It is a hard reality that after deducting taxes and child care there isn't much left in some paychecks. Anchorage Representative Zack Fields talked to us one-on-one about his proposed solution that offers businesses financial incentives to grant more financial stability to struggling families.
House Bill 188 has been referred to the Education and Finance Committees. If you are interested in offering public testimony or following the progress of this bill you can track it here.
Governor Michael Dunleavy R-Alaska unveiled the Alaska Reads Act which focuses on enhancing interventions for struggling students.
Governor Dunleavy says, "We have a moral imperative to ensure that our young people can read at a skill level - at a level- that is going to help them advance through school but also advance through life, give them hope, give them opportunities and set them on a course for a productive happy life.”
Reading is an issue that everyone seems to wrap their arms around. Senator Tom Begich noted that kicking off the Alaska Reads Act starts this session on a footing that many in the legislature fund unfamiliar - learning to be united.
Alaska State Senator Tom Begich D-Anchorage says, "Oftentimes you see when people disagree they model their reaction to that disagreement by saying angry words to each other. We are doing the opposite today. We are modeling a different kind of behavior - that if we work together we can achieve things that make a difference for everybody in the State of Alaska."
Learn-United is a lesson that has already been adopted in Juneau. The Juneau School District and Coeur Alaska-Kensington Mine partnered with the United Way to set up the Learn United Reading Tutor program. This public-private-non-profit partnership provides resources that target eight and nine-year-olds - boosting efforts to get them reading at the third-grade level.
Studies have found that if students haven't mastered reading by fourth grade they fall behind in every subject. Only one out of five low-income students have mastered this important milestone and become confident successful readers. Those who do are four times more likely to graduate high school on time.
Here in Juneau, the program is sponsored by a gold mine that finds a community of strong readers a good investment.
Jan Trigg/Coeur Alaska
Jan Trigg/Coeur Alaska says, "It determines their successful future and that helps the community, it helps up gaining employees."
It doesn't take much to make a difference. A recent study found that students who started the year as struggling readers and ended at or above benchmark averaged reading just six minutes more a day than those who failed. You don't need a gold mine to have a successful program.
Jan Trigg/Coeur Alaska says, "It's been really great having community involvement. One of those has been the Coast Guard. They have taken a real interest in reaching out to their people and getting them involved in being tutors."
The Nation's Report Card ranked Alaska dead-last for the second year in a row for fourth grade reading performance.
New Year's Eve. Two Alaska crab fishermen are hypothermic in icy waters that fill their lifeboat chest-deep. No signal light, no transponder. The untold story of their rescue. #scandiesrose Everyone knows crab fishing is a dangerous
profession - but that change things when the inevitable occurs.
Dean Gribble/Scandies Rose
survivor says, "On the 31st we just
started listing really hard to the starboard side. From sleeping to
swimming was about ten minutes. It happened really fast."
Photo by Bret Newbaker
In the dark of night
this New Year's Eve, amid heavy freezing spray, the 130-foot crab-boat Scandies Rose rolled on her side then went down stern-first into the water with five
crew members trapped inside. An
emergency-position-indicating-radio-beacon failed to go off. The mayday only
offered the coast guard a partial position of the ship.
Dean Gribble/Scandies Rose
survivor says, "We were in the
raft for five hours or so. Our EPIRB didn't go off so that sucked. Ahm,
yeah. A lot of the safety equipment was shit too. I have a lot of
issues with that."
Two survivors were in a
swamped lifeboat, believing that without a working signal light or locator
beacon there was no way rescuers could track their exact position in the raging
pitch-black waters of the Gulf of Alaska.
Dean Gribble/Courtesy of Dean Gribble Sr.
Dean Gribble/Scandies Rose
survivor says, "We are in
twenty-foot seas, it's blowing 40, icy conditions. Worst possible conditions.
I've been fishing 20-years, you know you do not make it. Everybody dies in those
situations. I knew that was what we were going into."
All was not lost,
however. The Marine Exchange of Alaska was able to assist the US Coast Guard by
offering the last coordinates of the ship, the direction she was heading, her
speed since she left Kodiak, and the visual track of her death spiral.
Matt York/Marine Exchange of Alaska says, "We were also asked to identify other vessels in the area
that might be able to assist and then reach out to those vessels. We have a
radio that the coast guard doesn't have, so we were able to contact two vessels
in the area. Unfortunately, because of the weather, they were not able to
assist."
Understanding the position
of the vessel was key to the successful rescue of the two survivors. It
allowed the Coast Guard to pinpoint their search in difficult weather
conditions that were life-threatening to those in the raft as well as the first
responders.
The non-profit Marine Exchange of Alaska employs automatic
identification vessel tracking which is overseen by a 24-7 operations center.
The Marine Exchange is our state's safety net aiding in emergency response and saving the
lives of mariners.
