Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office announced Friday that biopsies of skin variations removed from his forehead confirmed a basal cell carcinoma, or a mild form of skin cancer.

Dunleavy’s spokesman Matt Schuckerow says Dunleavy took precautionary measures with his dermatologist this week, which left a series of sutures on his forehead.

Shuckerow says the carcinoma was removed. He also says Dunleavy and his doctor believe potential risks were addressed with the routine procedure.

Dunleavy first addressed the issue Friday morning, tweeting a photo in which his sutures are visible. He wrote: “I’m happy to say, I’m in good health. Moral of the story, wear sunscreen.”

Dunleavy temporarily suspended his gubernatorial campaign in 2017 for medical issues involving his heart. In reviving his campaign, Dunleavy said his treatments were successful.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska State Council on the Arts closed its doors Monday, making Alaska the only state without an arts council.

About 50 people gathered to mark the passing of the organization, the Anchorage Daily News reported .

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican who took office in December, used a line-item budget veto to eliminate the council’s funding of $2.8 million. Alaska lawmakers fell short last week in attempts to override the vetoes.

Sheryl Maree Reily, a member of the council’s visual arts advisory committee, wore a long black dress with a dark lace veil to mourn the loss.

“This is going to leave a huge vacuum,” she said. “There is going to be no formal mechanism for connecting information, connecting funding.”

Council Chairman Benjamin Brown said the council was in line for $700,000 from the state’s general fund. Dunleavy’s veto also covered $700,000 in federal funds through the National Endowment for the Arts and $1.5 million in private foundation funds that could not be accepted.

Reily and others said they wanted to thank outgoing employees who lost their jobs.

“I came here today to give my support, acknowledge the hard work and the achievements of this organization,” Reily said.

Keren Lowell worked as the literary and visual arts coordinator. Over seven years, she had also held finance and administrative jobs. Those were less gratifying jobs than working directly with art, she said, but were probably some of the more valuable services the council provided.

“That’s why this agency is so amazing,” she said. “We had a good handle on how money works and how the arts work in money. We did a good job. I’m proud of what we did.”

The public may have perceived that the organization was mainly about funding, Lowell said. The council also supported schools, teachers and rural communities, coordinated with other arts organizations and facilitated professional development for artists.

“All of the other arts partners used us as a pass-through or as a center or as a collection point for all of the activities going on,” Lowell said. “We communicated with people, which led to more opportunities and supported the work that they did.”

The arts sometimes are perceived as something subsidized with no return, Reily said.

“I think it’s a misconception,” she said. “They are an economic driver. They are the underpinnings of the tourism industry, secondary to the landscape. People come here for the culture, and they come here for the arts. It’s the stories that people tell in magazines that bring people here that the writers and poets write, the photographs that the photographers take.”

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Information from: Anchorage Daily News, http://www.adn.com

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — Fairbanks, Alaska, emergency officials have issued evacuation warnings to some residents as the Shovel Creek wildfire burns nearby.

On Sunday, just after midnight, the Fairbanks North Star Borough Department of Emergency Management raised the evacuation alert for the Martin and Perfect Perch subdivisions. The Level 3 alert indicates an imminent threat and advises residents to evacuate to an emergency shelter immediately.

As of around 3 a.m., the Lincoln Creek, McCloud and Murphy subdivisions were at a Level 2, meaning residents there should be ready to evacuate if alerted.

Emergency officials say residents should have a kit of important items assembled.

The Chatanika River is at a Level 1, which means residents should be monitoring for changes.

Wildfire smoke is degrading air quality throughout the region.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Residents of a Norwegian island where the sun doesn’t set for 69 days of the year want to go “time-free” and have more flexible school and working hours to make the most of their long summer days.

People on the island of Sommaroey are pushing to get rid of traditional business hours and “conventional time-keeping” during the midnight sun period that lasts from May 18 to July 26, resident Kjell Ove Hveding said Wednesday.

Hveding met with a Norwegian lawmaker this month to present a petition signed by dozens of islanders in support of declaring a “time-free zone” and to discuss any practical and legal obstacles to basically ignoring what clocks say about day and night.

“It’s a bit crazy, but at the same it is pretty serious,” he said.

Sommaroey, which lies north of the Arctic Circle, stays dark from November to January. The idea behind the time-free zone is that disregarding timepieces would make it easier for residents, especially students, employers and workers, to make the most of the precious months when the opposite is true.

Going off the clock “is a great solution but we likely won’t become an entirely time-free zone as it will be too complex,” Hveding said. “But we have put the time element on the agenda, and we might get more flexibility … to adjust to the daylight.”

“The idea is also to chill out. I have seen people suffering from stress because they were pressed by time,” he said.

Sitting west of Tromsoe, the island has a population of 350. Fishery and tourism are the main industries.

Finland last year lobbied for the abolition of European Union daylight savings time after a citizens’ initiative collected more than 70,000 signatures.

https://www.facebook.com/TimeFreeZone/videos/2113004195664449/

A climber who died after a rock fall on Mount Rainier swept through a campsite was identified as 45-year-old Arleigh William Dean of Juneau, Alaska, according to the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office in Tacoma, Washington.

A 37-year-old climber remained in intensive care Friday. A third climber was also injured.

