Alaska Public Media

A high-profile lawsuit challenging a key part of Alaska’s homeschool system moved ahead this week after an Anchorage judge denied a motion to dismiss the case.

The lawsuit centers on what are known as correspondence school allotments, cash payments to families who homeschool their kids in the state’s public correspondence school system. They’re meant to pay for things like lessons and supplies, and some parents use them to pay for private school tuition.

A group of parents sued the state in 2023, saying the use of allotments on private school tuition violates the state Constitution. Article 7 bars state spending “for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”

At first, a judge ruled the allotment system as a whole was unconstitutional. That was later reversed by the state Supreme Court, which sent it back to a lower court for a closer look at how school districts allow allotments to be spent.

Then, earlier this year, a group of correspondence school parents represented by the legal nonprofit Institute for Justice asked the lower court judge to dismiss the case. They argued allotments are a direct benefit to correspondence school families, not private schools, and that the use of allotments for private school tuition is protected by the U.S. Constitution.

“The reality is that the Alaska Legislature has provided parents with funds to ensure that they can choose the education that fits their families’ needs, regardless of each family’s income,” they wrote. “That is a fully constitutional objective and the Program is a fully constitutional way to pursue that goal.”

But in an eight-page order on Monday, Superior Court Judge Laura Hartz disagreed. She said the Supreme Court’s decision requires a review of how allotments are actually spent in practice. The plaintiffs, the state and the school districts added to the case following the Supreme Court ruling all argued against dismissing the case and said a final ruling would require more evidence.

“Litigation of this case requires a factual record establishing actual authorized allotment expenditures,” Hartz wrote.

The ruling moves the case into the discovery phase, where attorneys for the parties will exchange evidence as they build a case for a possible trial.

Most of the staff running three Alaska newspapers in Homer, Kenai-Soldotna and Juneau resigned in protest Monday. The decision came after the corporate owner of the Homer News, Kenai Peninsula Clarion and Juneau Empire forced revisions to a story after pressure from a Republican state lawmaker.

The four journalists — Regional Editor Erin Thompson, Clarion Sports and Features Editor Jeff Helminiak, Clarion Senior Reporter Jake Dye and Homer News Reporter Chloe Pleznac — signed a joint resignation letter castigating Alabama-based Carpenter Media Group for its decision to modify the story without consulting the reporter or editor responsible, saying it “gravely undermined” their ability to do their jobs.

“Though this decision is extremely painful for us, it is not difficult,” they wrote. “We cannot do our jobs knowing that pressure from an elected official can mean our stories are edited without prior consultation with us.”

Last Wednesday, Homer Republican Rep. Sarah Vance posted a letter on state letterhead to her official Facebook page objecting to a Homer News article about a memorial for the slain activist Charlie Kirk. She highlighted a paragraph that identified Kirk as a “far-right” activist with “racist and controversial views.” Vance accused the paper of bias and said she was “aware of” a campaign to boycott Homer News advertising.

In an interview, Dye said his resignation was a long time coming. He’s repeatedly complained about mismanagement since Carpenter Media bought the paper out of insolvency last year, he said. But capitulating to pressure from a state lawmaker, going over the editor’s and reporter’s heads, Dye said, was a step too far.

A day later, the story was removed, edited, stripped of a byline and reposted — without, Dye said, any consultation with the newsroom. Vance subsequently thanked Carpenter Media in a Facebook post for responding to her concerns after a discussion with the paper’s publisher.

“Sarah Vance sent one letter on a Wednesday night — she probably didn’t even put a ton of thought into it — and got our story changed,” he said. “What stops her from doing that the next time? What stops anybody?”

Vance and Carpenter Media did not respond to interview requests.

Dye hasn’t gotten answers on what Vance asked for, and what Carpenter agreed to, he said.

“I feel like I should be able to trust Carpenter Media,” he said. “That’s just not what happened in this case.”

