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

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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.

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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.

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“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.”

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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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Alaska

Dozens of vehicle accidents reported, Anchorage after-school activities canceled, as snowfall buries Southcentral Alaska

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Dozens of vehicle accidents reported, Anchorage after-school activities canceled, as snowfall buries Southcentral Alaska


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Up to a foot of snow has fallen in areas across Southcentral as of Tuesday, with more expected into Wednesday morning.

All sports and after-school activities — except high school basketball and hockey activities — were canceled Tuesday for the Anchorage School District. The decision was made to allow crews to clear school parking lots and manage traffic for snow removal, district officials said.

“These efforts are critical to ensuring schools can safely remain open [Wednesday],” ASD said in a statement.

The Anchorage Police Department’s accident count for the past two days shows there have been 55 car accidents since Monday, as of 9:45 a.m. Tuesday. In addition, there have been 86 vehicles in distress reported by the department.

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Snow measuring up to 17 inches deep in Anchorage, Alaska, on Jan. 6, 2026.(Alaska’s News Source)

The snowfall — which has brought up to 13 inches along areas of Turnagain Arm and 12 inches in Wasilla — is expected to continue Tuesday, according to latest forecast models. Numerous winter weather alerts are in effect, and inland areas of Southcentral could see winds up to 25 mph, with coastal areas potentially seeing winds over 45 mph.

Up to a foot or more of snow has fallen across Southcentral Alaska, with more snow expected...
Up to a foot or more of snow has fallen across Southcentral Alaska, with more snow expected through the day.(Alaska’s News Source)

Some areas of Southcentral could see more than 20 inches of snowfall by Wednesday, with the Anchorage and Eagle River Hillsides, as well as the foothills of the Talkeetna Mountain, among the areas seeing the most snowfall.

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



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Yundt Served: Formal Charges Submitted to Alaska Republican Party, Asks for Party Sanction and Censure of Senator Rob Yundt

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Yundt Served: Formal Charges Submitted to Alaska Republican Party, Asks for Party Sanction and Censure of Senator Rob Yundt


Sen. Rob Yundt

On January 3, 2026, Districts 27 and 28 of the Alaska Republican Party received formal charges against Senator Rob Yundt pursuant to Article VII of the Alaska Republican Party Rules.

According to the Alaska Republican Party Rules: “Any candidate or elected official may be sanctioned or censured for any of the following
reasons:
(a) Failure to follow the Party Platform.
(b) Engagement in any activities prohibited by or contrary to these rules or RNC Rules.
(c) Failure to carry out or perform the duties of their office.
(d) Engaging in prohibited discrimination.
(e) Forming a majority caucus in which non-Republicans are at least 1/3 or more of the
coalition.
(f) Engaging in other activities that may be reasonably assessed as bringing dishonor to
the ARP, such as commission of a serious crime.”

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Party Rules require the signatures of at least 3 registered Republican constituents for official charges to be filed. The formal charges were signed by registered Republican voters and District N constitutions Jerad McClure, Thomas W. Oels, Janice M. Norman, and Manda Gershon.

Yundt is charged with “failure to adhere and uphold the Alaska Republican Party Platform” and “engaging in conduct contrary to the principles and priorities of the Alaska Republican Party Rules.” The constituents request: “Senator Rob Yundt be provided proper notice of the charges and a full and fair opportunity to respond; and that, upon a finding by the required two-thirds (2/3) vote of the District Committees that the charges are valid, the Committees impose the maximum sanctions authorized under Article VII.”

If the Party finds Yundt guilty of the charges, Yundt may be disciplined with formal censure by the Alaska Republican Party, declaration of ineligibility for Party endorsement, withdrawal of political support, prohibition from participating in certain Party activities, and official and public declaration that Yundt’s conduct and voting record contradict the Party’s values and priorities.

Reasons for the charges are based on Yundt’s active support of House Bill 57, Senate Bill 113, and Senate Bill 92. Constituents who filed the charges argue that HB 57 opposes the Alaska Republican Party Platform by “expanding government surveillance and dramatically increasing education spending;” that SB 113 opposes the Party’s Platform by “impos[ing] new tax burdens on Alaskan consumers and small businesses;” and that SB 92 opposes the Party by “proposing a targeted 9.2% tax on major private-sector energy producer supplying natural gas to Southcentral Alaska.” Although the filed charges state that SB 92 proposes a 9.2% tax, the bill actually proposes a 9.4% tax on income from oil and gas production and transportation.

Many Alaskan conservatives have expressed frustration with Senator Yundt’s legislative decisions. Some, like Marcy Sowers, consider Yundt more like “a tax-loving social justice warrior” than a conservative.

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Pilot of Alaska flight that lost door plug over Portland sues Boeing, claims company blamed him

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Pilot of Alaska flight that lost door plug over Portland sues Boeing, claims company blamed him


The Alaska Airlines captain who piloted the Boeing 737 Max that lost a door plug over Portland two years ago is suing the plane’s manufacturer, alleging that the company has tried to shift blame to him to shield its own negligence.

The $10 million suit — filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court on Tuesday on behalf of captain Brandon Fisher — stems from the dramatic Jan. 5, 2024 mid-air depressurization of Flight 1282, when a door plug in the 26th row flew off six minutes after take off, creating a 2-by-4-foot hole in the plane that forced Fisher and co-pilot Emily Wiprud to perform an emergency landing back at PDX.

None of the 171 passengers or six crew members on board was seriously injured, but some aviation medical experts said that the consequences could have been “catastrophic” had the incident happened at a higher altitude.

Leani Benitez-Cardona, NTSB aerospace engineer, and Matthew Fox, NTSB chief technical advisor for materials, unpacking the door plug Sunday from Alaska Airlines flight 1282, a Boeing 737-9 MAX, in the materials laboratory at NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C.NTSB

Fisher’s lawsuit is the latest in a series filed against Boeing, including dozens from Flight 1282 passengers. It also names Spirit AeroSystems, a subcontractor that worked on the plane.

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The lawsuit blames the incident on quality control issues with the door plug. It argues that Boeing caught five misinstalled rivets in the panel, and that Spirit employees painted over the rivets instead of reinstalling them correctly. Boeing inspectors caught the discrepancy again, the complaint alleges, but when employees finally reopened the panel to fix the rivets, they didn’t reattach four bolts that secured the door panel.

The complaint’s allegations that Boeing employees failed to secure the bolts is in line with a National Transportation Safety Board investigation that came to the conclusion that the bolts hadn’t been replaced.



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