Southcentral

It’s a Thursday morning in the multipurpose room of Soldotna’s Christ Lutheran Church, where a handful of quilters gather weekly to work on projects. Deborah Standefer fires up her sewing machine and stitches a blue, circular quilt.

But despite Standefer’s enthusiasm, there’s a palpable feeling of loss among the group. Just two traffic lights north on the Kenai Spur Highway, the Joann Fabric and Crafts store is hosting a going-out-of-business sale. The Soldotna location is set to close April 29.

Standefer says she mostly shops at Joann for its selection of quilt batting – or insulated material between the quilt top and backing fabric.

“You never truly miss them until they’re really gone,” Standefer said. “We all shop at Joann’s at some time or another, so I think it’s going to have a big impact.”

The Ohio-based nationwide retailer filed for bankruptcy last year amid financial troubles. It originally planned to close about two-thirds of its stores – like those in Anchorage and Juneau. But the company wasn’t able to find a buyer willing to keep any stores open.

For quilters on the Kenai Peninsula, there aren’t many other local options to turn to. One of them is North Beach Quilting in Kenai, which sells higher-end fabrics. It’s a lot smaller than Joann, but shop owner Shonda Powell says many established quilters in the area already shop there.

“I get my fabrics from like, they’re made in Bali or Indonesia,” Powell said. “So the stuff that I have is not something that you’re going to find at Joann Fabrics.”

Since the Soldotna Joann store announced its closure, Powell says she sees new customers every day. Some are looking for items her store doesn’t carry. Powell is hoping to expand the small shop’s inventory as much as possible.

But Powell says she’s sad that crafters will soon have fewer options on the Kenai Peninsula to choose from. She’s concerned that Joann’s closure will impact quilters on a budget and those new to the craft.

“I think that if somebody’s learning how to sew, this is not the place that they’d pick first,” Powell said.

Crafters say they shop at Joann’s because of the store’s breadth of inventory. Barbara Steckel is a long time member of Soldotna’s Thursday quilting group. She says she’s used to being able to find a wide range of items at Joann, like every shape and size of velcro.

“Well, it’s definitely going to have an impact, because when I’m working on something, I’m used to running in there and being able to find most of the supplies,” Steckel said.

Steckel is also involved with Stitches of Love, a local group that makes and donates quilts to those in need. Even though much of the group’s quilting material is donated, they buy a lot. And Steckel fears the store’s closing could make it hard to stay within their budget.

”We’ve been looking at other sources and looking at the prices,” Steckel said. “We’re not quite sure what the impact is going to be.”

For quilters on the Kenai Peninsula, Joann’s closure will affect more than just their quilting projects. Many also knit, paint or scrapbook, and are not sure where to go for their crafting supplies. Some say they’ll resort to Walmart or online retailers.

Standefer, with the Thursday Soldotna quilting group, says Joann is a landmark for Kenai Peninsula crafters. She says the store’s closure is a blow to the community.

“You go into Joann Fabric, and everybody in town’s there,” Standefer said. “It’s kind of a melting pot, you always see somebody that you know, and it’s just been there for a long time, so it’s kind of a highlight to the community.”

Standefer says crafters from across the Kenai Peninsula would visit the Soldotna store, and often make purchases at other local businesses. She’s concerned about how the chain’s closure will affect local employees and those who craft to make money.

The Chin’an Gaming Hall is in a doublewide trailer off the Birchwood exit on the outskirts of Anchorage, a far cry from a Las Vegas style casino, but there are often long lines of people waiting to get inside. Since it opened in January, its 85 electronic bingo machines stay busy.

This picture could change if the state is successful in its bid to shut down the gambling operation. Last Wednesday, the Alaska Attorney General asked a federal court in Washington, D.C. to issue a preliminary injunction against it.

This latest motion follows a lawsuit the state filed in February, after the federal government approved the project in the final days of the Biden administration.

The outgoing assistant secretary of Interior, Bryan Newland, gave the Eklutna Tribe final approval for the gambling operation on Jan. 16, one of his last acts before the Trump administration took the reins of power.

The tribe immediately went to work. In four-and-a-half days, it bolted together several modular buildings and opened its doors to limited gambling operations. The building, it said, was temporary and would eventually be replaced by a permanent gaming hall with about 700 machines and restaurants.

The project had been on the fast track since February 2024, when the U.S. Interior Department’s solicitor, Bob Anderson, issued a new opinion on the legal status of Native allotments in Alaska.

