Recent News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Greenhouses have long been an option for increasing the limited growing season in Alaska, but they’re too expensive to operate for many remote communities that rely on costly imported diesel fuel for their power source.

Now the state has released a handbook that shows schools and community groups how to build greenhouses heated with a plentiful local resource: wood.

The new 98-page guide notes successes in the fledgling movement by several schools.

Officials say the biomass boilers used for the greenhouses are unlike the inefficient wood-burning stoves and outdoor boilers that have created a huge pollution problem in Fairbanks. They say the greenhouse equipment is far more efficient, burning most of the pollution that otherwise would go into the atmosphere.

The guide was funded by federal and state grants totaling $150,000. It involved input from multiple entities, including those with successful projects of their own.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Earthquake Center reports that a magnitude 4.9 earthquake hit part of the Aleutian Islands chain.

The center says the quake struck about 12:43 p.m. Saturday Alaska time in the Fox Islands region of the Aleutians. The epicenter was 69 miles (110 kilometers) east of the Amukta Pass.

The quake had a depth of about 7 miles (11 kilometers.)

There are no reports of damage from the earthquake.

The National Tsunami Warning Center says there is no tsunami danger from this earthquake for Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and the Canadian province of British Columbia.

KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) — A recently approved U.S. Senate bill secures a long-awaited land trade.

The Ketchikan Daily News reports the $1.1 spending bill approved by the Senate Thursday will permit a land trade between the U.S. Forest Service and the Alaska Mental Health Trust. The bill is heading to President Donald Trump’s desk for final signature.

The land trade has been an ongoing effort by the Mental Health Trust Authority Board, who use land proceeds to fund the state’s mental health services. Last summer, the board threatened to pursue timber sales on Deer Mountain and lands in Petersburg if the trade was not approved by Jan. 15. Ketchikan residents pushed back against the threats.

The bill also secures funding for gauges to monitor water quality in transboundary rivers and the Forest Service’s recreational process for special use permits.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Organizers of Alaska’s favorite guessing contest say 42 winning tickets will split this year’s $267,444 jackpot.

Nenana Ice Classic manager Cherrie Forness says tickets represent correct guesses on when the ice on the Tanana River moved.

The ice went out at 1 p.m. Monday. For contest purposes, that means the official correct guess was 12 p.m. Alaska Standard Time.

Each of the winning tickets is valued at $6,367.71. The amount pocketed is $4,584.75 after 28 percent is withheld for the Internal Revenue Service.

Forness says some winning tickets represent pools of people, so individual winnings are smaller for them.

Thousands of people pay $2.50 per guess. The winning time is determined when a cable attached to a tripod on the river ice trips a clock on shore.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Interior Department has released a list of 27 national monuments it is reviewing under a presidential order, including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah and Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine.

A list released Friday includes 22 monuments on federal land in 11 states and five marine monuments in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The review includes a huge reserve in Hawaii established in 2006 and expanded by President Barack Obama.

The reviews were expected under an executive order issued last month by President Donald Trump, but the White House had not released a list of specific projects.

Trump’s April 26 order could upend protections put in place under a 1906 law that authorizes the president to declare federal lands and waters as monuments and restrict their use.

TYONEK, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Earthquake Center says a magnitude 3.3 earthquake hit a peninsula in the southern part of the state.

The center says the earthquake struck the Kenai Peninsula region at 1:32 p.m. Sunday. Its epicenter was 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Tyonek, a coastal village of about 200 people.

The center says the earthquake, which had a depth of 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) was also felt in Soldotna, Anchorage and Homer.

There are no reports of damage.

The Center also reports that at 3:04 a.m. Sunday, a magnitude 3.8 earthquake hit the Kodiak Island region.

The earthquake had a depth of about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers), and its epicenter was 17 miles (28 kilometers) west of Karluk, a coastal village of about 40 residents.