Deven Jackson knew as early as kindergarten he wanted to be a businessman when he grew up.

Listen now

“I started out just doing like elite socks in my garage, spray painting them, selling them to my friends in middle school,” Jackson said. “And we started to grow. We were Team Elite 907 back then. Man, that was a long time ago.”

Six years is a long time when you’re seventeen.

Jackson hopes that his latest business venture, League, will serve a unique niche in the state. The store opened up in the Dimond Mall, the largest mall in the state, on July 13. It looks to be the first store in the state to specialize in high-end urban streetwear.

For Alaskans trying to purchase the latest Air Jordans, or the styles they see in a Drake music video, there really aren’t a lot of local options. Jackson wants to change that.

“What Alaska has really been craving is a good streetwear brand, and so we decided that we were gonna be the ones to don that,” Jackson said. “That was our thing.”

On opening day, about eight customers are in the store, poring through hangers with flashy hoodies and checking out the extensive sneaker display. For a small lease space in the mall, it’s kinda packed.

The selection ranges from local art to racks of vintage attire. Jackson says he stocked the old-school collection through consignment and thrifting.

But Jackson says the main draw of League is the high-end stuff.

“Super, super high-end, almost impossible to get clothing items,” Jackson said.” I mean, a regular hoodie could go for almost $400. A pair of shorts could go for $300. You never know. I would say we have anything you can’t get, to keep it simple.”

Jackson just graduated from West Anchorage High School. He says he’s the first black store owner at the Dimond Mall, and he thinks he might be the youngest store owner in the state.

Jackson says he made efforts to talk to business owners around town about the nitty-gritty points of running a store. He says he raised all of the money for the store through fundraisers in the community and his own savings. He didn’t have to travel too far to get advice.

“Somebody that helped me out a lot is my dad, because he owned a business for over 20 years,” Jackson said. “He’s helped me. He’s in here helping right now.”

Deven Jackson doesn’t have any paid employees yet, just volunteer help. One of the volunteers helping put a decal on the store window is his father, Eric.

“Ever since he’s been old enough to talk, he’s dreamed of owning his own business, had a desire to be a great business owner,” Eric Jackson said. “He can take just about anything and turn it around for his favor, so he’s got that gift, I guess.”

Deven is going to Southern Wesleyan University in South Carolina in the fall, where he plans to play basketball and major in business administration. And he has big ambitions.

“A wise man once told me, you can’t be a millionaire unless you’ve got six different businesses. And I feel that League is something small, but absolutely something big as well,” Jackson said. “It’s just the first step into growing my enterprise, really.”

And just because he’ll be thousands of miles away, that doesn’t mean Jackson won’t be keeping close tabs on his business.

“With technology now, it’s really not gonna be too hard. I have control and vision over almost everything,” Jackson said. “But I have people I definitely trust. It’ll sell itself because like I said, it’s the only place in Alaska that does this. We’ll be okay.”

Deven Jackson says his six-month plan is for League to be sustainable, so he can look to his next venture.

Ancestral artifacts collected in the Kodiak Archipelago nearly 150 years ago have arrived back home.

A French museum, Musee Boulogne-Sur-Mer, will loan the items to the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository in Kodiak where they will remain for five years.

A welcoming ceremony for the objects was held at the Kodiak museum on July 9.

In 1871 and 1872, then-19-year-old French anthropologist Alphonse Pinart, a linguist who visited Kodiak collected the objects.

Musee Boulogne-Sur-Mer director Elikya Kandot works for the museum that has been caring for the items all these years.

Kandot escorted the crate to Kodiak. She told the crowd the exchange between the museums is a model for how cultural institutions can work together.

“The importance of inheriting this heritage is truly very strong here for future generations,” Kandot said in French. “Thank you for providing this example. Thank you for really, for giving it your all, to these pieces that have been protected for years, for centuries, and that will be transmitted to future generations as well.”

Kandot’s museum is part of an international movement for partnerships between European collecting institutions and indigenous peoples so that both can learn more about cultural items.

They pried open the shipping crate after a ceremony where a traditional Alutiiq oil lamp was lit.

The pieces inside are part of the Pinart Collection, which includes Kodiak Alutiiq objects that Europeans collected here in the late 19th century.

The collection includes many rare pieces of Alutiiq ceremonial gear, like masks, drums, headdresses and a feast bowl, which provide a rich record of traditional arts, ritual practices, spiritual beliefs and the Alutiiq language.

Pinart also documented vocabulary, songs and legends along with the objects.

Inside the large crate are several smaller wooden boxes which are removed one-by-one and staged on nearly tables.

While the crowd waits for the screws to be taken out of the inner boxes, the Alutiiq Dancers sing a traditional call and response song.

A line forms for onlookers to file by the tables where the objects sit.

As the packing paper is removed, Alutiiq descendants get their first glimpse of their ancestors’ work.

At last the cultural treasures come into view: two carved wooden masks and a women’s beaded headdress set, which includes two bracelets and a dance belt.

One elder greets the items in Alutiiq, “Camai!”

Alutiiq elder Florence Matfay Pestrikoff, whose family was originally from Ahkiok, admires the headdress beads of white, green and blue.

“I’m thankful that these people preserved them for us,” Pestrikoff said.

Pestrikoff said she has never had a traditional headdress of her own and hopes to make one like it for herself.

Alutiiq Museum intern Dehrich Chya, 22,has been to France to see some of the objects. But he is still awed to have them here.

