Anna Rose MacArthur

Bethel’s first liquor store in over 40 years is set to open next week. AC Quickstop received the town’s first liquor license last fall after decades of restricted alcohol sales, and Walter Pickett, AC general manager, says the store could open as early as Monday.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has granted a one-month extensionon the comment period for the Donlin Gold mine draft environmental impact statement, or EIS.

The comment period, originally set to end Saturday, now will close May 31. The extension stretches the comment period for the more than 5,000 page document from five months to six—a time much shorter than many wanted.

Upriver Kuskokwim ice remains mostly in place, according to the annual River Watch crew from the National Weather Service.

The team is flying the Kuskokwim River this week, collecting break up data and reporting ice conditions to communities. The crew landed in Aniak Wednesday and flew upriver to observe the river.

Calista Corporation is campaigning to reduce quorum requirements at its annual shareholder meetings to prevent invalidating future meeting votes and wasting corporation money when quorum isn’t met.

Current quorum stands at an over 50-percent majority. Calista wants to reduce that to a one-third or about 33-percent requirement, and the corporation wants it to happen before descendants enroll as shareholders next year.

Thirteen entrepreneurs from the Yukon-Kuskokwim region have received cash awards to help grow their businesses in this year’s Best in the West Small Business Competition.

The earliest break up on record has begun in the middle Kuskokwim, but ice is still holding in the upper and lower sections of the river. That’s the results from an aerial survey by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which photographed the Kuskokwim from the Holitna River tributary to Napakiak on Monday.

Middle Kuskokwim river ice is shifting and jamming as what’s predicted to be the Kuskokwim’s earliest break up on record gets underway.

Two weeks remain to comment on the Donlin Gold mine draft environmental impact statement, or EIS. Most comments so far focus on subsistence and economic impacts, according to Keith Gordon, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project manager overseeing the over 5,000 page document.