Top Stories

News stories, radio and TV episodes that warrant one of six spots on our homepage. The homepage is in chronological order of publication date, so stories are moved off the homepage as more are categorized “top stories.”

Alaska state government forecasts lower revenue for this year and next

The Alaska Department of Revenue forecasts $187.3 million less in state revenue this year than it did in the spring.

Kaktovik man agrees to plead guilty to illegal polar bear harvest, faces 4 months in prison

Chris Gordon will accept a maximum prison sentence of four months and a $4,500 fine, according to a plea agreement filed Friday that was signed by his attorney and federal prosecutors.

A soldier tried to buy a motorcycle in Anchorage. His lawyer says he was targeted by a ‘yo-yo scam’

A civil case in state Superior Court highlights one of the ways experts say members of the military are highly susceptible to fraud.
A silver sign that says "The Pebble Partnership"

Pebble’s owner reports growing deficit and doubts about its future. Again.

A spokesman says Pebble remains confident. The parent company says it's lost $40 million so far this year, and has a deficit over $400 million.

Nine hospitalized after Coast Guard and Navy vessels collide near Kodiak

Six Coast Guard servicemembers and three U.S. Navy sailors were transported by emergency medical services personnel and hospitalized in Kodiak on Wednesday evening after a Coast Guard and Navy vessel collision.

Victim testifies she was ‘livid’ Anchorage dentist pulled her tooth while on hoverboard

State prosecutors say Seth Lookhart, 34, unnecessarily sedated patients so he could bill Medicaid for more money. They say Lookhart's billings amounted to nearly a third of all Medicaid billing for dental sedation in Alaska in 2016.

PHOTOS: SNOW in Anchorage! (But maybe not for long, the Weather Service says)

Anchorage residents enjoyed outdoor activities in early December as the city finally received a long awaited blanketing of snow.

Gov. Jay Inslee appoints first Native American to Washington Supreme Court

Whatcom County Superior Court Judge Raquel Montoya-Lewis, 51, who is an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Isleta tribe of New Mexico, will replace Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst when she retires in January.
A musher goes into a village.

Iditarod 2020 roster stocked with past champions, but Dallas Seavey is absent

Fifty-eight mushers are signed up for the upcoming Iditarod race, including six previous champions and many more top teams.

Anchorage schools pioneered a new learning model focused on how kids feel and interact. Is it working?

For decades, ASD has implemented a set of standards designed to foster social and emotional learning in the classroom. As similar frameworks have caught on, academics are looking to Anchorage as a model.

Trump’s nominee for US court in Alaska gets low marks from state Bar but has youth on his side

Josh Kindred was rated 16th out of 20 candidates. In choosing him, Trump veered from the process Alaska's senators normally employ to ensure a merit-based selection.

For Alaska Native cultural tour guides, the job is to carry the weight of the world

What's it like to explain your Tlingit culture to tourists? Ask John Lawrence.

A Dillingham reporter is speaking out after finding a hidden camera in her room

Former KDLG reporter Sage Smiley is speaking out about indecent and illegal behavior by a host she was staying with over the summer to cover the Bristol Bay fishery.

State settles lawsuit over Alaska Hire law

The administration of Gov. Mike Dunleavy has settled a lawsuit seeking to have the Alaska Hire law declared unconstitutional. The company Colaska Inc. sued the state’s Department of Labor...

Hilcorp paid a $25,000 fine after a worker died last year on its North Slope drilling rig

Shawn Huber, 36, died at the Milne Point field when a drilling rig’s operator accidentally opened a set of hydraulic jaws and dropped a 700-pound, 31-foot section of drilling pipe that struck Huber in the head. The operator was distracted, according to the investigation, because he was training a colleague.

As reported Delta-area mountain lion sightings increase, wildlife managers search for evidence

Officials have confirmed the presence of mountain lions in Southeast Alaska, but have yet to substantiate reports of animals roaming further north.
People waitiing in line at a counter at the PFD office

New legal filings: Seven were denied PFDs based on Alaska’s defunct same-sex marriage law

The assertion comes from an anonymous state worker quoted in an ongoing lawsuit filed by a woman in a same-sex marriage with a member of the military stationed outside the state, who says she was unlawfully denied her 2019 PFD.

The Supreme Court is raising doubts about Alaska’s $500-a-year limit on contributions to political candidates

The Supreme Court is raising doubts about Alaska's $500-a-year limit on contributions to political candidates. The justices are ordering a lower court to take a new look at the issue. The court says in an unsigned opinion Monday that federal judges who had rejected a challenge to the contribution cap did not take account of a 2006 high court ruling invalidating low-dollar limits on political contributions in Vermont.

Battered by a marine heatwave, Kodiak’s cod fishermen may not be fishing in the Gulf for much longer

They’re now below the federal threshold that protects cod as a food source for endangered Stellar sea lions. As soon as the population dips below that line, the fishery closes. The whole federal cod fishery in the Gulf could be shut down for the season in January.
The ConocoPhillips building in downtown Anchorage.

For sale: A stake in an array of ConocoPhillips’ Alaska projects

On the block are old, new and unbuilt projects: the Kuparuk River Unit, which is Alaska’s second-largest oil-field; the newer Alpine unit to the west; and the undeveloped Willow prospect in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.