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Sullivan ‘side-deal’ not enough to save rural Alaska public broadcasting, opponents of Trump proposal to funding cut say

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Sullivan ‘side-deal’ not enough to save rural Alaska public broadcasting, opponents of Trump proposal to funding cut say


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Hours before the Senate is set to vote on President Donald Trump’s $9.4 billion proposal to cut funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid, opponents said Sen. Dan Sullivan’s negotiation with the Trump administration – which a spokesperson for Sullivan argued Tuesday night would preserve rural Alaska stations – would not be enough to save them, arguing it only amounted to a one-time check to Tribal public media stations.

“I think with a side deal like this, [with it] not in the underlying legislation, it is not going to be an amendment, so we are sort of relying on different sources both within Congress and the [Trump] administration to talk about what they’ve said they’ve agreed to,” Kate Riley, CEO and President of America’s Public Television Stations said.

But details of how the deal could potentially impact Alaska remain unclear.

Sullivan’s Tuesday night statement announcing the deal, from the senator’s spokesperson Amanda Coyne, did not clarify the framework of how the funding would be allocated.

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“Because of the importance of public radio for rural Alaska, for years Senator Sullivan has been an advocate for funding for our rural stations, and has been working for the last number of weeks with his Senate colleagues and senior White House officials on alternative sources of funding to help keep rural radio stations on the air,” Coyne said. “Today, the administration committed to continued funding to help support our most rural stations.”

“As I understand it, there are no officially recognized ‘tribal’ stations in Alaska,” Alaska Public Media President and CEO Ed Ulman told Alaska’s News Source Wednesday. “Only Koahnic Broadcasting Corporation, which operates KNBA, is owned and operated by Alaska Natives.”

Leading up to Wednesday’s debate, last month KNBA President and CEO Jaclyn Sallee released a joint statement with 11 other Alaska public media stations explaining the potential impact.

“KNBA 90.3, could lose nearly 25% of its annual revenue, leading to cuts in service including local Alaska Native news and emergency alerts. Our award-winning national Native programs, Native America Calling and National Native News, part of daily schedules on stations across Alaska, would experience an even greater loss – one from which they might not be able to recover,“ she said. ”More than 60 tribal stations we serve would be disproportionately impacted where they offer efficient emergency alerts and vital community connections.”

The deal, according to Riley’s numbers, would potentially mean Alaska having to split $9.4 million among 28 Tribal stations in eight other states. She said those cuts would come out of reallocated programs from the Department of the Interior.

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Senator Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, who was also reportedly part of the negotiations with the White House, said on X yesterday that cuts from the Green New Deal would fund these Tribal stations.

“We wanted to make sure tribal broadcast services in South Dakota continued to operate which provide potentially lifesaving emergency alerts,” he said. “We worked with the Trump administration to find Green New Deal money that could be reallocated to continue grants to tribal radio stations without interruption.”

The funding, however, will not come in the way of additional legislation or an amendment to the president’s bill currently being discussed by the Senate. So far, Riley said, it only amounts to a Trump administration promise to provide support.

Though 28 Tribal stations would benefit from the promise, she added the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, where funds to local stations would be cut from, provides support to 36 Tribal stations. She did not know which 28 stations would be supported.

Riley said the “side deal” also left unanswered what happens to other rural community public media stations.

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“Those are not the only stations that serve native populations and there are many of our local stations that are providing service in communities where there are no other local media sources and no other broadcasters,” she said. “We think it’s critically important that all of those local station services be protected.”

Following America’s Public Television Station’s statement Wednesday, Alaska’s News Source reached out to Sullivan’s office who declined an interview.

When Alaska’s News Source first informed Alaska Public Media’s Ulman about Sullivan’s negotiation Tuesday, Ulman said he was “blindsided.”

