Alaska Beacon

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Our journalists fairly and fearlessly report on the people and interests that determine state policy.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy extended his record-high veto rate Thursday by vetoing nine of the 82 bills passed by lawmaker...
06/20/2026

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy extended his record-high veto rate Thursday by vetoing nine of the 82 bills passed by lawmakers in the second year of the 34th Alaska State Legislature, writes James Brooks for the Alaska Beacon.

Among the vetoed bills were measures that would have provided mental health lessons to kids in public schools, created a retirement plan for private-sector workers who don’t have one and updated the state’s corporate income tax system.

Two of the vetoed bills — one expanding the power of pharmacists and the other covering the state’s board of engineers and architects — were put into law Friday after lawmakers overrode the governor.

Dunleavy has now vetoed or attempted to veto almost one-fifth of all bills passed by the 34th Legislature. Other governors have issued more vetoes, but none have vetoed a higher proportion of bills than Dunleavy.

Sixteen other bills, including a measure raising the state’s age of consent, became law without a veto from the governor.

Alaska’s acting attorney general filed an emergency petition with the Alaska Supreme Court to compel the Fairbanks North...
06/19/2026

Alaska’s acting attorney general filed an emergency petition with the Alaska Supreme Court to compel the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District to open a charter school whose application the district previously denied, writes Corinne Smith for the Alaska Beacon.

The petition comes one day after a Fairbanks judge denied a preliminary injunction filed by the local charter group that sought to force the district to open Pearl Creek STEAM charter school.

“Without a speedy decision, the school will be unable to open this year,” wrote Acting Attorney General Cori Mills.

Mills urged the court to reverse the state judge’s decision and instruct the district to move forward in approving the charter school to open in the fall. “That means the District must take all necessary steps to ensure the Pearl Creek STEAM charter school opens in August 2026,” she wrote.

It’s the latest development in a months-long saga and court dispute between the Fairbanks district and the group behind Pearl Creek STEAM – a proposed charter school focused on science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics – that is seeking to open its doors to students from Kindergarten through sixth grade this fall.

Alaska’s acting attorney general filed an emergency petition with the Alaska Supreme Court to compel the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District to open the Pearl Creek STEAM charter school whose application the district previously denied.

COMMENTARY: The abolitionist and writer Frederick Douglass is known for many things, but perhaps among the most signific...
06/19/2026

COMMENTARY: The abolitionist and writer Frederick Douglass is known for many things, but perhaps among the most significant is his views on education’s relationship to slavery, writes Rodney Coates in. commentary republished from The Conversation. Douglass himself was born into slavery in Maryland in 1818.

Douglass described in his 1845 autobiography how one of his enslavers, Mrs. Auld, began teaching him to read when he was a child. Mrs. Auld’s husband ordered her to stop giving Douglass lessons.

“Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read,” Douglass writes. “To use his own words, further, he said, ‘If you give a n— an inch, he will take an ell. A n— should know nothing but to obey his master.’”

Congress enacted the 13th Amendment on Jan. 31, 1865, abolishing slavery. It was not until June 19, 1865, that word of the amendment reached enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, marking the origin of the Juneteenth holiday.

Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. The story for formerly enslaved people continued to unfold when it came to education.

Hundreds of sophisticated monitoring instruments will remain in place in the nation’s oceans, thanks to a National Scien...
06/19/2026

Hundreds of sophisticated monitoring instruments will remain in place in the nation’s oceans, thanks to a National Science Foundation reversal of its plan to partially dismantle the system.

The federal agency announced on Thursday that it is dropping its plan to remove hundreds of instruments from the Ocean Observatories Initiative program, writes Yereth Rosen for the Alaska Beacon.

The program encompasses more than 900 instruments monitoring ocean currents, temperatures, sea life and other conditions. Information gathered is used to analyze weather and prepare for extreme weather events, manage fisheries, record climate change and other functions. The $386 million system was installed a decade ago and was intended to last for three decades.

News that the Trump administration planned to pull out hundreds of the instruments – including those positioned in Alaska’s ocean waters – triggered outrage from scientists, the fishing industry, members of Congress from coastal states and others.

After a public outcry, the National Science Foundation dropped its plan to remove much of the Ocean Observatories Initaitive system.

If Alaska lawmakers do not vote by 11:59 p.m. Friday on a bill offering a tax break to the proposed trans-Alaska natural...
06/19/2026

If Alaska lawmakers do not vote by 11:59 p.m. Friday on a bill offering a tax break to the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline project, Gov. Mike Dunleavy says he will call them into another 30-day special session, writes James Brooks for the Alaska Beacon.

In a message on social media, Dunleavy said legislators are making progress on the issue, but if they cannot finish work by the end of an ongoing special session, “I will issue a call for a second special session to give them more time to quickly complete the work.”

For several days, the Senate majority has been deadlocked on a variety of issues, keeping the bill from advancing to the full Senate.

The governor and leading members of the Senate have met several times in closed-door meetings, frequently gathering in the governor’s cabinet room on the third floor of the capitol even as tour groups walk the halls outside the room.

