KTOO News Update

By KTOO Public Media

KTOO News Update episodes

February 14, 2025Newscast – Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025
https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20250213-News-Update.mp3
In this newscast:
Juneau’s city-owned hospital is in a much better financial position than it has been in years. For the last eight months, the hospital has been making steady positive income.
A deadly strain of bird flu is sweeping the nation. It has killed more than 20 million chickens since October, and that has scrambled the egg market. Alaska Public Media’s Ava White has more on how Anchorage businesses are coping with rapidly increasing egg prices along with supply problems.
Juneau’s city-owned hospital is in a much better financial position than it has been in years. For the last eight months, the hospital has been making steady positive income.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as President Trump’s director of national intelligence. She also announced that she intended to vote to confirm Robert Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services.
11 min
February 13, 2025Newscast – Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025
https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2020212-News-Update.mp3
In this newscast:
Alaska Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Carney defended the court system’s work and laid out plans for the future in a speech to state lawmakers,
Juneau’s Visitor Industry Director Alix Pierce shared data from an annual tourism survey that shows the conversation about the future of tourism’s growth is far from over,
An education compact is an agreement between tribal and state governments that allows tribes to run their own public schools, and Alaska’s Department of Education and Early Development is working with tribes to kick start a compacting program and give tribes sovereignty over education,
Alaska State Troopers arrested a Metlakatla man last week on six felony charges of sexual abuse of a minor, and they believe he may have had other victims
13 min
February 12, 2025Newscast – Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025
https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20250211-News-Update.mp3
In this newscast:
A team of researchers in Alaska have banded together to investigate a famous Alaska shipwreck. The Star of Bengal sank off the coast of Prince of Wales Island in 1908, taking more than 100 lives with it. The shipwreck highlighted a stark racial inequality in Alaska at the time– most of those who died were Asian cannery workers. Members of a 2022 expedition to the site of the wreck are going back in May. In this episode of Tongass Voices, team members Gig Decker and Jenya Anichtchenko share what they hope to uncover.
As lawmakers continue to work through an education funding package, members of the House are turning to another priority for the session: reforming the retirement system for state and local government employees. Alaska Public Media’s Eric Stone has this look at a bill that would return public-sector workers to a defined benefit pension system.
11 min
February 11, 2025Newscast – Monday, Feb. 10, 2025
https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20250210-News-Update.wav
In this newscast:
The 2025 Native Youth Olympics Junior Celebration took place over the weekend in Juneau. Elementary school students from across the borough competed in events like the seal hop, two-foot high kick, Inuit stick pull and more.
The Alaska Senate passed a bill today that would allow teenagers to serve alcohol at restaurants. The bill would lower the minimum age to serve alcohol from 21 to 18.
The second annual Juneau Jazz Festival packed nearly thirty performances, workshops and events related to jazz in four days.
11 min
February 08, 2025Newscast – Friday, Feb. 7, 2025
https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20250207-News-Update.mp3
In this newscast:
The Alaska Senate unanimously joined the state House this morning in urging President Donald Trump to reverse his decision to rename North America’s tallest peak as Mount McKinley,
Searchers found the missing Bering Air plane on the sea ice southeast of Nome, but they did not find any survivors,
A lawsuit that clouded the future of homeschooling in Alaska for months last spring took on new life yesterday after the plaintiffs asked a judge to join four school districts as defendants in the long-running case,
Ketchikan is now officially classified as rural in the eyes of federal subsistence regulations, after a historic, landmark decision by the Federal Subsistence Board overruled a recent vote by the Regional Advisory Council to keep Ketchikan’s status as nonrural,
One of Alaska’s most famous contemporary bands Portugal. The Man, along with Samantha Crain and Ya Tseen sold out two shows this weekend to raise money for an effort to rebuild a Kiks.adi clan house in Sitka
13 min
February 07, 2025Newscast – Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025
https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20250206-News-Update.mp3
In this newscast:
Juneau city officials have proposed a multi-million dollar wastewater bond package to offset utility rate hikes,
Ketchikan’s local governments are pursuing a new sales tax on cruise ship passengers,
The U.S. Forest Service has completed assessment reports on over 20 topics that will inform how the Tongass National Forest will be managed in decades to come. The last time the Forest Service studied the Tongass this deeply, the movie Titanic was hitting the screens,
Delta Junction residents will soon have to make a decision about whether, and how, they’ll restore emergency medical services to their community, after the city’s only ambulance service, Delta Medical Transport, announced that it will stop providing services to the city
13 min
February 06, 2025Newscast – Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025
https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20250205-News-Update.mp3
In this newscast:
Lawmakers are working to hammer out a compromise on an education bill that could avoid the governor’s veto,
FBI agents in Anchorage participated in a nationwide immigration crackdown under President Trump last weekend, but local groups, including the Anchorage School District, are pushing back,
More than 100 Juneau residents took to the sidewalk across the street from the Alaska State Capitol this afternoon to join a nationwide protest against President Donald Trump’s administration and its recent executive orders,
Tongass Voices: Tamara Wilson on her museum installation and the slinkies that live there
13 min
February 05, 2025Newscast – Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025
https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20250204-News-Update.wav
In this newscast:
Alaska nonprofit face immense uncertainty due to the Trump administration’s pause on federal grants and loans,
The City and Borough of Juneau will move forward with a controversial plan to mitigate glacial outburst floods in the Mendenhall Valley,
Members of Juneau’s chapter of the International Association of Fire Fighters union spoke out again about the lack of competitive wages leading to staffing shortages in Juneau, and as contract negotiations begin, first responders are asking the city for relief,
Lawmakers are pushing Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration to release drafts of a statewide salary study submitted by a human resources consultant
12 min
February 04, 2025Newscast – Monday, Feb. 3, 2025
https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20250203-News-Update.mp3
In this newscast:
A teenager was fatally shot at a roundabout in Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley early this morning,
The Alaska Board of Fisheries is entering its second week of deliberations on Southeast Alaska fishing regulations in Ketchikan, and this week is about salmon and herring,
The state regulatory group will take up herring proposals this week and it could adopt changes to how the Sitka Sound Sac Roe herring fishery is managed,
Alaskans testified overwhelmingly in favor of a bill that would boost per-student funding at a meeting of the House Education Committee last week, and KCAW stopped by Sitka’s legislative office to speak to those there who testified,
NOAA has released a new catalogue that chronicles more than 100 species of seaweed commonly found in Alaska, which will serve as an important resource as Alaska works to get in on kelp products
12 min
February 01, 2025Newscast – Friday, Jan. 31, 2025
https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/20250131-News-Update.mp3
In this newscast:
Portugal. the Man, Ya Tseen and Samantha Crain are performing in Southeast Alaska this weekend to fundraise for the Point House Revitalization Project,
Alaska Folk Festival leadership announced that the guest artists for the 50th festival will be Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell,
Gov. Mike Dunleavy unveiled his own education bill this morning, setting the stage for negotiations with legislative leaders,
The Skagway Assembly voted last month to collect sales tax on the full price of tours sold, but across Lynn Canal, Haines is worried the changes could impact their economy
13 min