Today, Chya helped light the ceremonial lamp and pry the lid of the crate. He takes a closer look at the ancestral objects.

“I’m really particular to the mask. Just because there is so little that is written about them and it was an art that was lost on Kodiak for a long time,” Chya said.

One mask is narrow and small with black paint and red ochre paint and little white circles.

Chya’s elders have taught him that the white circles were made by dipping a stalk of a plant into paint and using it like a stamp.

“I could tell you, I could not sleep last night because I was so excited,” elder Margaret Roberts, Alutiiq Heritage Foundation chair, said. She has worked to reawaken Alutiiq heritage since the 1980s.

“This has been a dream that has come true today,” Robertson said.

The objects replace two ceremonial masks, also from the Pinart Collection, scheduled to return to France.

In September, the new items will be incorporated into displays on Alutiiq spirituality.

In addition, the museum plans to assemble a group of beaders to study and recreate the regalia to share as replicas when the historic set returns to France.

Both of Alaska’s Republican U.S. senators take issue with President Trump’s remarks in Helsinki Monday.

Listen now

Trump, standing beside Russian President Vladimir Putin, wouldn’t say whether he believes the U.S. intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.

“I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, in a written statement, said she was “stunned” Trump didn’t take the opportunity at the press conference to confront Putin. She called it a “sad diminishment of our great nation.”

My statement on the joint press conference between President Trump and Russian President Putin today in Helsinki. pic.twitter.com/fKDVYbhODA

— Sen. Lisa Murkowski (@lisamurkowski) July 16, 2018

In his own written statement, Sen. Dan Sullivan said he disagrees with President Trump. 

I disagree w/ President’s remarks following Helsinki Summit. Specifically, do I believe the professional and patriotic men and women of our intelligence community, including the Director of National Intelligence, or a mafia regime leader like Putin? It’s not even a close call.

— SenDanSullivan (@SenDanSullivan) July 16, 2018

Sullivan, though, said it’s up to Russia to improve the relationship.

“Don’t invade your neighbors, and move out of the countries that you’ve invaded,” Sullivan said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “Don’t align yourself with the world’s biggest sponsor of state terrorism like Iran. Don’t back regimes like Bashar Al-Assad and certainly don’t meddle in democracies like the United States and our allies.”

Alaska’s gasline corporation is planning to hire a private contractor to help it through the federal permitting process.

Listen now

The move comes after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) sent a letter to the state, asking for help. FERC is the lead agency doing the environmental and engineering review of the Alaska LNG project.

“And in this case it is for the fire protection review,” Alaska Gasline Development Corporation Senior Vice President Frank Richards said. “That’s essentially examining the engineering plans and drawings that we’ve provided to them to make sure that they’re in compliance with code and good engineering practices.”

Rchards says there’s a staffing shortage at the federal commission and they’re looking to outsource some of project review they usually do in-house.

Last week, Bloomberg News reported a backlog of permit reviews at the federal commission, citing potential delays of 12 to 18 months.

But, Richards said he met with staff from the federal commission after the state received the letter and they didn’t say there would be any delays in the schedule for permitting Alaska’s project.

“I received no indication from FERC that that schedule is going to be slipped,” Richards said.

Currently, Alaska’s gasline project is on an 18-month timeline to get through the environmental review — that schedule would see a final environmental review of the project by late 2019.

Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn

Listen now

Alaska senators fault Trump for going easy on Putin

Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.

Sens. Murkowski and Sullivan take issue with President Trump’s Putin-friendly remarks in Helsinki Monday.

Alaska’s LNG project looking for private contractor to help with federal permitting

Rashah McChesney, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Juneau

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission sent a letter to the state, requesting that it pay for a third-party contractor to help with federal review of the project.

Inupiaq woman criticizes use of her image in Dunleavy ad, campaign deletes footage

Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO – Juneau

A Fairbanks woman objected to video of her being included in a campaign advertisement without her consent. Republican candidate for governor Mike Dunleavy’s campaign removed the footage soon after it became aware of her concern.

NTSB: The F/V Destination sank after accumulating ice in heavy freezing spray

Laura Kraegel, KUCB – Unalaska

A crab boat that sank in the Bering Sea last winter likely capsized after the vessel became coated in hundreds of thousands of pounds of ice.

Iditarod adds four new board members amid criticism 

Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

The Iditarod has expanded its governing body. On Monday, the organization announced it has added four new members to its board.

Alaska National Guard turns over rural armories for public use

Gabe Colombo, KNOM – Nome

The Alaska Army National Guard is handing over ownership of over 60 armories in rural communities, mostly to municipalities.

Commercial company conducts rocket exercise at Kodiak launch facility

Kayla Desroches, KMXT – Kodiak

A commercial company that aims to launch small payloads into the earth’s orbit is conducting tests for a future launch from Alaska Aerospace Corporation’s facility at Narrow Cape.

State’s only coal mine celebrates 75th anniversary

Dan Bross, KUAC – Fairbanks

Usibelli Coal Mine is celebrating its 75th anniversary. The operation in Healy started by Emil Usibelli in 1943, and run by his son, and now grandson, is Alaska’s only operating coal mine.

When traditional banking isn’t an option, try this out instead

Anne Hillman, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Let’s say you want to start a business or buy a house. You’ll probably need a loan from a bank. That means you need a good credit history or collateral – something to prove that you’ll pay it back. But if that’s not an option… then what?