The mass resignations leave the three papers with just two reporters: one for the Homer News and another with the Juneau Empire, Dye said.

Veteran Alaska journalist and University of Alaska Fairbanks professor Paula Dobbyn said she was shocked by the episode — not just by Vance’s pressure campaign, but Carpenter’s decision to give in.

“We pride ourselves as Americans on having freedom of the press,” she said. “For an ownership group to just go ahead and alter a news story based on a complaint by a politician without consulting the editor or the reporter, I just think was appalling, and I fully support the staff for not putting up with it.”

It’s especially alarming given the fragile state of journalism in Alaska, she said. It’s not clear what’ll happen to the papers with most of the editorial staff gone, and Dobbyn said she’s concerned the exodus will leave Kenai Peninsula communities less informed.

“I certainly hope that the Kenai is not going to become another news desert, because, you know, people have the right to be informed,” she said. “There’s a lot that’s happening down there, and we certainly need coverage of it.”

Dobbyn said she hoped another news source would fill the void. She pointed to the Juneau Independent, a nonprofit online outlet founded by the former editor of another Carpenter paper, the Juneau Empire, who also resigned over disagreements with management.

As much as he loves journalism, Dye said he’s not planning to follow a similar path.

“I don’t think the others are really interested in that. We certainly don’t have the money for that,” he said. “I, unfortunately, kind of think this is it.”

Dye hopes Carpenter Media will invest in its Alaska papers, he said, but he’s not optimistic. He said management told the newsroom that the Clarion was losing money, but had not outlined plans to turn the struggling outlet around.

“Until this last week, they (didn’t) really interact with us,” he said. “I keep asking them what the plan is, and I don’t ever get a satisfying answer.”

On Tuesday, Dye said he planned to head to the local job center for a typing test so he could apply for a job as a 911 dispatcher.

“I really think that’s going to be less stressful than what I’m doing now,” he said.

Editor’s note: Former Homer News reporter Chloe Pleznac previously worked at KTOO as a Morning Edition host from 2022 to 2024. 

WASHINGTON — Funding has lapsed for the federal government. A short-term bill to keep government operations going failed in the U.S. Senate Tuesday, so a government shutdown began at midnight.

Both Alaska senators voted for the stop-gap spending bill, to continue funding while Congress works on a longer-term bill. It got 55 votes but needed 60.

President Donald Trump is threatening mass federal layoffs. And by not passing a spending bill, Congress is giving Trump free rein, Sen. Lisa Murkowski said.

“When you’re in a shutdown, you do not have equal branches of government,” she said. “You just don’t. The legislative branch has just kind of ceded this.”

Senate Democrats are holding out to get Republicans to agree to continue health care subsidies and restore cuts to Medicaid. Some of the subsidies are due to expire at the end of December, which will double or triple the monthly costs for millions of Americans who buy marketplace plans.

Murkowski would also like to continue insurance subsidies that some 25,000 Alaskans depend on. But, she says, negotiations went nowhere last week so Tuesday she voted for the bill to keep the government operating.

Murkowski warned that the partisan standoff could be a long one because each side believes voters will blame the other party.

“No one has an incentive,” to end a shutdown, she said. “If the Democrats feel that they’ve got the edge, where’s their incentive for them to get out of it? If the Republicans feel like we’re gaining with our base, what gives us any incentive to end it?”

Key functions of government will continue through a shutdown, including mail service and Social Security payments. Some federal employees, like the military and law enforcement, are deemed essential and have to work without pay until Congress agrees on a spending bill.

A spokesman for Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said the state has funding to pay SNAP food benefits through October but only enough money to cover the first week of the month for WIC, the nutrition benefit for Women, Infants and Children.

Hours before the shutdown was to begin, only some agencies had published their shutdown plans.

A Homer Republican state representative declared victory on Friday after successfully pressuring the local newspaper to revise a story about a vigil honoring Charlie Kirk.

