Two federal appeals courts have upheld state bans on “sex-change” procedures for minors, finding that such laws do not violate parents’ constitutional rights.
On Tuesday, the full Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, in an 8-2 decision, reversed a lower court injunction that had blocked enforcement of Arkansas’ ban on gender transition procedures for those under 18. The ruling allows the state to enforce the law, which prohibits puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions for minors. The court held that it does not discriminate based on sex or transgender status, relying heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Tennessee’s comparable law, United States v. Skrmetti.
The opinion, authored by Judge Duane Benton, noted: “This court finds no such right in this Nation’s history and tradition” when discussing whether parents have a constitutional right to obtain medical treatment that the state deems inappropriate.
The decision comes just after the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a similar ban in Oklahoma on Aug. 6. In both cases, the courts rejected arguments that the laws unlawfully interfere with parental authority over children’s medical care.
The Eighth Circuit’s ruling is important in that it overturned a 2023 district court decision that had blocked Arkansas’ law on constitutional grounds. With two appellate courts now siding with the states, the issue could be on track for consideration by the US Supreme Court, especially as other states’ laws face ongoing challenges in lower courts.
Fire season in Alaska is winding down, bringing cooler nights, shorter days, and a noticeable decrease in wildfire activity across the state. On Tuesday, the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center lowered the Alaska Preparedness Level from 2 to 1, the lowest designation, due to reduced fire danger and resource demand. Preparedness levels range from 1 to 5, with 5 representing the most severe conditions.
So far in the 2025 fire season, Alaska has recorded 420 wildfires that have burned roughly 995,000 acres statewide. Of the 168 fires still active, 11 have been declared “out” in the past two days.
The slowdown is largely due to abundant recent rainfall, which has dampened fuels and eased wildfire conditions. Shorter daylight hours, cooler temperatures, and stronger overnight moisture recovery are expected to keep the trend going. Overnight lows dipped into the 30s in the Interior this week, with Salcha recording temperatures in the high 20s.
While Alaska’s fire threat has eased, the national fire season is going strong. The National Preparedness Level is currently at 4, prompting Alaska’s wildland fire agencies to send some crews to assist firefighting efforts in the Lower 48. Officials say they will maintain sufficient crews and aircraft in-state to handle any new incidents, especially in eastern Alaska, where dry conditions persist.
The Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Protection said burn permits remain required for any open burning on state, private, and municipal lands through the end of August. This includes burning brush piles, using burn barrels, agricultural burning, and lawn maintenance burns. Permits and information on local restrictions are available at dnr.alaska.gov/burn.
In a Times Radio interview, Alaska State Sen. Bill Wielechowski, an Anchorage Democrat, painted a picture for the audience of an Alaska that bears little resemblance to the one that is revealed in recent election results.
He told the British audience that “Alaskans do not like Trump” — a statement the interviewer did not question, even though Donald Trump won Alaska in November by 54.5% of the vote, avoiding the ranked-choice runoff entirely. Kamala Harris received 41.4% of the vote, meaning Trump won by an over 13% margin. He outperformed his national election results of 49.9% by over 5.5% in Alaska.
Asked about the “Stand Up Alaska” protest planned for the summit, Wielechowski said he expects a large protest and he described the state as “politically… a purple state” with a “Republican leaning” but “a little more Democratic in recent years.” He pointed to the bipartisan state legislature and claimed, “the one thing we all agree on… is that we do not support the Russian aggression in Ukraine.”
He predicted the demonstration would be “large by Alaska standards,” citing anger over Russia’s invasion and over “a lot of things [Trump] has done,” including alleged losses of health care for “tens of thousands” of Alaskans and the removal of “hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable energy projects.” None of these claims were challenged by the interviewer, who threw the senator softball questions. Wielechowski wore his IBEW union-label golf shirt.
The Times also allowed Wielechowski to venture into what some listeners might consider the absurd: When asked if he thought Putin might try to take Alaska back, the senator replied that Alaskans are “well-armed” and would “fight aggression” — as though hunting rifles might go up against a Russian MiG firing missiles.
Not mentioned in the broadcast was the fact that Democrats make up only a small fraction of Alaska’s registered voters, and Wielechowski’s political views represent a clear minority in the state. Only 12% of registered Alaska voters are members of the Alaska Democratic Party. Yet, in the Times of London’s telling, Wielechowski was the voice of Alaska.
Alaskans can expect more of this as the global media focuses on Alaska in advance of Friday’s summit between Trump and Putin, which is expected to be at JBER. Alaskans can expect this type of spin to continue at warp speed this week.