Looking to fill niche and begin enterprise, Anchorage teen opens streetwear store

Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

For Alaskans trying to purchase the latest Air Jordans, or the styles they see in a Drake music video, there really aren’t a lot of options. A young Anchorage entrepreneur is looking to change that.

The Iditarod has expanded its governing body. On Monday, the organization announced it had added four new members to its board.

Listen now

The move comes as a response to growing criticism of the race’s leadership team.

The new members are Nina Kemppel, Karen King, Mike Mills and Ryan York. Unlike many of the Iditarod Trail Committee’s current board members, none are Iditarod race veterans, and there are no apparent conflicts of interest. The move is partially a response to concerns that nepotism and cozy relationships were guiding board decisions on controversial changes in recent years.

The restructured board leaves 10 members total, with three people departing the body, Rick Swenson, Aaron Burmeister and Wade Marrs — all of whom are current or former Iditarod mushers.

Last year, the Iditarod was beset with different scandals, including high-profile allegations of doping, withdrawal of major sponsors and calls from mushers for the ITC board chair to resign.

A Fairbanks woman objected to video of her being included in a campaign advertisement without her consent. Republican candidate for governor Mike Dunleavy’s campaign removed the footage soon after it became aware of her concern.

Listen now

The woman said the ad took advantage of her Inupiaq ethnicity.

Marjorie Tahbone said she became aware of the ad on social media when friends forwarded it to her.

In the original version of the ad, there are several seconds of her walking in the woods, and of her dancing as part of a group.

“It’s just my face and it’s obviously my face,” Tahbone said. “And I’m obviously a brown person and I’m obviously Native in there. And so, the issue of them using me as an image to portray the support of the Native community, I wasn’t comfortable with.”

Tahbone criticized the ad in a Facebook post, saying that she doesn’t support Dunleavy. The campaign took down the ad on Sunday, shortly after it became aware of the post. The ad’s been reposted, without the footage of Tahbone.

Tahbone works to provide Inuit tattoos to women. She lives in Fairbanks and is originally from Nome. She said Dunleavy’s campaign may have had the right to use the footage, but should have asked her before doing it.

“They made a huge mistake, by just using me, using my face without my permission,” Tahbone said.

Dunleavy campaign manager Brett Huber said the use of footage from an AJ+ news video was typical for campaign ads. AJ+ is part of the Al Jazeera Media Network.

“We saw the comments posted on Facebook, so we took swift action to remove the image,” Dunleavy said. “I sent a message to Marjorie explaining to her that while the footage was obtained and used legally, we didn’t want anybody included in an ad that they didn’t support.”

Huber said Dunleavy wouldn’t seek to use an image of an Alaska Native woman to convey support from Natives. He noted that Dunleavy’s wife Rose is an Alaska Native.

“One of the things that I like the most about our candidate is he’s colorblind and he’s gender-blind,” Huber said. “Mike’s been married to an Alaska Native woman for 31 years. He would never advantage specifically an Alaska Native, a Caucasian or any other race. People are people, so certainly that was never our intent, nor would it be something that Mike would pursue.”

AJ+ senior producer Maggie Beidelman said the company wouldn’t have granted permission to use the news video if Dunleavy’s campaign had asked. Video makers might use brief clips for illustration and other purposes, arguing they can under the copyright doctrine of fair use.

Dunleavy resigned from his Wasilla-area state Senate seat in January to focus on his campaign. He previously served as a teacher and school superintendent in Kotzebue.

Dunleavy faces six opponents in the Aug. 21 primary: former Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell; Darin Colbry, a janitor and landscaping worker; Thomas Gordon, a heavy equipment mechanic; Gerald Heikes, who has owned a drywall company; Merica Hlatcu, an engineer; and Michael Sheldon, a handyman.

The Alaska Army National Guard is handing over ownership of over 60 armories in rural communities, mostly to municipalities.

Listen now

Brian Duffy, administrative services director for the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans’ Affairs, says, “Many of these places have sat vacant for some time.” He says the reason the training and storage facilities were there in the first place was the Alaska Army National Guard’s scout mission.

“So, imagine people out in remote locations, and they were our sensors, and they would report things that they saw, felt or heard that were different than what they normally observed day-to-day,” Duffy said.

But the Alaska Army National Guard has since re-structured its forces, and its numbers have fallen since the 1990s. So they no longer do much with the dozens of armories in communities across the state.

Now, Duffy says, as part of a larger “right-sizing” initiative, they want to see the facilities put to better use.

“We take a building, and maybe some other property on the land on which it sits, and put it in the hands of an organization that can maybe better use it than we can at this time,” Duffy said.

Duffy says that involves a lot of work to survey the properties, make sure they’re safe and not contaminated, figure out what exact entity owns them — whether it be federal, state, municipal, or private — and then complete the handover, usually to the local city.

So far, 15 armories have been divested, including in Noorvik and Kiana in the Northwest Arctic Borough. Over 35 Western-Alaska armories are scheduled for the process within the next four years, including most communities in the Norton Sound and Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta regions.

According to Duffy, Nome’s armory is among 18 that the Alaska Army National Guard is keeping. He says in general, the effort will save the National Guard some money.

“What we feel better about is putting these buildings in the hands of people that can use them instead of having them sit there vacant,” Duffy said.

As for what they’ll become? The buildings often have the space and infrastructure to house community centers of some kind. In one case, Kwethluk hoped to turn its armory into a teen center.

