“Approximately 685 voters have contacted the Division and stated they are citizens, despite the inconsistency with the DMV’s records,” - Carol Beecher, director of the Alaska Division of Elections, in a letter responding to questions from lawmakers
Reject stickers await ballot envelopes Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at the Division 1 office of the Alaska Division of Elections in Juneau, Alaska during counting for Alaska’s special U.S. House primary election. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
By James Brooks
More than 600 U.S. citizens were mistakenly flagged as possible noncitizens and removed from Alaska’s list of active voters earlier this year, the director of the Alaska Division of Elections said Thursday in a letter responding to questions from state lawmakers.
Those citizens were among 3,058 people removed from the list after the division compared its citizenship data to a separate set of records kept by the Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles.
The University of Alaska Southeast campus in Juneau is seen on May 7, 2026. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
By Corinne Smith
The University of Alaska Board of Regents unanimously approved a cut in the tuition rate for out-of-state students to create a standard tuition rate for all resident and nonresident students across campuses and degree types, beginning in fall 2027.
The board preliminarily approved the change at a special meeting on Tuesday. A final vote is expected in November.
University officials said the goal is to simplify students’ billing and attract more students to the University of Alaska.
Migrating salmon are seen in late 2011 in the waters of Western Alaska's Togiak National Wildlife Refuge. A bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate would enable the use of enevironmental DNA to help inform federal fishery science and management. Flakes from fish scales and other materials deposit eDNA into marine and freshwater systems.
By Yereth Rosen
Federal fishery managers would start analyzing the DNA collected in ocean waters to help inform their decisions, under a bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate, Alaska’s Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said on Thursday.
Called the Fisheries Science Modernization Act, the bill would set up a system for the use of environmental DNA, known as eDNA, in fishery management.
Gulls forage on the Norton Sound beach at Nome on Oct. 2, 2020. Norton Sound is part of the Northern Bering Sea. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
COMMENTARY
By Laureli Ivanoff, High Country News
In winter, Papa would stand at the north-facing window of his home, looking to the open sky and his neighbor’s sleeping garden. “Alapaa,” he would say: “It likes to be cold,” in Inupiaq. He was talking about Sila, the weather.
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Trump administration threatens to gut Head Start rules | States Newsroom
Commentary - A tale of Anatevka — and small town Alaska | Bruce Botelho
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