According to CNN, American officials scrambling to secure a venue for Friday’s summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin quickly ran into a distinctly Alaskan problem: summer tourism season.
With hotels, conference centers, and other suitable venues packed with visitors, options both available and capable of hosting two world leaders were scarce.
When word spread among prominent Alaskans that Trump and Putin were headed north, a few began reaching out to the president’s allies with an unconventional offer: their homes. It remains unclear whether those suggestions ever reached White House staff.
White House advance teams reportedly contacted sites in Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks, but summit organizers soon concluded that only Anchorage could meet the logistical and security requirements.
Ultimately, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, on the city’s northern edge, emerged as the sole viable location, CNN reported. The choice, however, came with optics the White House had hoped to avoid — hosting the Russian leader on a US military base.
This is the first meeting between a US and Russian president in more than four years. US and Russian officials are still finalizing details, with both sides working quickly to prepare for the high-profile encounter. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke Tuesday to discuss “certain aspects of preparation,” according to Russia’s foreign ministry.
Traditionally, such high-stakes meetings takes months of preparation and haggling over venues and agendas. But this is Trump style: He said he wants to have more of a “feel out” session without expectations. The White House on Tuesday called it a “listening session.”
“The president feels like, ‘Look, I’ve got to look at this guy across the table. I need to see him face to face. I need to hear him one-on-one. I need to make an assessment by looking at him,’” Rubio told radio host Sid Rosenberg, noting that Trump’s five phone calls with Putin this year weren’t enough to gauge the Russian leader’s intentions.
A Temporary Flight Restriction was declared for Anchorage area on Friday, which will greatly impact the movement of smaller non-commercial planes. That story is below:
The Federal Aviation Administration has declared a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) for Anchorage on Friday, coinciding with the expected arrival of President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In an alert issued this week, the FAA advised that pilots should anticipate multiple Notices to Air Missions (NOTAMs) on the day of the visit. The agency cautioned aviators not to transmit transponder codes — or “squawk” — within the restricted airspace during the TFR’s active period.
While exact details of the restriction have not been released publicly, such airspace closures are standard protocol for presidential travel and high-security events. The TFR is expected to cover key approach and departure corridors for Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport and surrounding airspace, including Merrill Field and Lake Hood.
Security preparations have been intensifying in Anchorage this week, with law enforcement, federal agencies, and aviation authorities coordinating ahead of the high-profile meeting between the two world leaders.
The notification from the FAA advised that in the past in Anchorage, there have been multiple violations of TFRs. Pilots planning to fly in the region should check the latest notifications with FAA.
Pilots are urged to check for updated NOTAMs before operating in or near Anchorage airspace on Friday.
Last Wednesday, the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation hosted its annual economic summit. Downtown denizens of Los Anchorage watched more than a thousand attendees navigate convention center chicken as number-crunchers told the tale of Alaska’s largest city and its economic fortunes.
And right on cue, the city’s newspaper of record was there — not to capture the real story, but to run its usual filtered version, where every chart and forecast is bent just enough to fit the preferred “Trump bad, tariffs worse” storyline.
This gathering is the closest most residents will get to a Federal Reserve meeting on interest rates, complete with politicians of every stripe in the audience, eager to divine their next-year talking points from whatever wisdom is dispensed in that hour and a half.
Amid the packed agenda, economists from McKinley Research walked through the key elements of the local economy and offered a two-year outlook. The local daily newspaper’s coverage was predictable: a headline focus on the impact of tariffs (bad!), framed as an impending cascade of doom because … Trump bad.
That narrative had two problems. First, the economists didn’t say that. They acknowledged that an America-first trade policy could ripple through various sectors, but they weren’t wringing their hands. Second, and far more important, the newspaper entirely missed the economists’ loudest point: oil remains a pillar of Anchorage’s economy.
Payrolls tied to large-scale projects like Santos’ Pikka development and ConocoPhillips’ Willow project are delivering meaningful, positive impacts in Southcentral Alaska. And that’s just the visible part. McKinley’s economists admitted there are data gaps—the spending power of slope workers, including the many Alaska-based Hilcorp employees at Prudhoe Bay, doesn’t even show up in Anchorage job counts.
Omitting that story is unsurprising, but still disappointing. These projects, and the thousands of Anchorage jobs they support, wouldn’t exist without a pivotal choice made more than a decade ago. Then-Gov. Sean Parnell and a Republican majority — back when they acted like a team — overhauled Alaska’s Soviet-style oil tax system, paving the way for new investment. The goal was simple but strategic: Don’t punish producers when prices are high; instead, incentivize more production.