So even as the Alaska Army National Guard is campaigning to expand its presence in rural Alaska and recruit more Alaska Native soldiers, it’ll be doing so without its armories.

Davis Hovey contributed reporting.

Usibelli Coal Mine is celebrating its 75^th anniversary. The operation in Healy started by Emil Usibelli in 1943, run by his son and now by his grandson, is Alaska’s only operating coal mine.

Listen now

Joe Usibelli has run the company for the last three decades, and shared the story of the family coal mine in a recent presentation to the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce. Usibelli says his family came to the US over a century ago to seek a better life, just like today’s immigrants.

”My great-grandfather came over in 1907, my grandfather came over in 1909,” Usibelli said. “They came over form Italy, and there’s parallels in the world right now.”

Usibelli says his grandfather worked numerous jobs along the West Coast, eventually coming to Alaska and later starting a coal mine to supply the Army as the military built up in Alaska for World War II.

”The original customer was Ladd Army Airfield, which is now Ft. Wainwright,” Usibelli said.

The Usibelli mine continues to provide coal for interior military and public power generation. For a time the mine exported coal outside Alaska, until changing world markets, made it uneconomic.

”We’ve had trials and tribulations; we continue,” Usibelli said. “Every business does, every business has that. But you need to learn from it and you need to get through it.”

Usibelli attributes the family mine’s long term success to a few basic elements.

”Working hard, having tenacity, having a bit of luck,” Usibelli said.

While power generation has shifted to natural gas in many places outside, Usibelli remains optimistic about coal’s future in Alaska, noting renovation of a second Golden Valley Electric Association’s coal fired plant in Healy and the University of Alaska Fairbanks replacement of its old power plant with a state of the art coal burning facility

“The new university plant is getting ready to start up here in just the next few weeks. And those are our future,” Usibelli said.

The Usibelli Mine is holding a 75th anniversary open house and reception at the mine site in Healy, Saturday August 4th

A company that launches small satellites into orbit is considering Kodiak as the site of its second launch pad.

Rocket Lab has an existing relationship with the Alaska Aerospace Corporation, which has offered support services to the company’s launches in New Zealand.

Rocket Lab’s launch site would be its first on American soil, but it is an American company. CEO Peter Beck explains Rocket Lab is headquartered in California and funded through venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.

But their launch pad is located in New Zealand, and Beck says there’s a simple explanation for that.

“There’s just a lot of stuff in America,” Beck said.

Beck means planes, trains and automobiles. And boats. He says every time a company launches a rocket, they have to close off large chunks of the air and sea.

“You run into a real issue with the kind of launch frequency that we’re trying to achieve by just having U.S. launch sites alone,” Beck said. “We’re licensed down in our launch site in New Zealand to launch every 72 hours and, when you contrast that against America as a country launching 25 times a year, you can see how that has a big effect.”

Beck says he started the company in 2006 to serve a growing demand for high-frequency launches for small satellites. Now they’re expanding to a second launch pad, which they may place at the Alaska Aerospace Corporation’s Kodiak facility, but they’re also considering Cape Canaveral in Florida, Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

“We’ll continue to develop launch sites, but this one’s very strategic for us because it serves a real need for a U.S. government customer and also a U.S. commercial customer who may not want to launch out of New Zealand,” Beck said.

Beck says a couple of the elements they’ll consider in their location choice is existing infrastructure, regulatory environment, and how often they can launch. According to Rocket Lab, they’ll announce their decision next month, and they hope to set the new launch pad up in 2019.

Tuesday was the beginning of the end for Blockbuster in Alaska. The two remaining stores in Fairbanks and Anchorage began their inventory sales, selling off DVDs, Blu Rays and video games. Even the racks they’re displayed on are up for grabs.

Listen now

At the store in Anchorage, a line snaked around the corners of the store. People waited for hours to get inside.

Finally, the door front doors open and customers flooded in. They grabbed blue plastic shopping baskets and make a beeline to the aisles of DVDs.

Within minutes, Hannah Lewis’s basket was filled to the brim.

“I have some new releases, a couple of TV shows, and an Xbox game for Legos,” Hannah explained.

Lewis is 23 years old. She’s lived in Alaska her entire life and has been coming to Blockbuster for as long as she can remember.

“When I was a kid we came here every day or every couple of days because we were kids. We loved movies,” Lewis explained. “And now, since I’m an adult, me and my boyfriend would come here every other week or so to rent some movies because sometimes you can’t find this stuff on TV.”

There are more and more ways to rent or stream movies, like on Netlfix, Amazon or Hulu.

But a lot of Blockbuster customers say streaming services don’t have all the options, especially when it comes to the classics.

That’s what brings Diane to Blockbuster.

“We’re here quite often for the older movies and things like that,” Diane said.

Diane is a Blockbuster regular. She comes in a couple times and week. She came to the inventory sale to stock up on some of her favorite TV shows– The Walking Dead and Fear of the Walking Dead.

Diane says she’ll miss renting TV shows and movies, but really, she said, it’s the employees that have made Blockbuster special.

Kevin Daymude, the General Manager, has been working here for Blockbuster for decades.

“I’ve known these customers, a lot of these customers, since 1993,” Daymude said.

Daymude said breaking the news to his staff and then his customers — that was the hardest part.

“It kills me to sit there and tell them. When you see people crying, [I’m] like, ‘Don’t do that. Please don’t do that,'” Daymude said.