Rep. Sarah Vance, who helped organize the vigil, took issue with the newspaper’s description of Kirk’s views.

Vance highlighted the story’s second paragraph, which identified Kirk as a “far-right activist” and an icon among Christian nationalists. It described some of his views as “racist and controversial” and said Kirk perpetuated “conspiracy theories.” The story, by Homer News reporter Chloe Pleznac, didn’t include concrete examples, but did link to an 1,100 word article in the New York Times with many.

“This piece is not journalism, but rather it is hate-baiting at its worst,” Vance said in a letter to the newspaper’s owners, Carpenter Media Group, on her Alaska State Legislature letterhead. She accused the paper of bias.

“I urge you to take immediate corrective action,” she wrote.

The newspaper’s owners later removed, edited and reposted the story, a move that Vance welcomed in a post on social media. But a former editor of the newspaper said Vance took it “a step too far for an elected representative.”

“That’s government intimidation of a free press, and, you know, the First Amendment says the government shall not do that,” said Michael Armstrong who worked for the paper for more than two decades. “It’s right there up front, and I think she’s crossed that line.”

Vance and Carpenter Media executives did not respond to interview requests for this story.

Armstrong said it’s fair game for government officials, or anyone else, to criticize a news outlet’s coverage. But he said a passage from Vance’s letter saying she was “aware of a growing movement to boycott Homer News advertising” crossed the line into intimidation.

“If you want to have a civil dialogue with the newspaper, with the editors, with the publishers, that’s appropriate,” he said.

At the Homer vigil, a week after Kirk was assassinated in Utah, Vance had extolled the value of the type of open debate Kirk and his group, Turning Point USA, were famous for.

“Remember that the people who were spreading hate and vitriol are our neighbors,” she said in a short speech at the vigil. “We need to do like Charlie and engage with them in open dialogue that’s respectful, that leads them to the truth.”

In an interview, Pleznac defended her work, saying her coverage of the vigil was part of a larger effort to ensure Homer conservatives saw themselves reflected in the newspaper’s coverage.

“I thought it was important to document them honoring Charlie Kirk’s legacy,” she said. “I went, I took photos, and I took video, and I thought that that was something that would honestly make them happy.”

Pleznac said she wrote the description Vance objected to after reviewing other news coverage of Kirk’s assassination in an effort to provide context backed by evidence.

“Vance said I should have published the original article as an opinion piece because of the language I used to report the opinions that Kirk regularly, proudly espoused,” Pleznac said. “My reporting of those opinions is not a reflection of my bias but rather a reflection of my research.”

Armstrong said the episode echoes another recent Kirk-related controversy — ABC’s decision to temporarily take Jimmy Kimmel off the air following threats from the chair of the Federal Communications Commission after Kimmel made comments about Kirk’s assassination

It comes alongside a broader Trump administration crackdown on media critical of the president and his allies, the New York Times reported. President Donald Trump has sued the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and CBS over news stories, and has sought to limit the Associated Press’s access to the White House over its decision not to abide by Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.

“I think that (has) set a tone, obviously, for his administration, but also for a lot of other conservative Republicans,” Armstrong said. “It’s making it harder for the press to do their job.”

Pleznac, too, said Vance’s pressure campaign amounts to state censorship.

“It is the antithesis of what I believe ethical journalism stands for,” she said.

Armstrong said Vance should be held accountable, and that government officials more broadly should respect the role that reporters play in American democracy.

“I don’t think newspapers should be intimidated by their government. I think the government should be intimidated by the newspapers,” he said.

If government officials don’t like what they see in the newspaper, Armstrong said, the right approach isn’t intimidation — it’s open dialogue.

KBBI’s Simon Lopez in Homer contributed reporting to this story. 

Editor’s note: Homer News reporter Chloe Pleznac previously worked at KTOO as a Morning Edition host from 2022 to 2024. 

