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In this July 8, 2021 photo, first lady Jill Biden delivers remarks before the start of the finals of the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee at Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Jill Biden will attend the opening ceremony of the summer Olympic games in Tokyo. The White House announced the trip Tuesday, even as the city has entered a new state of emergency over a rise in coronavirus cases.(AP Photo / John Raoux)

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FLOTUS stops in Alaska on her way to Tokyo Olympics

Alaska to Japan to Hawaii.

This September 2020 photo shows a view near the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center within the Tongass National Forest. The Biden administration announced Thursday it’s ending old-growth timber sales on the Tongass. (Ben Hohenstatt / Juneau Empire File)

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Biden ends large-scale logging on Tongass

The Biden administration said it’s ending large-scale, old-growth timber sales on the Tongass.

Piggy bank

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White House announces 84K Alaska families to receive child tax credit payments

Credits where they’re due .

Peter Segall / Juneau Empire A sign lets visitors know they’re in the Tongass National Forest on Thursday, July 15, 2021, the same day the Biden administration announced yet another reversal of policy over the largest national forest. Debates about the 2001 Roadless Rule are familiar in Southeast Alaska, and Thursday’s announcement prompted familiar reactions in the state.

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Conservation or constraint? Roadless Rule reversal divides Alaskans

New administration, new rules

A map of Alaska shows the number of projects throughout the state that have received grants from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Indian Energy since 2009. On Tuesday, July 13, 2021, DOE announced $12 million in energy grants for 13 American Indian and Alaska Native communities, seven of which are in Alaska. (Courtesy image / U.S. Department of Energy)

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Metlakatla, Alaska Native villages to receive federal grants for energy upgrades

Upgrading the grid.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, a negotiator in the infrastructure talks, pauses for reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington. Murkowski hasn’t officially announced her re-election plans but her campaign released fundraising details, Wednesday, July 14, 2021, that an advisor says “strongly positions,” a re-election bid by Murkowski. The campaign statement comes ahead of a filing deadline and days after Republican party leaders in Alaska endorsed newcomer Kelly Tshibaka for Senate. (AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite)

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Murkowski camp teases fundraising ahead of deadline

Adviser: Fundraising “strongly positions” the Alaska Republican for a reelection bid.

Then-Democratic presidential hopeful and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel speaks at the "Take Back America" political conference in Washington, in this June 2007 photo. Gravel, a former U.S. senator from Alaska who read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record and confronted Barack Obama about nuclear weapons during a later presidential run, has died. He was 91. Gravel, who represented Alaska as a Democrat in the Senate from 1969 to 1981, died Saturday, June 26, 2021. Gravel had been living in Seaside, California, and was in failing health, said Theodore W. Johnson, a former aide. (AP Photo / Charles Dharapak)

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Mike Gravel, former US senator for Alaska, dies at 91

He read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record.

The Celebrity Edge cruise ship is docked at Port Everglades, Tuesday, June 22, 2021, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The Celebrity Edge is set to sail on Saturday from Fort Lauderdale. It will be the first cruise ship to leave a U.S. port with ticketed passengers since the onset of the pandemic, which halted sailing. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

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1st post-pandemic large cruise ship readies to sail in Florida

“Someday is here. Welcome back.”

This photo shows the Supreme Court in Washington. (AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite)

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Supreme Court sides with Alaska Native corporations in COVID-19 aid case

The justices ruled 6-3 in the case, which involved the massive relief package passed last year.

President Joe Biden, with a bipartisan group of Senators, including Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, speaks Thursday June 24, 2021, outside the White House in Washington. Biden invited members of the group of 21 Republican and Democratic senators to discuss the infrastructure plan. (AP Photo / Evan Vucci)

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‘We have a deal’: Biden announces infrastructure agreement

Biden made a surprise appearance in front of the cameras with a bipartisan group of senators.

