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Participants in the Juneau Alaska Music Matters program perform on Alaska Native drums at Sitʼ Eeti Shaanáx̱ Glacier Valley Elementary School. (Photo courtesy of Juneau Alaska Music Matters)

News

JAMM among 11 finalists for four $500,000 national Accelerator Awards

Winners of fifth annual awards for youth music programs scheduled to be announced in January.

Juneau’s Zack Bursell, 30, wins the Run The Rock 50-mile ultra race at Smith Rock State Park, Saturday, in Terrebonne, Oregon. (Photo courtesy Jamie/John Bursell)

Sports

Bursell wins Oregon 50 miler

New ultra runner hits new personal best.

A sticker expressing opposition to the Pebble Mine is seen on a coffee shop window in Kodiak on Oct. 3, 2022. Opposition to the mine has been widespread in Alaska’s fishing communities for several years. The fight is now being waged in briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, as the Pebble Limited Partnership continues to push for mine development. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

News

Debate over Pebble mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region moves to dueling US Supreme Court briefs

Company sticking to development plans, despite federal action barring permitting for the project.

Caution tape and warning signs at the former Glory Hall shelter on South Franklin Street on Monday alert passerbys to construction that begin earlier this month, with seven housing units and additional commercial space scheduled for completion by next summer. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)

News

Construction starts on conversion of former downtown Glory Hall shelter to affordable homes

Two-year permitting and legal battle raises cost 20% for seven housing units, plus commercial space.

People arriving on a shuttle bus enter the city’s new cold weather emergency shelter on Oct. 20, the first night it was open. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire File)

News

Emergency cold weather shelter in Thane gets official OK from Assembly

City officials call shelter a success so far; skeptics say some homeless people are avoiding it.

Jennifer Kirk, left, and Susanna “Sue Sue” Norton both died, two years apart, in homes owned by a former mayor and often occupied by his adult sons. Credit:Left photo: Facebook; right photo: courtesy of Lesley Sundberg

News

One woman died on an Alaska mayor’s property. Then another. No one has ever been charged.

Ex-mayor’s sons faced few consequences despite history of similar allegations.

The frame of a house waits further construction in Yakutat with the assistance of the Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority. On Monday the housing authority received a $2 million grant intended to help more than 100 families in Southeast Alaska with loans and other housing assistance. (Photo courtesy of the Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority)

News

$2M grant for Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority seeks to help more than 100 Southeast families

Agency among six nationwide winners for programs “making homes more accessible and affordable.”

Bering Sea snow crab, with two specimens seen in this undated photo, support an iconic Alaska seafood harvest, but a crash in population since 2018 triggered the first ever closure of the fishery in 2022. That closure was extended for the 2023-24 season. A newly published study shows that snow crab have some resilience to ocean acidification, with eggs and embryos that fare better in acidified conditions than do those of other Alaska crab species. (Photo provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

News

Alaska’s snow crab show resilience to ocean acidification, which is underway in the Bering Sea

Study a possible bright spot for species hammered by a warmth-triggered crash.

A tourist departs a cruise ship in the documentary “Cruise Boom,” which was screened Friday as part of an Evening at Egan presentation at the University of Alaska Southeast. The film is also scheduled to be shown Saturday at the Gold Town Theater. (Courtesy of Artchange Inc.)

News

Presentation pitching partnerships to address cruise ship impacts proves provocative

“I do not trust these corporations one iota,” says one attendee; others see signs of hope.

John Phillips (left) and Roger Sheakley salute the colors during the opening of the Southeast Alaska Native Veterans’ observance of Veterans Day on Saturday at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)

News

Trio of observances for Juneau’s veterans share tributes in distinctly different ways

Annual events honor those serving during wars, seeking peace and preserving Alaska Native heritage.

A map shows areas of downtown Juneau considered at severe (red) and moderate (blue) risk of avalanches. The Juneau Assembly is scheduled on Monday to give initial consideration to an ordinance regulating development in such areas. (City and Borough of Juneau)

News

Assembly to consider new hazard zone proposal to regulate avalanche areas, notify landslide risks

Warming shelter, off-road vehicle park, Suicide Basin monitoring also on agenda for Monday’s meeting.

