ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Weather conditions impacted roads all across the state Saturday.

According to Alaska 511, some of the areas most difficult to drive in are around Cantwell, in the Fairbanks area, and North into the Dalton and Elliott highways.

Roads in Anchorage were wet and full of puddles.

And part of Hatcher Pass Road was closed Saturday.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) said online that Hatcher Pass Road is now closed just north of the Skeetawk entrance. That’s around mile 10.8.

DOT said there was an avalanche Friday that crossed the road around mile 15. DOT plans to assess the road closure daily.

People could still get to Skeetawk Saturday, but the ski area posted online that it was closed because of the weather.

And Sunday, drivers along the Seward Highway can expect delays while DOT works on avalanche mitigation work in two sections.

One stretch will be from milepost 37 to milepost 38 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. That’s near the Seward Highway and Sterling Highway wye.

The other area is from milepost 95 to 100 from 9:00 a.m. to noon Sunday. That’s between Girdwood and Anchorage.

See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com

Copyright 2025 KTUU. All rights reserved.

AMHERST, Mass. – An early two-goal lead helped University of Massachusetts hockey roll to a 7-3 win to complete its weekend sweep of Alaska at the Mullins Center on Saturday night. With the victory, the Minutemen improve to 13-10-2 on the year, while the Nanooks fall to 7-11-5.

“We were very opportunistic tonight,” said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. “I don’t think the score is indicative. I thought Alaska gave us a really good game and that we were very opportunistic in our scoring early on. It was pretty wide open. A little more wide open than I’d like it to be. I thought (Michael) Hrabal played really well all weekend, and it’s three in a row, we’ll take it and move on and try to make it four.”

The Minutemen opened up the scoring at the 3:22 mark of the first as Lucas Mercuri’s offensive zone faceoff win bounced through Nicholas Grabko and into the back of the Alaska net.

It quickly became 2-0 just 48 seconds later as a rebound from sophomores Dans Locmelis and Jack Musa amidst a scramble in front of the Alaska goal kicked out to Cole O’Hara in the slot for him to bury into the twine for his 13th goal of the season.

The Nanooks cut their deficit in half with Kyle Gaffney and Brendan Ross starting a rush up the ice that Matt Hubbard was able to tap home at the back post at the 9:29 mark of the opening frame.

UMass then made it a 3-1 margin at 11:55 with Mercuri hammering home a rebound after freshman Francesco Dell’Elce’s initial attempt was stopped. Freshman Larry Keenan earned an assist on the play, as well.

Alaska pulled back within one 19 seconds into the second period when Chase Defoe’s shot off a feed from Cade Ahrenholz banked off the end boards into goaltender Michael Hrabal and in.

Musa promptly gave the Minutemen back some breathing room, knocking the puck into an open net from the slot after graduate student Linden Alger picked up a pass from O’Hara and circled the offensive zone before setting up Musa at the 5:10 mark.

Locmelis extended the gap to 5-2, converting on UMass’ lone power play of the contest off a feed from juniors Lucas Olvestad and Kenny Connors at 18:14.

With 59 seconds to go in the frame, O’Hara pocketed his second of the night, redirecting a pass from Alger at the net front. Junior Kennedy O’Connor also earned an assist on the play.

Alaska, with an extra attacker on and the net empty, managed to score a power-play goal midway through the third with Dafoe cleaning up a rebound from Peyton Platter and Broten Sabo for his second of the contest at the 12:47 mark.

Connors then pocketed an empty net goal from Musa and junior Owen Murray 15:13 into the final frame to complete the scoring.

The Nanooks finished the night with a 33-28 edge in shots and went 1-for-4 on the power play to UMass’ 1-for-1.

Six Minutemen ended the evening with multi-point performances, led by O’Hara (2g, 1a) and Musa (1g, 2a) with three points each.

Hrabal totaled 30 saves in the win for UMass, while Grabko and Lassi Lehti posted 16 and five saves, respectively, for Alaska.

The Minutemen will be back in action next Friday, January, 31, when the squad will wrap up its series with Merrimack at 7 p.m. at the Mullins Center.

Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation welcomed President Donald Trump’s executive orders that were intended to boost resource development in Alaska. But the delegation has been divided on other actions Trump has taken since returning to the White House.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski spoke to the Daily News on Thursday from Washington, D.C., about Trump’s executive orders, Jan. 6 and his Cabinet picks.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III responded to several questions through prepared statements.