In our One-on-One exclusive, Imagine for a moment that your favorite person has been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease that requires out-of-state treatment. Of course, you drop everything to support and assist them. The patient will still qualify for a PFD, but the caregiver won't under the current regulations - so Healy Representative Dave Talerico has sponsored a bill to fix that disparity.
After we meet with Juneau Representative Andi Story, whose House Transportation Committee just heard from the mayors of non-coastal communities on the negative impacts they felt from the dramatically reduced winter ferry service.
Scientists have found evidence that some of Alaska's first immigrants many have slaughtered and butchered a woolly mammoth.
Picture: Albert Protopopov
The 21-thousand-year-old-remains were found on Kotelny Island - which is believed to be part of the Beringia land bridge which connected Alaska with Siberia.
Scientists say no other mammoth previously found in the world had such clear signs of being hunted by humans. They found cuts all over its ribs - as well as traces of spear strikes with stone spear tips embedded in the beast.
Physical evidence suggests ancient men severed the trunk, removed the brain, harvested the meat, and pulled bone marrow from all the ice age beast's limbs.
The Siberian Times reported that Russian scientist Doctor Protopopov believes the discovery adds more information about the human migration from Siberia to Alaska. Woolly Mammoths are believed to have died off about 4,000 years ago due to climate change and human hunting.
Studying the discovery is a multi-national effort, according to Protopopov. Swedish researchers will conduct genetic molecular research while American experts will focus on the mitochondrial DNA this year. The Jikei University School of Medicine in Tokyo dated the extinct mammoth remains at 21,000 years using radiocarbon analysis.
Last spring, cells from another Siberia mammoth were reported to demonstrate "signs of biological activity" after they were implanted in mouse cells, according to Scientific Reports. Despite the high controversy that surrounds efforts to bring prehistoric animals like the Woolly Mammoth back to live, Harvard University has assembled a Woolly Mammoth Revival team. This effort hopes to introduce mammoth genes into the Asian elephant population for conservation purposes.
Earthquakes, tidal waves, floods, and volcanos. It’s not a matter of if but when disaster will strike.New resources are coming available to make sure all isn't lost when a community is turned upside down. Emergency managers, first responders, staff, and volunteers need to work together in a coordinated effort to save our libraries, museums, and archives during natural disasters.
Alaska State Museum Curator of Statewide Services Anjuli Grantham is organizing the Preparing Alaska’s Cultural Organizations For Emergencies project.
Anjuli Grantham/ASM
Anjuli Grantham says, “If you don’t have a plan in place disaster strikes and suddenly you have your family photos are even valuable artifacts in a museum that are just disheveled.If you don’t have a plan in place, that is when panic sets in.”
The Project is looking to build awareness, best practices, and skillsets in people working in cultural institutions across Alaska - so when the worst does happen, people are prepared to administer the best possible result.
Paper and photographs can become the victim of water damage not just from floods and broken pipes. The loss of more than 20-million artifacts at Brazil’s National Museum and the high profile fire at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame highlight the damage that can be caused not just the fire itself - but firefighting activities and smoke.
Still, preservationists have some trick up their sleeves for saving what appears to be unsalvageable.
Anjuli Grantham says, “Don’t just immediately start throwing things away. Because it may look as if your family photos are a big pile of mud, however, there are people who are skilled in repairing these things." Grantham suggests freezing water soaked photos and paper to stop further damage, then locating a specialist to freeze-dry the treasures to safely remove the water.
The first training is scheduled this fall for Juneau, with classes in Anchorage and Fairbanks following.
Large sections of Juneau's downtown core look more like a ghost town than a thriving state capitol.
Tourism businesses close in the off-season - leaving entire blocks of empty storefront windows and no trespassing signs behind.
The City and Borough of Juneau is the first in the state to embrace the Main Street Movement - a preservation-based economic development and community revitalization effort that focuses on transforming downtowns.
CBJ Planner Allison Eddins
CBJ Planner Allison Eddins says, “The City is hoping that we can coordinate all our efforts and coordinate some of the strategies that we are using to attack some of the challenges we have downtown - mainly housing and homelessness, historic preservation, and restoration of some of these older beautiful buildings that we have downtown that are in need of some facade work.”
Main Street is a road map for locally-owned - locally-driven prosperity created by leveraging local leadership - transforming the economy and improving the overall quality of life
Transformation catalyst strategies focus on particular customer segments like the elderly or young families. They also respond to underserved market demand in an industry - product or service segment.
Main Street points include economic vitality - which offers capital, incentives, and other economic and financial tools to assist local businesses, encourage property development and create a supportive environment for entrepreneurs and innovators.
Main Street also uses design to enhance the physical and visual assets that set the district apart by organizing resources and community involvement as well as cultivating partnerships downtown.