Thunder Mountain High School’s Ashlyn Gates, seen hitting the ball past Ketchikan High School defenders during the Region V Volleyball Tournament last Saturday, was named the outstanding player for the Falcons during their elimination game against Dimond High School in the statewide 4A Volleyball Championship on Friday in Anchorage. Thunder Mountain lost the match in four sets. (Christopher Mullen / Ketchikan Daily News File)

Sports

Thunder Mountain’s volleyball season ends with loss to defending state champs

Strong rallies by Falcons keep match close before decisive fourth set.

A pedestrian pushes a shopping cart on Cordova Street during a heavy snowfall on Thursday in Anchorage. Four homeless people have died in Anchorage in the last week, underscoring the city’s ongoing struggle to house a large houseless population at the same time winter weather has returned, with more than 2 feet (0.61 meters) of snow falling within 48 hours. (Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News via AP)

News

Anchorage adds to record homeless death total as major winter storm drops more than two feet of snow

Four homeless people have died in Anchorage in the last week, underscoring the city’s ongoing struggle to house…

Henry Fleener, hatchery manager at Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute Mariculture Wet Lab, talks about a NOAA Fisheries project that involves building a small hatchery to house, condition and spawn oyster broodstock in order to find ways to improve existing processes. (Meredith Jordan/ Juneau Empire)

News

Pushing to expand mariculture in Alaska (Part 2): The pearl in mariculture, for now, are the oysters

Shellfish is still small business, but on the rise as Alaska works to diversity food sources.

Meta Mesdag, owner of Salty Lady Seafood Co., works alongside sons Emmett, 16, and Kai, 13. A harmful algae bloom shut down the farm for half of the 20-week season, which means working into the winter. (Meredith Jordan/ Juneau Empire)

News

Pushing to expand mariculture in Alaska (Part 1): A day in the life of a Juneau oyster farming family

Salty Lady Seafood is working through the winter this year

The Thunder Mountain High School volleyball team, seen here in the official program for the 2023 Alaska School Activities Association’s 4A Volleyball Championship, lost their opening game of the double-elimination tournament to South Anchorage High School on Thursday. (Photo courtesy of ASAA)

Sports

TMHS loses opening game at state finals, plays elimination game Friday morning

Eighth-ranked Falcons will face either top-ranked Wasilla or second-ranked Dimond.

Demonstrators protest against the Biden administration’s approval of the Willow oil-drilling project before a scheduled speech by Biden at the Department of the Interior in Washington, March 21, 2023. A federal judge on Thursday upheld the Biden administration’s approval of the Willow oil-drilling project on Alaska’s remote North Slope, a massive project that had drawn the ire of environmentalists who accused the president of backpedaling on his pledge to combat climate change. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

News

Federal judge in Alaska upholds Biden administration’s approval of the massive oil-drilling project

A federal judge on Thursday upheld the Biden administration’s approval of the massive Willow oil-drilling project on Alaska’s…

A moose is seen in an Anchorage neighborhood near Kincaid Park on April 27, 2022. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

News

Federal judge rules against state of Alaska in lawsuit challenging COVID emergency hunt

Other disputes between state and federal fish and game managers are pending.

Freshly made beds are seen in an unoccupied room at the Fairbanks emergency shelter, Interior Alaska center for Non-Violent Living on Oct. 14. (Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)

News

Alaska pays millions to respond to domestic violence. Advocates want millions to prevent it.

When Kara Carlson experienced sexual assault as a teenager, she said it was traumatic but not shocking: “I…

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., questions Navy Adm. Lisa Franchetti during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on her nomination for reappointment to the grade of admiral and to be Chief of Naval Operations, Sept. 14, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Senate circumvented a hold by Tuberville on Thursday and confirmed Adm. Lisa Franchetti to lead the Navy, making her the first woman to be a Pentagon service chief and the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

News

Tuberville under pressure from Sullivan, other Republicans, reconsiders military holds

Alaska senator co-led floor confrontation regardarding block of nearly 400 nominees