquishment of selection rights to more than 5,430 acres still owed to KCC under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
The Corps permit issued this week is valid for five years and allows for dredge and fill activities to occur on just over five acres of land. For perspective, the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge spans 315,000 acres and there are at least 130 million acres of wetlands across Alaska.
More information is available here.
###
Alaska
An Alaska vacation can remind Israelis the world doesn’t revolve around them | The Jerusalem Post
For Israelis, it can also inspire humility. Not because the Jewish state is smaller than Denali National Park, but because in Alaska, one is reminded that the world neither revolves around Israel nor is obsessed with it.
That realization came on a trip The Wife and I took to America’s Last Frontier last month.
“Where is your final destination today?” the woman checking us in for our flight home at the Anchorage airport asked chirpily.
“Tel Aviv,” I replied. “Where’s that?”
When I said it was in Israel, she smiled and said, “Oh.”
Lest one think this was just a fluke: on the plane a few hours later, another Alaskan asked where we were going. When we answered “Tel Aviv,” she said she had never heard of it.
Granted, two people do not a Pew Poll make, but they do offer a small corrective to the perception – fed by the media most of us follow – that the world is preoccupied with Israel, thinking about us obsessively, talking about us constantly, and cursing us unremittingly.
The last part, at least in Alaska, is also not true. During our two weeks there, we saw no “Free Palestine” graffiti, nor were we subjected to dirty looks or “child killer” comments when we said we were from Israel.
All of America, it turns out, is not Mamdani’s Manhattan, nor does social media present a proportionate picture of that country’s reality.
One of the problems with social media is that every incident of antisemitism is posted online. The incidents are real and rising at an alarming rate, but seeing them all in one place creates a disproportionate sense of how likely you are to encounter them while traveling.
Watch enough clips of a Jewish kid harassed on a New York subway or an Israeli couple berated at a hotel in California, and you begin to wonder whether the same thing awaits you when you ride an American subway or check into a hotel.
It doesn’t. Yet the cumulative effect is that you begin to wonder how open to be about your Israeliness. You don’t decide to hide it, but simply having to ask the question adds a mini-layer of apprehension before every trip.
When Israel comes along for the ride
You also learn to read the Uber.
“Honey,” I urged The Wife before we got into an Uber in Chicago during a brief layover, “you don’t have to say you’re from Israel.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “I’m not going to hide who I am.”
“Wonderful sentiment,” I replied. “The driver’s name is Rabah. Humor me.”
We didn’t volunteer our place of origin, nor did he ask.
But on the entire trip, that was the only time we consciously withheld that nugget of biographical information. Everywhere else, we proudly said we were from Israel – and it was fine. More than fine: it was often a conversation starter.
On a whale-watching excursion, we sat across from a young couple from China who work at Google. They were intrigued that we lived in Israel, and even more fascinated that we passed on the chicken sandwiches being served.
Instead of looking for sea creatures, The Wife spent a good part of the trip explaining why some of the fish in the sea we can eat and others we can’t.
“Honey,” I whispered at one point, a bit annoyed. “We didn’t pay all this money for you to give an introductory lecture on kashrut. Look for the damn puffins.”
Since October 7, another layer has been added to the anxiety of travel: whether your flight will be canceled at the drop of a ballistic missile.
One doesn’t just hop over to Alaska on a whim; it takes planning and a special occasion to justify the expense. For us, it was 40 years of wedded bliss, so we booked back in October after being warned that rental cars sell out months in advance.
We chose United. But just days after the war with Iran broke out, United – typically – canceled flights until mid-June, four days after our planned departure. We acted quickly – well, The Wife acted quickly – and switched to El Al. Still, it complicated the trip further.
Then came the more serious question: Do you leave the country when one of your sons or your son-in-law is in miluim in Lebanon, Gaza, or Syria?
My first instinct was no: you don’t leave when one of your children is serving. That may have worked before Oct. 7, when reserve duty meant a few weeks a year and could be planned around.
But today, when they have each logged upward of 350 days, saying you won’t leave while they are serving essentially means that you won’t leave at all.
Which, by the way, is hardly the end of the world. But what can I say? I like to travel.
So we went, even though as we were watching bears and sea otters, my youngest son was dodging drones in Lebanon.
“Go,” he said. “What are you going to be able to do by being here? And if, God forbid, something happens, you’ll come back.”
“That’s not the point,” I said. “How can we enjoy it if we are worrying about you?”
“You’ll figure out a way,” he teased.
And he was right. Sure, we worried, but less than if we were here. Distance, it turns out, has its advantages. I wasn’t glued to the news, tracking every development on his front.
Perhaps that was Alaska’s greatest gift. Not the calving glaciers, surfacing whales, or foraging bears, magnificent though they were. It was the realization that while Israel is the center of our world, it is not the center of everyone else’s. Every now and then, regaining that perspective is refreshing. ■
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