Alaska

University Of Alaska Readies For Budget Slash: 'We May Likely Never Recover'

6:44pm July 03, 2019

by Josh Axelrod

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy slashed $130 million, or 41%, from the budget of a university system that serves more than 26,000 students. Layoffs, elimination of programs and campus closures are likely.

Queue Listen Now

A reindeer calf scratches its head with its hoof. Their ability to move their bodies into extreme positions was one of the reasons owner Jane Atkinson thought that reindeer would be a good fit for a yoga class.

Sports

Move Over, Goat Yoga. Alaskans Now Have Reindeer Yoga

2:16pm June 22, 2019

by Ravenna Koenig

A ranch in Fairbanks, Alaska, offers yoga classes with reindeer. An owner says the animals are particularly well-suited to it because they are twisty creatures.

Queue Listen Now

A dead whale at the mouth of the Placer River, at the eastern end of the Turnagain Arm, near Anchorage, Alaska. The deaths of at least 60 whales along the Pacific Coast this year have scientists concerned and looking for answers.

National

Why Are Gray Whales Dying? Researchers Cut Through The Blubber For Answers

5:10pm June 01, 2019

by Nat Herz

More than 60 dead gray whales have washed up on Pacific coasts this year, the most in two decades. Researchers are trying to determine whether their food source is a problem, or climate change.

Fishing boats sit in the harbor in Homer, Alaska. Women make up about 15% of commercial fishermen, and say sexual harassment is all too common.

National

'Get Off The Boat' — Women In Commercial Fishing Industry Fight Sexual Harassment

8:12am May 18, 2019

by Renee Gross

Women make up roughly 15% of Alaska's commercial fishing industry, and sexual harassment is part of the job. Being on a boat for weeks at a time makes harassment hard to escape.

National

Tourist Seaplanes Collide In Alaska, Killing At Least 4

9:12am May 14, 2019

by Laurel Wamsley

The planes both carried tourists from the cruise ship Royal Princess on sightseeing trips. Preliminary reports indicate a mid-air collision, the Coast Guard said.

Robert Melovidov, a tribal council member, holds up fur seal meat that he's preparing to cook in his home on St. Paul Island.

National

U.S. May Ease Rules Restricting Alaska Natives From Harvesting Seal Meat

2:19pm May 07, 2019

by Nathaniel Herz

For decades, the government stood between the Unangan people and the fur seals they subsist on. But as the seal population declines, the proposed revisions now face opposition from the Humane Society.

The 10,000 year old mammoth tusk at the Campbell Creek Science Center in Anchorage before it was stolen.

Environment

Tusk Luck: Alaska Man Sentenced To Federal Prison For Stealing Mammoth Fossil

9:58am April 12, 2019

by Cat Schuknecht

An Alaska man and his co-conspirator took a fossilized tusk from a Bureau of Land Management museum. Then, they cut it up and sold off the pieces.

The moon hangs low in the sky over the remote Inupiat Eskimo village of Noorvik, Alaska, the first community in the U.S. counted for the 2010 census.

National

Why The U.S. Census Starts In Alaska's Most Remote, Rural Villages

5:00am January 21, 2019

by Hansi Lo Wang

The 2020 census is set to begin in Toksook Bay, Alaska, continuing the tradition of counting the most remote parts of the most northern state before the rest of the U.S.

Environment

A Mountaineer Writes A Firsthand Report From The World's Melting Glaciers

8:02am January 20, 2019

by Lulu Garcia-Navarro

NPR's Lulu Garcia Navarro speaks with journalist Dahr Jamail about his new book, "The End of Ice," on climate change and its consequences to nature and humans.

After an earthquake on Friday, a car is trapped in a crumbled section of an off-ramp from Minnesota Drive, a major road in Anchorage, Alaska.

National

Magnitude 7.0 Earthquake Shakes Alaska, Damaging Roads, Buildings

6:53pm November 30, 2018

by Camila Domonoske

The earthquake, with its epicenter just a few miles off Anchorage, has been followed by a series of aftershocks. The Trans Alaska Pipeline System has been shut down.