Politics

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is campaigning for reelection to the U.S. Senate. She spent the last couple days visiting villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, and Thursday she stopped in Bethel to meet with veterans. After two hours at the VFW, she drove back to the airport. KYUK's Anna Rose MacArthur hopped in the truck with her.

Over 6,000 Alaskans volunteered for the Alaska Territorial Guard during World War II. Over 1,000 volunteered from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. The state is currently trying to track down these guardsmen to issue discharge papers so that they can receive federal veterans benefits. Many guardsmen are no longer alive. In those cases the state is trying to find their families.

Tribal delegates are holding a gathering in Bethel this week in what they’re calling an AVCP Emergency Meeting. They want the AVCP administration and executive board to provide answers on AVCP financial matters and respond to what some delegates see as a mismanagement of power and lack of transparency within the organization. AVCP administration and executive board members did not attend nor sanction the meeting, which began Tuesday and ends Wednesday. Only 13 tribes sent delegates. Thirty-eight are needed to constitute an official meeting under AVCP bylaws.

Amid Independence Day celebrations, Zach Falser traveled by boat to the village of Napakiak to campaign for his run on the Alaska House of Representatives. 

Rep. Bob Herron is running for his fifth term in the Alaska State House. He represents the lower Kuskokwim and surrounding coastal villages of House District 38. He's now headed back to Juneau for yet another special session.  But this weekend, he had time to campaign in Kwethluk during the village’s Independence Day Celebration.

Alaska tribes can start asking the federal government to take their lands into trust. Essentially they can ask the federal government to take lands out of state jurisdiction like lower-48 Indian Country. The change comes after a federal appeals court last week dismissed Alaska’s challenge that had stopped land trust applications. Now four Alaska tribes that sued the Interior Department can proceed. That includes Akiachak and Tuluksak.

Your freezer breaks and you need a part. You could go to the store or online. Or you could go to the landfill. And that’s what people in Bethel have done for decades— salvaging and reusing what other people have thrown away. Now, the city is saying no more.