Associated Press

Updated | 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 17

After 75-days in the shipyard, southwest Alaska’s ferry is finally back in the water.

The M/V Tustumena returned to service this week following repairs that canceled 70 percent of its summer sailings.

While the vessel gets underway, funds for its replacement aren’t far behind.

The Alaska Legislature approved the money to replace the 53-year-old ferry, according to Aurah Landau of the Alaska Marine Highway.

“This allows the work to start, and takes what we know the system needs and the communities need and makes it into a physical reality of a boat that can come up and down the Chain,” Landau said.

The cost of building a new vessel is $244 million. The federal government will cover the bulk of that, while the state pays for 10 percent.

Landau said the Marine Highway wants to open the project to construction bids by next winter and have the new ferry ready within five years.

Until then, the Tustumena will make three trips over the remainder of this season. It’s scheduled to arrive in Unalaska on August 26.

— Berett Wilber, KUCB-Unalaska

Original post | 11:14 a.m. Aug. 11

KODIAK, Alaska — An Alaska marine highway ferry is ready to hit the water again after wasted steel found in a routine overhaul took it out of commission in March.

The Kodiak Daily Mirror reports the Tustumena will leave the Ketchikan shipyard on or around Friday. The ferry is expected to make its first stop in Kodiak on Wednesday.

It is one of two Alaska Marine Highway System ferries serving Kodiak.

Marine Highway System public information officer Aurah Landau says the Tustumena’s repairs to steel in the car deck and engine room should last until its replacement is completed in about four years.

Officials are planning to schedule the Kennicott ferry in the spring to make sure island communities are taken care of, regardless of the Tustumena’s status.

— The Associated Press

KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) — Voter in an Alaska city are getting the chance to decide whether or not they want ride-sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft to operate in their city.

The Ketchikan City Council voted on Thursday to place a proposed city ban of ride-hailing companies on the upcoming Oct. 3 ballot.

Ketchikan Daily News reports the action comes after Gov. Bill Walker in June signed legislation allowing ride-sharing companies to operate statewide.

Council members and Mayor Lew Williams III are skeptical of ride-sharing because they say companies are not responsible as a whole for collecting or reporting local sales taxes, even though individual driver are required to do so.

The ban proposal was voted on the same day that two of the city’s three taxi services were OK’d to merge.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — After pleading guilty in a poaching case, three men were ordered to pay restitution for illegally killing three musk oxen in northwest Alaska.

At their Wednesday sentencing, 33-year-old Thomas Tazruk, 30-year-old Billy Bodfish and 58-year-old Willie Bodfish were ordered to pay $3,000 restitution for each of the three kills, for a total bill of $9,000 to be split among them.

The men are residents of the small Inupiat Eskimo village of Wainwright.

The men also were ordered to pay $500 fines each and forfeit their firearms. They pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor charges that they took the animals during a closed season and failed to salvage the meat.

Prosecutors say only a hind quarter from one of the animals was salvaged and the rest was left as bait.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Abortion-rights advocates and the state of Alaska are seeking to dismiss a lawsuit after the state medical board adopted new regulations for abortions after the first trimester.

Attorneys for Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands and for the state jointly filed a motion asking a judge to dismiss the case brought by Planned Parenthood last year. They say the new regulations render the lawsuit moot.

The state medical board, prodded by the lawsuit, addressed provisions that Planned Parenthood challenged as outdated and unnecessary.

That included eliminating a requirement that two doctors weigh in when a woman wants an abortion after the first trimester.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A new six-year study on guns in Alaska shows the state has one of the top rates of gun deaths and injuries in the U.S.

The Juneau Empire reports the study was published on Wednesday by the Alaska Section of Epidemiology. It examined three statewide databases and found almost 1,500 people were injured or killed by firearms from the start of 2009 to the end of 2015.

Figures compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show Alaska’s firearm deaths is the second-highest in the country behind Montana.

Deborah Hull-Jilly, the public health expert who coordinated the study, says the main reason for gun deaths in Alaska is suicide. But the study left unclear whether the presence of firearms contributes to Alaska’s suicides, or if other factors are causing the high rate.

JUNEAU — A U.S. Supreme Court ruling stating juveniles cannot automatically be sentenced to life in prison without parole has not been an issue in Alaska.

Kaci Schroeder is an assistant attorney general with the Alaska Department of Law, and says the state does not have life without parole for juveniles.

She says that in talking with senior prosecutors and in her research, she could not find that there was ever such a sentence. She says Alaska appears to have consistently had definite terms of imprisonment.

Five years ago, the Supreme Court barred mandatory life-without-parole sentences for anyone younger than 18 convicted of murder. Last year, the court made its ruling retroactive, saying the more than 2,000 offenders serving such sentences must get a chance at resentencing. Many states are grappling with the issue.