FILE - In this April 23, 2021, file photo, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland speaks during a news briefing at the White House in Washington. On Tuesday, June 22, 2021, Haaland and other federal officials are expected to announce steps that the federal government plans to take to reconcile the legacy of boarding school policies on Indigenous families and communities across the U.S. (AP Photo / Evan Vucci)

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US to review dark history of Indigenous boarding schools

As part of the initiative, a final report from agency staff is due by April 1, 2022.

In this April photo, Tommy Beaudreau, of Alaska, appears before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on his nomination to be deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior, at the Capitol in Washington. The Senate easily confirmed former Obama administration official Tommy Beaudreau as deputy secretary at the Interior Department, a rare bipartisan moment in an increasingly bitter fight over President Joe Biden's policies on energy production and climate change. (AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite)

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Senate GOP hails new Interior deputy as ‘voice of reason’

Appointee, who grew up in Alaska, was easily confirmed.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland appears before the Senate Appropriations Committee, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June 16, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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Senators press Interior Secretary Haaland on oil lease pause

Murkowski said she was flabbergasted that Haaland did not address the court ruling.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry speaks in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. The Biden administration’s suspension of new oil and gas leases on federal land and water was blocked Tuesday, June 15, 2021, by a federal judge in Louisiana. U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed in March by Louisiana’s Republican attorney general, Jeff Landry and officials in 12 other states. Doughty’s ruling granting a preliminary injunction to those states said his order applies nationwide. (AP Photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

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Federal judge blocks Biden’s pause on new oil, gas leases

The decision is a blow to Biden’s efforts to rapidly transition the nation away from fossil fuels.

The Biden Administration announced it would reverse a decision by the previous administration to remove the Roadless Rule from the Tongass National Forest, seen here on Sun, March 30, 2021. Conservationists praised the decision while others called it suppressing Alaska's economic opportunities. (Peter Segall / Juneau Empire)

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Roadless Rule announcement draws mixed reaction from Alaskans

Roadless reversal riles some.

A Utah man who pleaded guilty to killing his wife is being sentenced in United States District Court at the Hurff A. Saunders Federal Building, seen here on June 2, 2021. (Michael S. Lockett / Juneau Empire)

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Man charged for cruise ship killing to be sentenced soon

Suspect pleaded guilty to killing his wife aboard ship in 2017.

This undated aerial photo provided by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a herd of caribou on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska. The Biden administration is suspending oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as it reviews the environmental impacts of drilling in the remote region.(U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

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Biden suspends oil leases in Alaska’s Arctic refuge

Move draws rebuke from the state.

The Capitol Dome looms behind the Peace Monument statue in Washington, Friday, May 28, 2021, as the Senate tries to finish to its work going into the Memorial Day recess with Republican leaders insisting they will block a commission on the Jan. 6 insurrection by a mob loyal to former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite)

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GOP blocks bipartisan probe of deadly Jan. 6 riot at Capitol

Senate Republicans blocked creation of a bipartisan panel to study the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Firefighter medic Andy Tighe snaps a photo of the breakaway plus-class cruise ship Norwegian Bliss while Captain Tracy Mettler operates a fireboat in the Tongass Narrows in Ketchikan, Alaska, on June 4, 2018. President Joe Biden signed into law Monday, May 24, 2021, legislation that opens a door for resumed cruise ship travel to Alaska after the pandemic last year scrapped sailings. (Dustin Safranek/Ketchikan Daily News)

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Biden signs bill opening door for Alaska cruises to resume

The measure will allow large cruise ships to sail directly from Washington state to Alaska.

The Norwegian Pearl, right, pulls into the AJ Dock in Juneau in September 2018. Big-deck cruise ships may be seen in Juneau this year yet as a bill allowing them to bypass Canada passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on May 20, 2021. (Michael Penn/Juneau Empire File)

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US House passes bill that could allow an Alaska cruise season

The bill would allow cruise ships to skip Canada on their way north.