The U.S. Congress has yet to agree on a short-term spending plan, so federal agencies are preparing for a government shutdown that is likely to begin Wednesday, the first day of the next fiscal year.

With the federal government’s outsized influence in Alaska, the impacts could be acute in the 49th state.

To some extent, what will happen is predictable, based on past shutdowns. This year might be different, though, because the White House Office of Management and Budget issued an unusual pre-shutdown memo late Wednesday. It directs agencies to take the shutdown as an opportunity to fire employees working on any program that is not funded by another law and not “consistent with the President’s priorities.”

Is it a bluff? Maybe. The memo is overtly political. It names Democrats and their “partisan demands” as the obstacle.

“We remain hopeful that Democrats in Congress will not trigger a shutdown and the steps outlined above will not be necessary,” the memo says.

On the other hand, the Trump administration has shown an appetite for cutting loose thousands of civil servants and disrupting the business-as-usual of bureaucracy.

While there are not a lot of definite answers yet, here are five things to know about the possible federal government shutdown:

Will I get my Social Security check and SNAP benefits? How about mail service? 

Yes. Services that are mandatory or have a funding source other than annual appropriation bills will continue. Medicaid and food benefits for Women, Infants and Children, also known as WIC, should remain on track. The office of Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, is funded through the month of October. However, help desks and administrative services related to these services could be strained. This would not be a good time to change the bank account that your Social Security checks are sent to.

I’m planning to travel. Do I need to cancel my flights?

No. In past shutdowns, air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration personnel were considered essential workers and therefore continued to work, for the most part, despite not receiving pay until after the shutdown ended. Flights arrived and departed Alaska largely as normal. Air travelers might want to arrive at airports a little early, though. Some airports in the U.S. reported longer security lines than normal, as some TSA workers reportedly did not show.

I’m a federal worker. Will I get paid? Can I stay home?

Alaska is home to about 15,000 civilian federal workers. They’d be affected differently, depending on what jobs they do and how their agencies are funded.

• Essential workers, like air traffic controllers and FBI agents, would work but without paychecks until the impasse is resolved.

• Other workers would be furloughed. They’d get back pay when Congress passes a bill to restart the government.

• Some workers, if the OMB memo is taken seriously, will receive termination notices.

What about the military?

Service members are also required to remain on the job. A bill pending in the U.S. House would keep paychecks flowing to active duty personnel, including the Coast Guard, civilian base workers and Department of Defense contractors. If it passes before Wednesday or soon after the shutdown begins, the military would likely not experience an interruption to regular pay, although Military Times reports stipends and special pay might be delayed.

What about public lands? And could this disrupt Fat Bear Week?

We’ve sent inquiries to the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Until they respond, a general rule from past shutdowns is, if a facility or area is inaccessible during non-business hours, it will likely be locked for the duration of the lapse in funding. Most of Alaska’s public lands aren’t fenced or gated, though, so those areas would likely remain accessible, even if staff are not available.

As for Fat Bear Week, a beloved feature of Katmai National Park and Preserve, the champion is due to be crowned on Sept. 30, before the shutdown is supposed to begin.

The Anchorage Police Department is now using artificial intelligence software to better review investigative data. It’s the first time APD has adopted AI for department use.

Police Chief Sean Case told Assembly members Tuesday night that the department has been testing a software called Closure for four months. He said the program is able to analyze large amounts of data.

“There’s some cases where you have detectives listening to over 1,000 hours of jail call data to try to find a word, a phrase, a name, a threat, things like that,” Case said. “And so when we tested the software, one of the things that we primarily used it for was throwing in jail call data.”

Case said the department had previously tested a different AI software for writing reports, but officials decided not to adopt it.

Case said the city’s municipal attorney and prosecutors have reviewed the software, and determined it would not negatively impact the prosecution of cases.

The Assembly unanimously approved a five-year contract with Closure for $375,000 at its meeting Tuesday.