KTOO News Department

In this newscast:

• The Juneau School District is returning over $1 million earmarked for child care back to the city,
• The Alaska Department of Transportation has faced intense scrutiny in recent months over its plan to build a new ferry terminal between Juneau and Haines. Now, the agency is drawing fire from a panel of lawmakers charged with overseeing it,
• For the Alaska Survival Kit series, Alaska Public Media’s Wesley Early set out to learn how Alaskans can increase their chances of finding a date and falling in love,
• Alaska Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Carney highlighted efforts to reduce case backlogs and asked lawmakers to fund new judges and long-delayed courthouse maintenance during the annual State of the Judiciary address today

The head of Alaska’s court system is set to deliver the annual State of the Judiciary Address from the Capitol in Juneau at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

The Alaska Legislature has a tradition of inviting the Alaska Supreme Court’s chief justice to deliver an address each year during session. Chief Justice Susan Carney was appointed to the court in 2016 and became chief justice last year.

Watch Gavel Alaska coverage of Carney’s address live on KTOO 360TV or here, or listen on your local public radio station, including KTOO 104.3 FM and 91.7 FM in Juneau.

In this newscast:

• The Juneau Assembly approved more than $2 million worth of city funding to support four proposed affordable housing projects last night,
• As breweries in Alaska adjust to a legal ruling that allows them to have unlimited live shows, a different sort of industry is also celebrating: musicians,
• Tribal leaders from across the country spoke out today at a U.S. Senate hearing against possible changes within the Small Business Administration that supports Native entities,
• Sen. Lisa Murkowski returned from a three-day trip to Greenland Monday. She was the sole Republican among four senators who took the trip to try and repair the relationship with the Danish territory after President Trump’s repeated threats to acquire the island

In this newscast:

• Nineteen people have applied to be the Juneau school district’s next superintendent, according to search firm McPherson & Jacobson.
• Alaska’s largest professional theater indefinitely postponed a run of its show in Anchorage this spring due to financial concerns.
• The Juneau Assembly will vote Monday night on whether to approve $2.3 million worth of city funding to support five proposed affordable housing projects.
• Alaskan Dream Cruises, a Sitka-based cruise line, is closing its doors.
• After proposing to build a new cabin near Juneau’s Herbert Glacier, the U.S. Forest Service released a draft decision last month abandoning it.

In this newscast:

• The Juneau School Board will take public testimony tomorrow as it works on building out a budget,
• American Cruise Lines plans to expand in Alaska in the years to come. But that plan requires prized mooring space in harbors that are tight to begin with. In Haines, the company said it would pitch in to rebuild a public dock to solve that problem. Then, it backed out amid community pushback,
• Former Sitka state representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tompkins entered the race for governor this week,
• A round of vetoes by Gov. Mike Dunleavy last summer have Alaska’s construction industry on edge. Industry groups are pushing state lawmakers to quickly pass an appropriations bill that they say would unlock hundreds of millions of dollars in federal matching funds

 

In this newscast:

• A new play “These Birds: A play inspired by death, flowers, and Farkle” opened in Juneau last week,
• The Ketchikan Indian Community purchased a former resort north of town with the goal of converting it into an addiction healing center, but a handful of residents in the neighborhood expressed opposition for the project at a recent borough planning commission meeting,
• Marlene Johnson, a Lingit civil rights leader, died last week at the age of 90