Anderson’s opinion upended previous court decisions on Native allotments in Alaska. He said under certain conditions Alaska tribes could operate gambling establishments, just as tribes do on Lower 48 Indian reservations.

After the new legal interpretation, the National Indian Gaming Commission and the Bureau of Indian Affairs green-lighted the Eklutna tribe’s proposed gaming hall. Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance also endorsed the project in her comments in a federal environmental review, despite a lawsuit filed by a group of neighboring property owners to block the gaming hall.

The neighbors claim it will change the rural character of their community and force them to pick up the costs of the new development, such as increased public safety services and road upgrades, because Native allotments are not subject to state and local taxes.

The tribe has promoted its gaming hall has a boon to the region, that could eventually bring 400 jobs and 70 million dollars in economic activity on an annual basis.

In a statement, Aaron Leggett, president of the Native Village of Eklutna, called this latest court filing against his tribe disheartening, a sign that Governor Mike Dunleavy is escalating his attack on tribal sovereignty.

“If Governor Dunleavy and Attorney General Treg Taylor are successful in their quest to preempt the Native Village of Eklutna’s tribal sovereignty and self-determination, it could mean an end to the Chin’an Gaming Hall and the permanent facility that the Tribe intends to develop,” Leggett said. “It will undoubtedly discourage other Tribes across our state in our communities.”

The Chin’an Gaming Hall sits on about eight acres of Native allotment land near the Birchwood Airport. Although it’s a tiny sliver of the 1.5. million acres of Native allotments in Alaska, it has become a huge test case for the state.

In a statement, Deputy Attorney General Cori Mills said the state’s jurisdiction over these lands is at stake.

“We are asking a court to reaffirm what it has already said—the State maintains primary jurisdiction over Alaska Native allotments. A solicitor’s opinion cannot convert them into Indian reservations,” Mills said. “We are asking for the court to make sure the issues can be resolved before further development occurs—we believe keeping the status quo best protects all parties involved. Once the litigation is completed, then everyone will know where their lane is.”

For now, the Native Village of Eklutna is staying in its lane and will continue to operate the gaming hall. The profits will be used to fund tribal health programs and create jobs for its members. Leggett said the tribe has struggled in the past to help its members but calls its gambling establishment an “incredible success.”

Two Alaska State Troopers facing assault charges over alleged conduct during their arrest of the wrong man in Kenai last year won’t go to trial until next February, after a judge pushed the trial date back Wednesday.

Former trooper Sgt. Joseph Miller Jr., 50, and Jason Woodruff, 43, each face a felony assault charge in Kenai Superior Court. The state charged the officers last summer after body-worn camera footage appeared to show them beating and Tasing as well as siccing a police dog on Benjamin Tikka near Kenai’s Daubenspeck Park last spring. Troopers later said they’d been attempting to arrest Tikka’s cousin, who shares the same last name, for failing to appear for a 10-day jail sentence.

Miller and Woodruff were initially charged with, and pleaded not guilty to, a misdemeanor assault. Then a Kenai grand jury upped those charges to felony assault, to which they also pleaded not guilty.

The troopers’ trial was originally scheduled for this June. But on Thursday, their lawyers asked for more time. Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews scheduled a pretrial check-in hearing for later this year, and a new tentative trial date of February 2026.

If the case goes to trial next February, it will be almost two years after the assault is alleged to have occurred.

“As you’re all aware, there’s certainly emphasis on trying to get all cases to trial,” Matthews said. “This one is not certainly the oldest one in the court system, but I’m sensitive to the right of the victim, to the desire to get these cases moving forward.”

Thursday’s hearing comes amid a statewide backlog of trial cases and lengthy pretrial delays. An investigation published earlier this year by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica found some cases delayed as long as a decade.

Shortly after, the Alaska Supreme Court put new limits on how long a criminal case can be postponed. The order takes effect May 12 and limits delays to 270 days for cases filed in or after 2022.

Darryl Thompson, who’s representing Tikka in the case, said during the hearing he’s not surprised the delay was requested.

“Well, we’ve been sad for the victim that he has to be out there even longer to get their day in court, to be heard and to have that justice be met,” Thompson said. “But as a defense attorney, I do understand that lots of things can happen.”

Clint Campion, Woodruff’s attorney, said in response to Thompson that he and his client spent three full days reviewing case material.

“This is not a matter where we haven’t been diligently working through discovery, but there’s a lot of material to discover,” Campion said. “It’s a relatively novel case for the state.”