At the inventory sale in Anchorage, Daymude hugged customers, asking how their kids were and dodging questions about what his plans are for life after Blockbuster.

“It kind of hurts your heart because this is the end of an era,” Daymude said. “Blockbuster is gone in Alaska. That’s it.”

Inventory sales will continue at the two remaining Blockbusters in Anchorage and Fairbanks through August.

Alaska’s U.S. senators are among the Republicans who’ve criticized President Trump for not standing up to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland on Monday. Or at least expressed disagreement. But beyond strongly worded statements and tweets, is there more Congress should do to show Trump they disapprove?

Listen now

It began Monday in Helsinki. With the whole world watching, Trump seemed to side with Putin over American intelligence agencies on their conclusion that Russia interfered with the election that put him in office.

“I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia,” Trump said at a press conference with Putin at his side. “I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Twenty-four hours later, Trump walked it back. In a way. He said he meant to say he didn’t see any reason why it “wouldn’t” be Russia.

“I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place,” Trump said in his reversal Tuesday. And then he undercut his own walk-back: “Could be other people also. A lot of people out there.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski was still critical of the president Tuesday afternoon.

“This has been more than unfortunate. It’s been a debacle,” Murkowski said of the Helsinki episode. “So the fact that he is kind of retracing his steps is important. But he sure stepped in it yesterday (Monday).”

Political scientist Molly Reynolds at the Brookings Institution says lawmakers can deploy more than words.

“If Congress is serious about trying to send a message to Trump they don’t approve of what he’s been doing, they have a range of options available to them,” Reynolds said. “It’s a question of whether or not they want to use them.”

Among other things, Reynolds says they could pass a bill that protects Robert Mueller’s investigation into election interference. (On Monday, Trump blamed that investigation for driving a wedge between the U.S. and Russia and called it a “rigged witch hunt.”)

Another option, Reynolds says, is senators could withhold their votes for the president’s priorities, such as his Supreme Court nominee.

Murkowski says she’s looked at a few legislative options, and is reconsidering a bill that would protect the Mueller investigation. When the proposal first surfaced months ago, Murkowski wasn’t enthusiastic.

“I just didn’t think it was going to be necessary,” Murkowski said Tuesday. “After yesterday, I just don’t know now.”

Murkowski rejects the idea of sending a message to the president by refusing to confirm his nominees. She says when Congress refuses to act, on nominations or bills, it shifts power to the executive branch.

“So if anything, I think it calls for greater congressional action and not a complete blockade,” Murkowski said.

Sen. Dan Sullivan says he hasn’t heard any concrete proposals for bills to condemn the president for what he said in Helsinki.

“You know there’s some discussion on it. I don’t know what that would be,” Sullivan said.

Asked about Congressional action to send a message to the president, Sullivan responded with ways to send a message to Putin.

“The best way to push back on the Putin regime … is to continue what we’ve been doing which is building up our military defenses,” Sullivan, who sits on the Senate Armed Service Committee, said. (He also said he’s been telling the president and his team for months that it’s important to maintain and build strategic alliances.)

Sullivan said he doesn’t see the need to pass a bill to protect the Mueller probe because he’s not hearing suggestions that Mueller might be fired.

Federal authorities are investigating the apparent disappearance of a cruise ship passenger last week in Glacier Bay.

Listen now

It’s the second passenger reported overboard from an Alaska-bound cruise ship this month.

The Holland America cruise ship Westerdam reported a 69-year-old male passenger missed a scheduled medical appointment Friday afternoon and may have gone overboard.

Authorities did not identify him.

The ship’s crew conducted a ship-wide search and then notified National Park Service officials as the vessel left Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

National Park Service spokesman Matthew Cahill in Bartlett Cove said they started a search Friday evening with 15 people, three vessels and a fixed-wing aircraft.

“The Coast Guard provided us with probability maps based on the currents and tidal motion,” Cahill said. “We searched shorelines and waterways from Beardslee Entrance area right in upper part of Sitakaday Narrows inside the mouth of Glacier Bay, out of the bay including Pleasant Island and Lemesurier Island, the two islands that are just outside east and west of the mouth of Glacier Bay.”

The search was suspended about 7 p.m. Saturday after nothing was found.

Cahill said the cruise line reported that closed-circuit television footage had indicated the man went overboard about 6:45 a.m. Friday, about nine hours before his medical appointment when he was actually discovered missing.

Cahill said the Coast Guard and the FBI started an investigation when they met the ship Sunday in Seward.

FBI spokesperson Staci Feger-Pellisier said it’s standard practice for their agency to investigate such disappearances or deaths in U.S. waters.

The Coast Guard and Holland America did not respond to calls Tuesday for comment.

On July 10, the body of a 73-year-old man was recovered near the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington state.

Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn

Listen now

Senators have criticized Trump. Now what?

Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Washington D.C.

Beyond strongly worded statements and tweets, is there more Sens. Murkowski and Sullivan should do to show Trump they disapprove of his remarks in Helsinki?

Alaska governor signs bill banning smoking in workplaces

Associated Press

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker has signed a bill to ban smoking in workplaces, including restaurants and bars.

Search suspended for cruise ship passenger missing in Glacier Bay

Matt Miller, KTOO – Juneau

An unidentified 69-year-old male passenger of Westerdam disappeared July 13 while the vessel was in Glacier Bay.

