Northwest

Newtok residents still waiting for federal government to pay for their village relocation.

The biggest local internet service provider in northern Alaska expects high demand for the broadband connections. It’ll be offering the service early next year.

State budget director Pat Pitney warned that shorting the Kivalina school project could reopen lawsuits about inequalities in rural school funding.

The Department of Energy awarded federal funding to install panels in Kotzebue, Buckland and Deering, but decreasing the region’s dependency on diesel is easier said than done.

In the Northwest Arctic, caribou hunting has been contentious for years. Alaska’s largest herd continues to decline while tensions have emerged between rural subsistence users and outside hunters.

Because the state government has a $4 billion deficit, some lawmakers have suggested drawing money from the fund to pay for other state costs.