KNBA News

A new University of Alaska Fairbanks study featured on the cover of the journal Science explores the life story of a woolly mammoth that lived 17,000 years ago. Thousands of years ago a woolly mammoth researchers dubbed Kik lumbered across what is now the state of Alaska. There were times when he stayed in one area, likely in a group with other mammoths. At one point Kik took off on a long trip, covering great distances of icy landscape. Researchers think that means he left his mother’s herd and

The American Civil Liberties Union wants a federal court to hold the city of Nome in contempt – for allegedly withholding police audits and emails in a legal case against the Nome police department. ( Editor's note: The plaintiff’s name is publicly available via court documents. As a standard policy, KNBA does not name sexual assault survivors without their permission.) In 2017, a 911 operator with the Nome Police Department reported to her supervisors that she had been sexually assault ed. Last

Congress set aside $8 billion for tribal entities across the country as part of the federal CARES Act. But it took a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June to free up some of those pandemic relief funds for Alaska Native corporations. Then, some of the village corporations got large payouts while Juneau-based Sealaska, the corporation with the most shareholders, got the least of the 13 regional corporations. Corporation executives say they’re still trying to understand the wide disparities in

The award-winning podcast “This Land” returns for a second season . This one examines the legal attacks on a 40-plus-year old federal law meant to protect Native children in the U.S. The first season of “This Land” examined two legal cases that became incredibly important to criminal jurisdiction and recognizing Tribal land. Cherokee journalist Rebecca Nagle is the host. “The podcast is about cases that are important to federal Indian law and Indigenous sovereignty that I felt like needed to be

According to incarceration data from the 2010 Census , Native American people accounted for more than one-third of adults incarcerated in Alaska. Legal experts say that unless the justice system includes more Indigenous people as lawyers and judges -- inequities in incarceration will continue. Natasha Singh is general counsel for the Tanana Chiefs Conference, a Tribal consortium of 42 Interior Alaska Native villages. She says the justice system needs to see significant change. “We represent a

Seal meat makes up a good portion of what’s in subsistence hunters’ freezers in Kotzebue. However, the sea ice the seals haul out on is diminishing, and new research has shown the window to hunt seals is getting shorter as a result. Iñupiaq hunter Cyrus Harris has harvested ugruk, or bearded seal, his whole life. For many people in Kotzebue and the surrounding region, the rotund mammal is a dietary staple. “Ugruk, once we process it into a seal oil form and using it as a preservative for the

A ballot measure initiative seeks to have the state of Alaska officially recognize and acknowledge the 229 federally recognized Alaska Native Tribes. The initiative models itself on a piece of state legislation, HB123, which passed the Alaska House by a 35-4 vote earlier this year. But fighting over the state budget has gnarled future progress of the measure. The initiative would create a government-to-government relationship with the state -- much in the way the 229 Tribes have with the federal

Alaska’s racial and ethnic diversity increased over the last 10 years, according to U.S. census numbers released. The share of Alaska’s population that identifies as a race or ethnicity other than solely white rose from less than a third of the population to more than than 40%. The share of Alaska’s population that identifies as two or more races also increased, to 9.8% in 2020 from 6.9% in 2010. The share of the population that identifies as Hispanic grew to 6.8% from 5.5%; Black alone, grew to

An Alaska Native comic artist will release a book heavily influenced by stories passed down to him by his grandmother. Growing up in Alaska, Dimi Macheras loved drawing and illustrating and comic books. “My mom's got pictures of me before I could even talk just constantly drawing and doodling,” Macheras said. “In some of my earliest memories were cartoons on the cereal boxes and action figures, toys like He-Man and stuff.” Macheras is Ahtna, a citizen of the Chickaloon Native Village and was

Paralytic shellfish poisoning, caused by eating seafood contaminated with toxins from harmful algal blooms, can be deadly to humans. Now, using marine samples from Unalaska, scientists are trying to understand if those harmful algal blooms could also be responsible for seabird die-offs . There's not much data on how saxitoxin — a harmful compound produced by algal blooms that cause PSP — spreads through the larger food web. But in July, a group of biologists with the United States Geological