“I can tell you for a fact that multiple folks in the state of Alaska have explained to the senator and his office how [public media] works and how [the Corporation for Public Broadcasting] is essential to ensuring that the 27 public media outlets in Alaska can remain in operation,” Ulman said. “So, this isn’t even a compromise. It’s just not gonna work.”

Ulman said Alaska stands to lose more than $30 million in federal funding over the next two years, if the bill is passed.

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″It’s a 20% cut to Alaska Public media’s operational budget. How do you run your household If you took a 20 Percent pay cut,” Ulman told Alaska’s News Source Wednesday. “Any type of cut that’s 50% or higher to an annual budget. You’re not the same organization and you can’t cut half of your operation and continue to really thrive.”

He added he’s concerned over how the promised funding to Alaska Native stations would be apportioned, and worried that hedging a bet on a promise from the Trump administration may be problematic.

“I want to see the details. If I were one of my colleagues, say in Petersburg, or in Talkeetna, (or in) Galena, I would want to know the deal. How is this really going to affect me?”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-AK, told reporters in the halls of Congress Wednesday that the public media funding bill was crucial to Alaska.

“There has been probably no issue, no single issue, that has drawn out more interest across the state of Alaksa than support for public broadcasting,” she said. “I come from a state that is extraordinarily rural. I come from a state where access to other forms of information and communication may be limited. It may just come by way of your radio. Call it old school, it’s what we live in many parts of the state.”

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Murkowski was one of only three Republicans, including Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY, who voted not to move forward with a vote, while Sullivan joined most other Republicans in voting to move forward on the bill.

“For years, in numerous meetings, Senator Sullivan has been consistently warning executives from public media entities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and NPR that their biased programming and reporting, funded in part by the American taxpayer, would eventually jeopardize federal support for both national and local radio stations,” Coyne said.

As of publication, the Senate is voting on adding amendments to the legislation. If any amendments are approved by the legislature, the bill will be sent back to the House. The bill must pass Congress by Friday. Riley said she expected the vote to be close.

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Alaska High School Girls Basketball 2026 ASAA State Championship Brackets – March 10

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Alaska High School Girls Basketball 2026 ASAA State Championship Brackets – March 10


The 2026 Alaska high school girls basketball state championships begin this week, and High School On SI has brackets for all four classifications.

The brackets will be updated with scores and matchups throughout the week.

All four classifications will play their state championship games at Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage.

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The 1A and 2A championships run March 11-14. Classes 3A and 4A play the following week, March 18-21.

Alaska High School Girls Basketball 2026 State Championship Brackets, Matchups, Schedule – March 10

3/11 – Shaktoolik (1) vs. Arlicaq (16)

3/11 – Kake (8) vs. Tri-Valley (9)

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3/11 – Fort Yukon (4) vs. Andreafski (13)

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3/11 – Sand Point (5) vs. Napaaqutgmiut (12)

3/11 – Scammon Bay (2) vs. Nunamiut (15)

3/11 – Akiuk Memorial (7) vs. Newhalen (10)

3/11 – Davis-Romoth (3) vs. Cook Inlet Academy (14)

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3/11 – Hoonah (6) vs. Shishmaref (11)


3/12 – Seward (1) vs. Chevak (8)

3/12 – Metlakatla (4) vs. Cordova (5)

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3/12 – Craig (2) vs. Susitna Valley (7)

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3/12 – Glennallen (3) vs. Degnan (6)


3/18 – Barrow (1) vs. Kotzebue (8)

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3/18 – Grace Christian (4) vs. Galena (5)

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3/18 – Monroe Catholic (2) vs. Delta (7)

3/18 – Mt. Edgecumbe (3) vs. Kenai Central (6)

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3/18 – Mountain City Christian Academy (1) vs. North Pole (8)

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3/18 – Colony (4) vs. West (5)

3/18 – Bartlett (2) vs. Juneau-Douglas (7)

3/18 – Wasilla (3) vs. Service (6)


More Coverage from High School On SI



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Made In The USA: The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company

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Made In The USA: The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company


This is the Alaska Wall Tent by the Alaska Gear Company, each one is made in the United States from Sunforger 13oz DLX, a double-filled, pre-shrunk, marine-grade canvas ideal for longterm outdoor use.