Matthews says he hopes to set a firm trial date at the August hearing. Matthews is based in Anchorage. He was assigned the case after all of Kenai’s three superior court judges recused themselves from the case.

A trooper spokesperson said Wednesday via email that Miller is no longer employed by the state of Alaska. Woodruff is still employed by the state, but was taken out of service when the department learned about the Tikka arrest. The police dog deployed in the arrest is no longer with the department.

Miller and Woodruff’s lawyers each said Thursday they’re preparing motions to dismiss their clients’ respective indictments.

The state of Alaska has charged 10 U.S. nationals in the small community of Whittier with voter misconduct and perjury.

The charges say the defendants were born in American Samoa, which makes them nationals but not citizens. Alaska law allows only U.S. citizens to vote.

The case is sure to get attention, because non-citizen voting has become a hot-button issue nationally. President Trump has claimed, without evidence, that widespread voter fraud was a reason he lost the 2020 election.

The state began investigating the Whittier case in late 2023.

“There was an anonymous call that came to the Division of Elections about non-U.S. citizens that had registered to vote, who were voting,” said Alaska Deputy Attorney General John Skidmore.

The charges say all 10 defendants voted or tried to vote in Whittier City elections or for the regional school board. Some are also alleged to have at least tried to vote in primaries.

Mathew Pese, 32, is among the few alleged to have made an attempt, or actually voted in the 2020 general election. A Facebook account that appears to be his has a lot of religious posts and several that praise or celebrate Trump. He did not respond to a Facebook message for comment, nor did several other defendants Alaska Public Media attempted to contact through Facebook.

The charges say Pese told investigators that he remembered his wife had once said he couldn’t vote because he wasn’t a citizen. Other defendants said they thought they were allowed to vote in local elections but not for president, according to the charges.

Troopers investigated by looking at the list of all 288 registered voters in Whittier and determining which were born outside of U.S. states.

Skidmore said it’s important in any democracy to ensure that only eligible voters cast ballots.

“We’re not interested in anyone’s race, ethnicity, political background — none of that stuff matters,” Skidmore said. “We’re simply looking at the laws that say, ‘This is how you determine who is supposed to be voting. This is how you determine who isn’t.’ And when we get complaints of people that shouldn’t be voting, that’s what we look into and investigate and, where appropriate, file charges.

Every year the state gets a few allegations of illegal voting and has charged about five cases in as many years, Skidmore said.

“If you think about all of the folks across the state that vote in any given election, to have this few charges filed means by and large, it’s not something that we find happens,” Skidmore said. “Most of the investigations that we conduct result in determinations that charges are not appropriate to be filed. But in those cases where we do find sufficient evidence to say that crimes did occur, then we will file charges, as we have here.”

Each defendant has been charged with at least one perjury charge, a Class B felony that is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, though Skidmore said it was too early to know any conviction would result in jail time. The defendants have not been arrested but have summonses to appear in court.

Trump swept Whittier in the divisive 2020 election. He got 74 votes, more than twice the vote total of Joe Biden.

Star, an iconic reindeer who lived in downtown Anchorage, died Tuesday – weeks after he was possibly poisoned. Star was the seventh reindeer to live at the corner of 10th Avenue and I Street.

Star was euthanized Tuesday according to his owner Albert Whitehead.

“His health was so bad that he was not doing very well,” Whitehead said. “He was suffering.”

Star was a male reindeer who would’ve been eight next month, Whitehead said. On average, reindeer live around 15 years.

Star was the target of several alleged crimes earlier this year. In January, someone cut the lock to his enclosure. Whitehead said that person “did something to make him go off diet.” Star stopped eating for a while after that, he said, and started losing weight.

In February, the gate lock was cut again. The person, who hasn’t been identified by police, took Star out of his enclosure, which is attached to Whitehead’s house, and walked him downtown. The next day, Whitehead said he caught someone spraying an unknown substance into Star’s face and he later developed pneumonia.

He said he thought Star was recovering, but things took a turn.

“Suddenly he relapsed, and some other issues developed. So (I) really don’t know what caused him to die. The vets now are going through a necropsy with him, and we won’t have a result of that for a couple weeks,” he said.

Anchorage Police Department spokesman Christopher Barraza didn’t have any updates Wednesday on an investigation of the spraying incident.

Star was rescued from the reindeer farm in Palmer.