Jan. 6

Murkowski was alone among Alaska’s three-member congressional delegation in stridently opposing Trump’s blanket pardons of hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants, including some who assaulted law enforcement officers.

“When someone attacks, assaults, beats, violates a police officer, it shouldn’t make any difference what day of the year that took place,” she said in a phone interview. “It is a criminal act, and it should be charged and prosecuted as such.”

Over 100 Capitol police officers were injured in the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol after Trump lost the 2020 election.

Murkowski said that she recently spoke to a Capitol police officer who quietly thanked her for her recent statement of support on social media.

Sullivan said through a statement that Trump had promised “many times” on the campaign trail that he would pardon the Jan. 6 defendants.

He said that stood in contrast to former President Joe Biden’s last-minute pardons for his family members, and his commutations for murderers on death row.

Sullivan, a former Alaska attorney general, said he didn’t know the details of the roughly 1,600 cases related to the attack on the Capitol, and he declined to comment on “the specifics.”

”In general, however, as I have said since January 6 — and as Vice President Vance said as recently as last week — if someone committed acts of violence against law enforcement officers, they should be held accountable,” he said.

In an emailed statement, U.S. Rep. Nick Begich said on Thursday that Trump acted within his constitutional authority to issue the Jan. 6 pardons.

He also criticized Biden’s actions to pardon family members, but did not directly respond to a question on the appropriateness of erasing sentences for people who assaulted police officers.

”During the years of enduring Democrat calls to defund the police, Republicans stood firm with law enforcement and ‘backed the blue.’ My strong support for law enforcement will not change,” he said.

Executive orders

Since his inauguration on Monday, Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders, including one entitled, “Unleashing Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential.”

The sweeping Alaska-focused order is intended to boost energy production on the North Slope, reverse logging restrictions in the Tongass National Forest, and to support building a long-sought road between King Cove and Cold Bay — among other impacts.

”I think it’s exciting in many, many, many ways,” Murkowski said.

She said that the executive order would be “enormously helpful” as the state worked to access more of its mineral and timber resources.

Fellow Republican political leaders — Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Sullivan and Begich — were similarly enthusiastic about Trump’s plans to boost mining and oil and gas development in Alaska.

Trump on Monday ordered for North America’s highest peak — Denali — to be renamed McKinley. Murkowski was strongly opposed to that name change, but Sullivan, Begich and Dunleavy were more ambivalent.

She said Alaskans were “buzzing“ about the mountain’s name-change back to McKinley.

But on Trump’s other executive orders, Murkowski was more cautious.

She said the orders were “broad and far reaching” — related to a wide array of subjects like energy, the environment, and border security.

People would initially be very excited and concerned about those actions, Murkowski said, but it would take some time for her to evaluate their impacts.

“It’s a lot to take in. So, we are very, very, very busy,” she said.

As an example, she pointed to a planned pause of Biden-era infrastructure spending that Politico reports could imperil billions of dollars in projects already under construction. That spending came partly from a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that Murkowski, herself, helped author in 2021.

“I don’t fault an incoming administration for wanting to do a close and a critical review of programs,” she said.

Nominees

Murkowski on Friday voted against confirming Pete Hegseth to lead the U.S. Department of Defense.

In a lengthy statement, she said on Thursday that her opposition came partly from sexual assault allegations leveled against Hegseth, and his past opposition to women serving in combat.

Murkowski was one of three Republican senators — along with Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell and Maine Sen. Susan Collins — to oppose Hegseth’s nomination. She became the first Republican to publicly announce she would vote against a Trump cabinet pick.

Sullivan voted in favor of Hegseth’s nomination. He felt confident Hegseth would “refocus our military on lethality, warfighting and peace through strength,” he said in a statement Thursday.

Other Trump cabinet nominees have proven contentious.

A national healthcare group is urging Murkowski to block Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from leading the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including a concerted effort in Alaska.

Kennedy has been opposed for threatening a “war on public health,“ and his long history as an anti-vaccine activist and an opponent of fluoride in drinking water.

Similarly, former Hawaii Democratic U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard — Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence — has drawn concerns over her meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and her questionable statements about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Murkowski, though, declined to say how she would vote on either Trump nominee — or dozens of others still to be confirmed.

“I’m doing what I do best, which is my homework, and I anticipate that I’m going to be doing that, not only with those two, but we have a good handful,” she said.

Last month, Sullivan posted statements on social media indicating that he would support Kennedy and Gabbard’s nominations.

• • •