The climber in intensive care was in serious condition, Susan Gregg, a spokeswoman for Harborview Medical Center, said in a statement. The other injured climber was taken to Arbor Health, Morton Hospital in Morton, Washington, where he was treated and released Thursday, said Roy Anderson, the hospital’s spokesman.

The names of the other climbers were not made public.

Officials received a 911 call at 8 p.m. Wednesday reporting six climbers were caught in the rock fall on the mountain’s Liberty Ridge route, KOMO-TV reported .

The climbers were camped at an elevation of about 10,400 feet (3,170 meters) just below a mountain feature called Thumb Rock when the rock fall happened, said Kevin Bacher, a spokesman for Mt. Rainier National Park said.

“And a piece of the mountain above them had broken loose and started a rock avalanche — a rock slide that swept through their camp hitting one of the tents there directly and another one a little less so,” Bacher said.

Bacher said one member of the group was dead and two were hurt but that rescuers could not get to them Wednesday night because it was getting dark on the remote part of the mountain.

“As soon as the weather permitted us to fly we sent a helicopter up to do some reconnaissance of the area and then slowly over the course of the day to bring out the injured parties,” Bacher said.

The body of the climber who died was taken to the county medical examiner’s office in Tacoma, Washington.

“The two injured climbers were in pretty good condition when they left the park here,” Bacher said. “Certainly with some major injuries but they were very happy to be down off of the mountain and heading into medical care.”

The three climbers who were not hurt were in a different climbing party but assisted the injured by sheltering them and feeding them, Bacher said.

“They as a group up there on the mountain they worked together, they supported each other,” Bacher said. “Even the people who had never met before they came together in this incident out there on the mountain. And it’s part of the reason that they came through so well.”

Bacher said the climbers were camped in an area considered to be very safe.

“But there’s no place on the mountain that is completely risk free,” Bacher said.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Under a proposed rewrite of state crime laws, Alaska legislators would require the courts to review for a federal database system records dating to 1981 for individuals who have been involuntarily committed and would be restricted from owning firearms.

While debates over guns elicit fears of erosions of the Second Amendment right to bear arms, this provision has generated few waves. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration is pushing it as a way to prevent future violence or suicides. National Rifle Association spokesman Lars Dalseide by email said that group “has always called for the submission of all relevant records” to the system “and that position hasn’t changed.”

Some Republicans in the state Legislature have expressed support. Rep. Chuck Kopp, a former police officer, said he supports Second Amendment rights but said there’s a balance in wanting to ensure the database has that information to improve the safety of the general public.

The state in 2014 began requiring the courts to provide to the Department of Public Safety information on involuntary commitments. It also set out a process by which affected individuals could seek to have their gun rights restored. The law’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Lance Pruitt, at the time noted Alaska’s “steadfast tradition of the right to responsible firearm ownership,” and he saw providing relevant information to the database as a key part of that responsibility.

“There are some people who might find themselves surprised by it, and that part is my concern,” he said of the new proposal Thursday. But the benefits “probably outweigh those other concerns. But I don’t say that without recognizing that there could be some people who were affected.”

That law was part of a national trend to bolster information provided to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is used by licensed gun sellers to determine if prospective buyers are eligible to purchase firearms. The system relies on available criminal history and mental health records.

“The databases are only as good as the information that’s in them,” said Kelly Howell, special assistant to Alaska’s public safety commissioner, adding later: “I just really feel strongly that this is something the state can do to help prohibit and prevent some violence and some sad incidents in people’s lives.”

The administration proposes going back to 1981 because it says that’s when the state’s civil commitment laws were passed. Alaska also has high rates of suicide.

From October 2014 through the end of last December, Alaska listed 432 individuals as prohibited from possessing a gun because of involuntary commitments or court orders of mental illness or incompetence, according to FBI data. By comparison, the state reported 4,458 records for individuals barred from having guns because of felony or certain serious misdemeanor convictions during the same time period.

Some states, like Montana and Wyoming, show small numbers of people across all categories who would be prohibited from having a gun. Nationally, FBI data shows about 5.7 million active records related to the mental health category, as of the end of 2018.

It’s unclear how many people would be barred from buying guns if the provision passes in Alaska. The court system estimates it would need to research 21,637 cases filed before it switched to electronic record-keeping — including files stored on microfilm — to provide to the Department of Public Safety court orders related to involuntary commitments and any subsequent judicial orders finding a person is unlikely to be a danger to themselves or others and able to possess a firearm.

Mark Regan, legal director of the Disability Law Center of Alaska, cited concern with reaching so far back.

“What you’re looking at are people not knowing that there would be these consequences who’ve been in the civil commitment process at times beginning in 1981,” he said. “It might well be that there would be people who would have contested the civil commitment more vigorously if they had known that 20 years later or 30 years later they would be reported to the database.”

He acknowledged people could petition the courts but questioned how well known that process is.

Lindsay Nichols, federal policy director with the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said other states have passed laws calling for prior-year commitments to be added to the database, such as Texas and Minnesota. According to the center, federal law does not require states to submit information to system, making participation voluntary.

Howell said the department would seek federal grant funding to help the courts if the expanded review is approved. The court estimates the cost at about $140,000.

“If someone is determined, there are other ways they can potentially obtain firearms. But this is one thing that we can and should do to ensure that those who shouldn’t have firearms are prohibited from purchasing and possessing them,” she said.