Panel deliberates complaint against lawmaker

Associated Press

A legislative ethics panel is deliberating on whether an Alaska lawmaker violated ethics law.

Young has about $470K in hand toward Alaska re-election bid

Associated Press

Independent U.S. House candidate Alyse Galvin topped her competitors in fundraising during the latest quarter, raising more than $245,000.

Life sentence for Anchorage man in kidnapping, shooting of 2 brothers

Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Matthew James Scharber, 36, pleaded guilty in December to kidnapping, carjacking and using a gun in the furtherance of a violent crime.

Here’s how a planeload of salmon gets from Cook Inlet to customers in Anchorage

Nathaniel Herz, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

It’s been a tough start to Alaska’s fishing season this year. But now the sockeye run is heating up. We followed a single plane-load of sockeye – from its catch site across Cook Inlet to the backdoor of a downtown Anchorage restaurant.

Construction on Aniak’s new runway is underway

Christine Trudeau, KYUK – Bethel

The state Department of Transportation, contracting with Knik Construction, broke ground this past spring on the hub village of Aniak’s new runway, a project long in the making.

Dalton Highway closures coming to avoid ‘frozen debris lobe’

Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Construction closures are scheduled between miles 209 and 222. DOT says the highway will be closed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on July 19, 22, 25, 28 and 31.

Alutiiq ancestral objects return home to Kodiak after nearly 150 years

Daysha Eaton, KMXT – Kodiak

A French museum, Musee Boulogne-Sur-Mer, will loan ancestral artifacts collected in the Kodiak Archipelago nearly 150 years ago to the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository in Kodiak where they will remain for five years.

End of an Era: Blockbuster begins final inventory sales

Emily Russell, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Inventory sales will continue at the two remaining Blockbusters in Anchorage and Fairbanks through August.

An Anchorage man has been sentenced to life in prison for shooting two men before leaving them to die on a secluded road outside Palmer in 2016.

Listen now

Matthew James Scharber, 36, pleaded guilty in December to kidnapping, carjacking and using a gun in the furtherance of a violent crime. Federal prosecutors say Scharber and his accomplices attacked the two victims, who are brothers, after they stole Scharber’s wallet.

Prosecutors also allege Scharber dealt methamphetamine, which he’s indicted for in a separate case. According to court documents, Scharber wanted to, “protect his business” and “make it known in the neighborhood that he would take care of his own problems.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Will Taylor argued the case.

“Mr. Scharber did everything necessary to complete a homicide,” Taylor said.

The court documents say Scharber lured the two men, who are only identified by their initials, to his apartment in October of 2016. Scharber’s co-defendants, Corey Sylva and Michael Elder, bound the victims with speaker wire and beat them. Prosecutors say they loaded the victims into their own Subaru Legacy, and Scharber drove them to Hatcher Pass.

Prosecutors say Scharber forced the men out of their car and shot each of them three times. According to a sentencing memorandum in the case, they only survived because Scharber had used the wrong caliber ammunition and the cold weather slowed their bleeding. A passerby spotted them hours later, and the men were flown by helicopter to a hospital.

The shootings came extremely close to being a double murder, Taylor said.

“In every respect, with the exception of the ultimate result, it was a homicide,” Taylor said. “The intent was there, the plan was there and the action was there. These men were bound, they were on the side of a mountain in the snow in the very early morning hours. And so this was a close as you can get to an actual murder.”

Scharber’s case on the drug charges continues in federal court.

Later this month, sections of the Dalton Highway north of Fairbanks are set for five separate daylong closures as crews install new culverts.

Listen now

Construction closures are scheduled between miles 209 and 222. DOT says the highway will be closed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on July 19, 22, 25, 28 and 31.

The Department of Transportation says the culverts are needed because of what’s known as a “frozen debris lobe” that is headed toward the highway. Frozen debris lobes are slow-moving landslides that occur in permafrost and contain rocks, soil, trees and ice.

According to University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers, a lobe was less than 80 feet from the roadway as of Tuesday and advancing at more than half an inch per day.

The Dalton is the only overland supply route to the oil fields on Alaska’s North Slope and is frequented in the summer by tourists heading to the Arctic.

It was a tough start to Alaska’s fishing season this year. The famed Copper River red run was a bust, and the state harshly restricted king salmon fishing in the Mat-Su and in Southeast Alaska.

Listen now

But now, the sockeye runs in Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet have heated up, which makes for an action-packed month for fishermen across the state.

Alex Pfoff is among them. He works 50 miles southwest of Anchorage, across the waters of Cook Inlet and off the road system, running a family business called the Salmon Hookup.

Further southwest, in the salmon hub of Bristol Bay, much of the fish gets delivered to processing plants. But Pfoff’s business is different: He sells straight to customers and restaurants in Anchorage.

“We have no problem doing the smallest of orders,” Pfoff said in a phone interview from the beach at his fishing site. “Our smallest unit of sale is a fish.”

Like many others’, Pfoff’s season started late, thanks to state-ordered closures to preserve king salmon stocks. The sockeye began arriving in force earlier this month.

Pfoff’s fish fly by bush plane to Merrill Field, the airport smack-dab in the middle of Anchorage. Pfoff’s mom, Kathy, was there Friday to meet one load of sockeye and silvers. (She also sends goods back out to her son’s remote site, which last week included a connector cable for a Nintendo Wii.)

When the plane landed, two handlers pulled out more than a dozen boxes, then carted them to a scale: 745 pounds.