Having a reindeer living in downtown Anchorage is part of a longtime tradition started by a couple, Ivan and Oro Stewart, in the 1960s. When asked if the tradition would continue with an eighth reindeer, Whitehead said it’s a tough question.

“Would you be willing to put another animal into that enclosure, knowing there’s somebody out there that has doing this kind of stuff to him?” Whitehead questioned.

Whitehead called the reindeer “Star number seven.” All of the reindeer before him were females.

Spring is a busy time at Tyonek Grown, a community farm on the west side of Cook Inlet. Local students come to plant seeds, water them and then harvest organic fruits and vegetables.

This summer, the farm managers had even bigger plans. They wanted to set up a community food forest that would include Indigenous plants and fruit trees.

But the forest – and many more of Tyonek Grown’s plans – are now up in the air. That’s due to federal staff and funding cuts, said Laurie Stuart, the executive director for Tyonek Tribal Conservation District, which manages the farm.

“The loss of those funds in the coming years is going to have a big impact on the growth that we were building,” Stuart said. “The future of the garden is having to be rethought.”

In Alaska, nearly all produce is imported, which makes the food supply vulnerable, especially in rural areas. Some support for local producers comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is one of many agencies that are cutting employees and programs in response to Trump’s executive orders.

In recent weeks, the agency reinstated some of its terminated employees but then put them on administrative leave.

That’s the case for Amanda Compton, who lives in Palmer and works in the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. The program helps landowners – in Alaska, mainly tribes – to sustainably manage their natural resources. It’s helped villages set up fish passages, reindeer ranches and programs like Tyonek Grown.

That changed with the layoffs and disruptions, Compton said.

“We lost our entire team of people that are working to get Native communities greenhouses, our team that’s getting the Native entities fish passages,” Compton said. “We lost our entire team that communicates between the engineers and tribal entities.”

Tyonek, an off-the-road community of about 300 people, is about 40 miles southwest of Anchorage as the crow flies. Produce needs to be flown in, so fruits and vegetables grown at the Tyonek farm give locals a rare chance to enjoy affordable fresh food.

The USDA’s Forest Service, through the Arbor Day Foundation, awarded $900,000 to Tyonek Tribal Conservation District in December. The grant was meant to grow their team and set up a quarter-acre community food forest next to the farm that would promote food sovereignty and traditional ecological knowledge, Stuart said.

“It’s kind of a community, cultural harvesting space,” she said.

The Forest Service terminated the award, in an effort to comply with Trump’s objectives.

Another terminated USDA grant is the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. It’s meant to provide money to schools and food banks to buy produce from local farmers and fishermen, said Cayley Eller, Tyonek Grown’s programs manager.

“In Tyonek that meant that we were able to support our local farm operation and compensate the farm for the food that we’re growing and feed community members at low costs, as well as supporting local fishermen and supporting other tribal producers,” Eller said.

Overall, Tyonek Grown has funds to operate now, but the near future is uncertain.

“It’s a food security farm production space, and that means we’re not making a profit on our produce,” Eller said. “Our goal is to feed the community, and that means we’re heavily reliant on grant funds.”

Reindeer herders in limbo

Meanwhile, about 500 miles northwest, around Nome, reindeer herders are wondering about their future, too. Tribal liaisons used to help herders apply for grants and establish rotational grazing plans, said Nathan Baring, director of the Reindeer Herding Association, which provides technical assistance to herders in Bering Strait communities.

The Trump administration also halted a USDA grant meant to support Indigenous peoples’ animal harvests and help communities expand their meat processing, he said.

“Having all of that kind of just thrown either into the air or outright eliminated just simply means that we start over in terms of shopping those projects around again, which then further delays what I would describe as Alaska’s untapped potential in a pre-existing livestock industry,” Baring said.

Bonnie Suaŋa Scheele is an Iñupiaq reindeer herder at the Midnite Sun Reindeer Ranch near Nome. She said that for herders like her, interruptions in federal programs mean that it’s harder to find funds to build temporary housing for workers and corrals for holding animals.

Scheele said she should be at her ranch now, but she can’t be. She was counting on another frozen grant — this one from the Bureau of Indian Affairs — to help pay for upgrading her power source.

Despite the challenges, Scheele said herders will figure out a way to continue the practice, even if it means providing food for just their villages instead of expanding their operations.

“We’ll overcome it. We’ll figure it out,” she said. “It’s going to come back around, and we’re still, we’re still here, we’re still herding reindeer. We’re still providing for communities.”