The Alaska Wall Tent comes in an array of sizes and versions, allowing you to choose the one that best suits your individual use-case. They’re all individually made in Alaska, and perhaps even more importantly, they’re all tested extensively to be able to handle local conditions.

The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 5

The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 2

Image DescriptionThis is the Alaska Wall Tent by the Alaska Gear Company, each one is made in the United States from Sunforger 13oz DLX, a double-filled, pre-shrunk, marine-grade canvas ideal for longterm outdoor use.

History Speedrun: The Alaska Gear Company

The Alaska Gear Company was formerly known as Airframes Alaska, it’s an aviation and outdoor equipment supplier and manufacturer headquartered in Palmer, Alaska. The company is led by majority owner Sean McLaughlin, who bought the original bush airplane parts business when it had just two employees and $100,000 in annual revenue. McLaughlin has since grown it to approximately 100 employees and $20 million in annual sales.

The company can trace its early roots to a licensed maker of Piper PA-18 Super Cub fuselages at Birchwood Airport. Through a series of acquisitions, including Reeve Air Motive (an aircraft parts retailer operating out of Anchorage’s Merrill Field since 1950, Alaska Tent & Tarp, and Northern Sled Works, the company grew well beyond aviation into outdoor recreation and cold-weather gear.

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That diversification ultimately drove the rebrand from Airframes Alaska to Alaska Gear Company in late 2023, as the old name no longer conveyed the full scope of what the company produces and sells.

The Alaska Gear Company now operates out of three locations – a 100,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Palmer, a production facility in Fairbanks, and a retail store with an in-house sewing workshop at Merrill Field in Anchorage.

Its product lines span two major categories. On the aviation side, the company is best known for its hand-built Alaskan Bushwheel tundra tires, FAA-approved titanium landing gear, Super Cub fuselage modifications, and a wide range of bush plane parts. On the outdoor side, it manufactures Arctic Oven hot tents, canvas wall tents, custom freight and pulk sleds, and a modernized version of the iconic military bunny boot designed for extreme cold weather conditions.

More recently in 2024, the Alaska Gear Company was named “Made in Alaska Manufacturer of the Year” by the Alaska Department of Commerce.

The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company

The Alaska Canvas Wall Tent is a handmade-in-Alaska canvas tent made from 13oz Sunforger DLX double-filled, preshrunk, marine-grade cotton canvas that’s treated to resist fire, water, and mildew while still remaining breathable.

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It comes in four sizes, including 8×10, 10×12, 12×14, and 14×16 feet, all with 5-foot wall heights, and it’s available either unframed (starting at $1,295) or with a frame (starting at $2,300). The unframed version can be constructed in the field using lengths of wood sourced from the area, reducing the initial pack weight – this is crucial for trips into the wilderness by bush plane where every pound of weight is critical.

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The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 4

Image DescriptionIt comes in four sizes, including 8×10, 10×12, 12×14, and 14×16 feet, all with 5-foot wall heights, and it’s available either unframed (starting at $1,295) or with a frame (starting at $2,300). The unframed version can be constructed in the field using lengths of wood sourced from the area, reducing the initial pack weight – this is crucial for trips into the wilderness by bush plane where every pound of weight is critical.

All tents include a 4.5 inch oval stove jack for use with wood or propane stoves, as well as a 56 inch triangular rear window with insect screening, an 18oz vinyl sod cloth around the base to block drafts and moisture, ridgepole openings at both ends, rope-reinforced eaves, brass grommets, overlapping door flaps with ties, a heavy-duty zippered door, and 100 feet of sisal rope for tie-downs.