Most of the fish was destined for individual customers, who arrived with coolers in the back of their trucks and SUVs.

One woman decided to buy her two silvers 12 hours earlier. Kathleen Katkus said she found the Salmon Hookup’s ad on Craigslist.

“It was really late, actually, and I had really bad pregnancy cravings,” Katkus said. “I think it was like one in the morning?”

Others said they use Pfoff’s business to fill their freezers, as a way of escaping the hordes of dipnetters on the Kenai Peninsula.

Paul Bauman bought 15 fish, arriving with a check for $510. He’s a general contractor, and he said he carves out a full afternoon for salmon processing.

“It’s not like other states where you can go out fishing in a reservoir or lake and get a fish or two, or three or four,” Bauman said. “Here, when the salmon are in, you’ve got to deal with the salmon. Just like when the caribou are here, you’ve got to deal with the caribou.”

The rest of the fish went to restaurants. From the airport, Kathy drove downtown in her Ford Explorer, then along a dingy back alley.

Jose Martignon, one of the owners of Pangea restaurant, came out to meet her.

“Look at the fat content in these pieces, right here,” Martignon said, pointing to a salmon belly. “That’s all your flavor, right there.”

Spernak Airways flew salmon for Pfoff’s business, and it works with others, too. The flight service can carry 5,000 pounds to Anchorage in a single summer day, owner Mike Spernak said.

But that’s a tiny fraction of Alaska’s overall catch: On Sunday, Bristol Bay fishermen brought in 1.3 million salmon, according to figures collected by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

The state Department of Transportation, contracting with Knik Construction, broke ground this past spring on the hub village of Aniak’s new runway, a project long in the making.

Listen now

The project is currently in the excavation phase, while the airport’s operations have continued undisturbed from construction. A rock pit has been dug, and soon DOT will bring in concrete mix materials to pave the new runway.

The project’s initial manager and designer Morgan Merritt said that while some in the community would rather have stayed with the current situation, new construction was necessary for both cost and safety reasons. The old runway’s paving conditions drove up maintenance costs, and federal authorities are requiring more space along the runways be left clear for safety.

“The safety of the separation distances and the possibility of accident,” Merritt said.

The Federal Aviation Administration wants runways to have what they call “safety areas.”

“If an aircraft on approach has a navigational or mechanical problem,” Merritt said, “it’s been shown that statistically aircraft will land accidentally left or right of the runway, and that’s why the FAA has established runway safety areas and object-free areas.”

Merritt says that the FAA is covering much of the cost for the new runway project, $53.6 million of which is covered by federal grants and $3.6 million by the state of Alaska.

The inconveniences so far have been with traffic and dust, which Knik Construction, DOT and the City of Aniak have been attending to. Kevin Toothaker, Aniak’s City Manager, says that most of the traffic is due to travel to and from the new gravel pit. He adds that some buildings have already been demolished and trees have been cut in order to move Aniak’s sewer main, part of the overall project redesign.

“They cut off one of the roads; one of the ways to get to new housing and stuff through the west side of the airport is blocked off right now while they redo the sewer,” Toothaker said. “I think it’s been kinda going smoothly for the most part – a lot of dust, but Knik runs their water truck to help keep the dust down.”

Overall, the community of Aniak has pulled together regardless of any doubts they might have about the project, Toothaker says. People help during planned and unplanned power and sewer outages. This included the Kuspuk School District providing power to those needing it, and the Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation providing access to power and water off their well and generator as needed.

Business organizations like YKHC have come together as an informal group, letting people know what services are available to them throughout the construction period.

“Working together with anything that comes our way because we are out here on the island, we are our own help, so that’s why we’ve pooled together to address a lot of things that have come up in Aniak and that’s just our plan moving forward,” Kimberly Madden, YKHC’s Operations Manager in Aniak, said. “So far it’s worked out really well.”

Morgan Merritt says that the new runway will actually be narrower than the existing one, but longer. It is already more than a mile long.

“At present it’s 150 wide by 6,000 feet long. After the construction, the shifted runway will be 100 feet wide and 6,200 feet long. So it’s narrower, but longer as far as takeoff lengths,” Merritt said.

But landing lengths will actually be shorter, which Merritt says concerns air carriers and a number of people in town as it pertains to Boeing 737s carrying freight. DOT’s analysis says that the new runway will only make for tighter weight restrictions under certain flying conditions and that the landing length should be adequate.

The new runway is expected to open next year after the FAA installs navigation aids.

When the F/V Kristi lost power lost power shortly after midnight July 14 in the Nushagak District, the tide pushed it between two much larger ships, where it lodged on a Yokohama fender.

Listen now

The Kristi sank, and the captain and crew escaped with seconds to spare.

The United States Coast Guard is investigating the incident, which happened near Clark’s Point, a Bristol Bay village just outside Dillingham.

The tide was coming in later Saturday, and the boat floated powerless in the current at five knots.

While skipper Jan Medhaug and deckhand Kyle Brojakowski worked to restore power to the 32-foot aluminum drift boat, Kayla Breeden, Medhaug’s wife, went to the stern to hang a protective buoy.

“When you’re out there fishing for that many days, you just think kind of everything is mundane, so I grabbed my buoy to go out there,” Breeden said. “I didn’t even put my rain jacket on and I almost didn’t put my boots on because I thought we were going to clear her.”