Late Thursday afternoon, after the Senate Finance Committee canceled scheduled meetings for a second consecutive day, Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, said the committee will release a revised version of the tax-break bill about 9 a.m. Friday morning.

If Alaska lawmakers do not vote by midday Friday on a bill offering a tax break to the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline project, Gov. Mike Dunleavy says he will call them into another 30-day special session.

Alaska has been allocated about $99 million in new fishery disaster assistance, making up the majority of the $123.6 mil...
06/18/2026

Alaska has been allocated about $99 million in new fishery disaster assistance, making up the majority of the $123.6 million in aid that federal officials on Wednesday said is headed to Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California. More from Yereth Rosen at alaskabeacon.com.

In Alaska, the money is to address previously declared fishery disasters for Bering Sea snow crab and Chignik and Cook Inlet salmon harvests, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fishery service said.

For the lost snow crab harvest of the 2023-24 winter, the second year that the usually lucrative fishery was canceled because of low stocks, NOAA Fisheries is allocating $75.2 million in aid. That follows a 2024 allocation of $39.5 million in aid for the lost harvest in the winter of 2022-23.
https://alaskabeacon.com/briefs/feds-sending-99-million-in-aid-to-address-three-declared-alaska-fishery-disasters/

NOAA Fisheries is allocating the aid for declared fishery disasters concerning Bering Sea snow crab and Cook Inlet and Chignik salmon.

Final peace negotiations between the United States and Iran officially began Thursday, Vice President JD Vance said at a...
06/18/2026

Final peace negotiations between the United States and Iran officially began Thursday, Vice President JD Vance said at a late morning press conference in Washington, starting a 60-day countdown for the Islamic Republic to safely open the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. to lift a blockade on Iranian oil, and for the two nations to hammer out a nuclear deal. More from States Newsroom's Ashley Murray at the alaskabeacon.com.

The agreement is “a win-win situation” for the U.S., Vance said.

“If they change their behavior, big things are going to happen for Iran and for the world,” Vance said. “If they don’t, no skin off our backs” because Iran’s nuclear program and military are “still destroyed.”

The agreement immediately stops hostilities that began Feb. 28. The war claimed the lives of 13 U.S. service members, thousands of civilians in Iran, Lebanon and across the Gulf region, and disrupted the global economy.
https://alaskabeacon.com/2026/06/18/repub/60-day-clock-starts-for-negotiations-with-iran-over-strait-nuclear-future/

Final peace negotiations between the United States and Iran officially began Thursday, starting a 60-day countdown for the Islamic Republic to safely open the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. to lift a blockade on Iranian oil, and for the two nations to hammer out a nuclear deal.

The proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline project would generate an average of almost $800 million per year for the...
06/18/2026

The proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline project would generate an average of almost $800 million per year for the state treasury for 30 years starting in 2033, according to a new estimate from the Alaska Department of Revenue that includes a proposed tax break approved by the state House, writes James Brooks for the Alaska Beacon.

Dan Stickel, the department’s chief economist, presented the estimate to the Senate Finance Committee on Monday, days after the Alaska House of Representatives approved that significant property tax break for the project.

The Senate committee is now considering House Bill 381, containing the tax break.

According to the DOR estimate, the state stands to collect $23.4 billion through 2062 if the tax break becomes law and the pipeline is built as expected. Borough governments would share $7.8 billion during the same period.

Even with a proposed tax break, it isn't clear whether the pipeline project makes economic sense and would be built.

Democrats are growing hopeful they can recapture the U.S. Senate in this fall’s midterm elections amid President Donald ...
06/18/2026

Democrats are growing hopeful they can recapture the U.S. Senate in this fall’s midterm elections amid President Donald Trump’s plummeting approval ratings, writes Jacob Fischler and Justin Shorman for States Newsroom's D.C. bureau.

But they still need nearly everything to break their way against a map that put them at a starting disadvantage, analysts and campaign officials say.

At the outset of this election cycle, Republicans appeared highly likely to hold their majority. Democrats would need to flip four seats, and competitive races this year are in states that are more Republican than average.

But as election watchers increasingly expect a blue tint to the November midterms, the question is now whether it will be blue enough to put Democrats back in the Senate majority, where they are now at a 53-47 disadvantage.

Democrats are growing hopeful they can recapture the U.S. Senate in this fall’s midterm elections amid President Donald Trump’s plummeting approval ratings.

An attorney advising the Alaska Legislature said Wednesday that Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom may have violated the U.S. Cons...
06/18/2026

An attorney advising the Alaska Legislature said Wednesday that Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom may have violated the U.S. Constitution when she disqualified Petersburg’s Daniel J. Sullivan from this year’s U.S. Senate race in Alaska, writes James Brooks for the Alaska Beacon.

Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage and chair of the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a legislative hearing on Monday to discuss the disqualification.

By email, the Alaska Division of Elections said it will not have someone attend the hearing.

In a memo to Gray, attorney Andrew Dunmire said “the Lieutenant Governor was likely not legally justified in her decision to reject Mr. Sullivan’s declaration of candidacy.”

Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg has the same first and last name as incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.

A consultant working with Dan J. Sullivan said he is still deciding what to do after the lieutenant governor's decision.

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