The tents are now available to buy direct from the Alaska Gear Company here, and at the time of writing they have stock ready to ship out immediately.

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The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 9
The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 8
The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 3

Images courtesy of the Alaska Gear Company



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Lakes are growing in Alaska. That’s not entirely a bad thing

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Lakes are growing in Alaska. That’s not entirely a bad thing

The St. Elias Mountains in southeast Alaska are dotted with over 100 lakes where glaciers crumble into milky, turquoise water. Those lakes are expanding at an ever-quickening pace.

The lakes will quadruple in size over the next century or two, scientists report March 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This growth will transform landscapes, create new salmon habitat and may even change the course of a major river.

“We are seeing the great age of ice retreat” in Alaska, says Daniel McGrath, a glaciologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. “These glaciers are just peeling back from the landscape,” revealing deep grooves they carved in the Earth, where lakes are now forming.

Glacial hydrologist Eran Hood of the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, who was not part of the study, adds that “understanding where these lakes are going to emerge is important” because it “changes the whole nature of the downstream ecosystem.”

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Hugging the coastline along the Alaska-Canada border, the tiny mountainous region that includes the St. Elias Mountains is losing 60 cubic kilometers of ice per year. Because lakes absorb solar heat, the glaciers that shed ice into lakes are shrinking faster than those that terminate on dry land. Across southeast Alaska, these lakes attached to glaciers have expanded by 60 percent since 1986, reaching a combined area of 1,300 square kilometers.

McGrath and his colleagues wondered how far this runaway expansion might go. So, they combined satellite images with estimates of ice thickness — mapping deeply eroded grooves that are still hidden under glaciers.

The results were “eye-opening,” McGrath says. The team identified 4,200 square kilometers of glacier-covered grooves adjacent to existing lakes.

He and his colleagues predict that the lakes will continue to expand — causing rapid ice retreat — until they fill those grooves, reaching a combined size of around 5,500 square kilometers, an area the size of Delaware.

“By the end of this century, all of these lakes will probably be more or less fully developed,” says study coauthor Louis Sass III, a glaciologist with the U.S. Geological Survey at the Alaska Science Center in Anchorage. But those growing lakes are already reshaping entire landscapes in a way that is often overlooked in public discourse around glacier retreat.

Many of Alaska’s glaciers terminate on dry land, and their meltwater often creates barren, rocky floodplains downstream, where the streams alternate between trickles and floods — constantly branching and shifting course as they lay down sediment released by the glacier.

“Those habitats are fairly inhospitable for a lot of fish,” including some salmon, says Jonathan Moore, an aquatic ecologist with Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada. The water is too cold, and fish eggs “get swept out or buried by the floods every year.”

But as glaciers retreat into lakes and those lakes expand, their meltwater has time to drop its sediment and warm a few degrees in the lake before spilling into a river. Rivers that carry less sediment are less prone to shifting channels.

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A 2025 study by Moore and remote sensing scientist Diane Whited of the University of Montana found that as glacial lakes expanded over 38 years in southeast Alaska, the downstream river channels stabilized, allowing willows and bushes to spread across floodplains.

“It creates salmon habitat,” Hood says. A 2021 study by Moore and Hood predicted that by 2100, glacial retreat in southeast Alaska will transform 6,000 kilometers of river channels into decent habitat for some local species of salmon. The lakes themselves will create spawning grounds for sockeye salmon — an important commercial species.

But these changes will come with upheaval.

For instance, one major river, the Alsek, will probably shift its course as retreating glaciers cause two lakes to merge, providing an easier path to the ocean.

People in Juneau are feeling another dramatic effect of expanding lakes. At least once per year, a lake dammed by the nearby Mendenhall Glacier spills out in a flash flood that gushes through town, forcing some residents to build protective levees around their homes.

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These ecosystems “are going to be transformed,” Moore says. “But that transformation is going to be pretty violent and pretty dangerous.”



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