Breeden could see two large ships, which she estimated were “three football fields away.”

The 400-foot cargo ship Sohoh was anchored about 15 feet from the 330-foot fish-processing vessel Gordon Jensen.

About 10 seconds after Breeden hung the buoy, the Kristi struck the Gordon Jensen.

“We ended up getting jammed between the two vessels, pushed up against their Yokohama fender that was between the two of them,” Medhaug said. “We started to violently smash between the two vessels.”

The fender, a giant rubber cylinder filled with air and designed to protect the two larger ships from damaging one another, pinned the Kristi at the bow.

The aluminum boat bounced between the two steel ships.

“You could hear it crushing the boat in between,” Breeden said, recalling the sound of the breaking ship. “Aluminum is strong, but it’s not stronger than steel and water with all that pressure. She cried and moaned and banged really bad.”

Medhaug radioed the Gordon Jensen for assistance, and the fish-processor lifted Breeden off the embattled boat in a man basket.

“The guys were still trying to figure out if there was something we could do,” Breeden said. “Right as I got off I said to (the Gordon Jensen crew), ‘Was that as scary as I feel like it was?’ And they said, ‘Oh my gosh, yes,’ and they were looking at me like I was a ghost almost.”

Medhaug and Brojakowski attempted to situate the Kristi so that it could stay afloat through the incoming tide.

They hoped to extricate the boat from between the ships at slack tide, when the boat would no longer be pinned to the fender.

From her position on the Gordon Jensen, however, Breeden could see that the men were in more danger than they knew.

“Our boat is not a flat deck, it’s got a pit in the back for picking, so more water was building up in there,” Breeden said.

At the screeching groan of twisting metal, Medhaug and Brojakowski finally abandoned ship.

They scrambled onto the fender a moment before the Kristi capsized, bow over stern, and sank beneath the waves in seconds.

“As Jan was stepping off the bow, the stern was taking on all the water and starting to curl under,” Breeden said. “So two seconds later and he probably wouldn’t have been able to get off,”

The Gordon Jensen brought Medhaug and Brojakowski aboard in the same man basket that had rescued Breeden 20 minutes earlier.

“When the guys did get lifted off, I ran up, and we all three hugged each other just like out of a movie,” Breeden said.

In the aftermath of the disaster, many loose ends remain.

Coast Guard currently isn’t assigning fault in the accident to any party.

A senior investigating officer did note that the anchor line on board the Kristi was not long enough to be useful in this situation, where it was drifting in water 40 to 50 feet deep.

“Certainly an anchor might have helped in this case,” Lt. Cmdr. Michael Novak said. “Situational awareness is always key, and having the right equipment, knowing your operation can obviously prevent disasters.”

The captains of the Sohoh and Gordon Jensen have not reported any damage to their vessels.

Coast Guard will work with Medhaug on a salvage plan to mitigate any hazards the sunken vessel poses, including pollution risk related to the diesel fuel that was aboard the boat.

Medhaug and Breeden flew back to their home in Seattle on Monday, but they plan to return next year.

“We’re hoping to get a safe boat, and we’re probably going to bring our kids next year,” Breeden said. “What happened to us was a very fluke thing. I think we can all learn from what did happen and thank God for all the other fishermen out there that help each other and the way it is here in Alaska and on the river.”

Along with the boat, Breeden lost her wedding ring, Medhaug lost an Alaska gold nugget watch that was a keepsake from his father and Brojakowski lost the backpack he carried as a marine in Iraq.

As they reflected on the event, however, Breeden and Medhaug focused on their luck, not on their losses. Their 11-year-old son, who usually fishes with them, was not on board this year.

They are thankful for their lives, and they are thankful for the assistance they received from the Gordon Jensen and the wider fishing community.

Medhaug has been fishing in Bristol Bay for 25 years, 17 of those on the Kristi, his father’s boat before it was his.

Breeden has fished with her husband for five years. They had planned to retire the ship at the end of the summer.

“We put a lot of blood sweat and tears into that boat, there’s no doubt about that,” Medhaug said.

KDLG’s Austin Fast contributed to this report.

The pilot in a non-fatal plane crash likely became disoriented after weather conditions worsened during a trip to Ketchikan.

Listen now

A preliminary report by National Transportation Safety Board summarized a conversation between investigators and Taquan Air pilot Mike Hudgins, 72.

All 11 on board survived the July 10 crash about 2,000 feet up Mount Jumbo on Prince of Wales Island near Hydaburg.

Hudgins told investigators soon after the accident that while flying over Sulzer Portage, visibility rapidly decreased to zero.

When Hudgins tried to turn back, he thought he saw a body of water. He told investigators that he became disoriented and leveled the wings, before realizing he was flying toward snow-covered mountains.

Hudgins pulled the deHavilland Otter into a steep climb, but wasn’t able to avoid hitting the rocky mountainside.

The plane’s floats sheared off on impact, and the rest of the plane suffered substantial damage, according to the report.

Six passengers suffered serious injuries, according to the report, and four others received minor injuries. The pilot was not injured.

Investigators also talked to two passengers for the preliminary report.

Both confirmed the weather was poor and said they were concerned during the flight.

One said he texted the front-seat passenger, asking him to suggest landing on the water to wait for better weather.

The pilot called in the crash shortly before 9 a.m. on July 10.

The U.S. Coast Guard and local rescue groups were able to find the site and get everyone to Ketchikan by mid-afternoon.