To their credit, McKinley’s economists brought the data showing the results: Production increases over the past decade, achieved despite oil price collapses, hostile federal administrations on both sides of Trump’s tenure, and endless environmental lawsuits designed to stall development. Against those headwinds, Alaska’s private sector has delivered engineering marvels on the Arctic coast.
Every new American barrel of oil forces Russia, Iran, and other adversaries to compete harder. This kind of economic competition, which makes critical supplies available to the free world, is a direct result of the pro-growth vision embraced by Republicans when they still believed in markets, business, and workers.
As our president prepares to meet his Russian counterpart in Alaska this week, it’s worth remembering that much of our state’s viability flows through a 48-inch steel pipeline, built and maintained by people scorned by the very groups who never hesitate to cash the checks its revenues fund.
Suzanne Downing is the founder of Must Read Alaska and serves as editor.
It’s “Go” time for hundreds of residents in the Mendenhall Valley in Juneau. The Mendenhall River is about to spill over its banks, as the ice and water held behind an ice dam at Suicide Basin has broken.
Already, the river was elevated and was currently in “Minor Flood Stage,” due to heavy rainfall from the previous three days. The Mendenhall River was expected to crest through Tuesday morning, before falling out of Flood Stage through Tuesday afternoon and into Wednesday, but now that the ice dam has broken, residents are being advised to take immediate measures if they live in the historic flood zone. A crest is expected around Wednesday afternoon near record levels of somewhere between 16.3 and 16.8 feet, according to the National Weather Service.
The non-emergency public flood information hotline will be staffed by trained volunteers, and will provide the latest information about sheltering, transportation, current conditions, and other questions residents may have as they prepare for an evacuation alert.
On Monday, City and Borough of Juneau staff and volunteers began distributing evacuation preparation notices to all homes in the potential flood inundation area. The notice includes shelter information, basic steps for protecting property, the flood information hotline number, and a link to Juneau’s flood readiness website at bit.ly/JuneauFloodReady.
Flood areas of the Mendenhall Valley.
Flooding expected late Tuesday through Wednesday. Officials are urging residents in the 17-foot lake level inundation zone to evacuate immediately and remain out of the area until an official “All Clear” is issued.
Officials warn that the flood threat is significant, at the “warning” level, and residents should check whether their homes or businesses are in the inundation zone using the 17-foot Mendenhall Lake map at JuneauFlood.com.
A Red Cross emergency shelter is open at Floyd Dryden Gymnasium, 3800 Mendenhall Loop Road. Pets cannot be housed there, but evacuees can contact Juneau Animal Rescue at (907) 789-6997 for pet sheltering assistance.
North of Division Street: Travel north on Riverside Drive toward Mendenhall Loop Road and out of the inundation area.
South of Division Street: Travel south on Riverside Drive, turn left on Stephen Richards Memorial Drive toward Mendenhall Loop Road.
Rivercourt Way: Travel south on Riverside Drive toward Egan Drive.
West side of Mendenhall River: Travel west on Mendenhall Loop Road toward Auke Bay, avoiding Back Loop Bridge.
West of Brotherhood Bridge: Travel west on Glacier Highway toward Auke Bay.
Residents are being urged to avoid the Mendenhall River entirely during the flood warning. Approaching the river can endanger lives and interfere with evacuation and emergency operations, the city advised.
Live camera feeds of the river and updated safety information can be found at bit.ly/JuneauFloodReady.
For non-emergency questions, call the Flood Information Hotline at (907) 500-0890. For emergencies, dial 911.
Changes could be on the horizon for pilots flying in and out of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, as the Federal Aviation Administration begins taking public input on a proposal to redraw Class C airspace in the Anchorage area. The changes are expected to be significant in the Anchorage bowl. Pilots will need to do their homework because the patterns will change.
The Federal Aviation Administration will hold two virtual public meetings in September to gather feedback on a proposal to amend Class C airspace at Ted Stevens.
The meetings, set for Sept. 23-24, will air the traffic challenges that may come when the Air Force’s 3rd Wing at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson extends runway 16/34 by 2,500 feet and installs an Instrument Landing System, with plans to make it the primary arrival runway.
FAA studies have found that while the upgrades would enhance safety and operational efficiency, they could also cause delays across the region’s airports, including Ted Stevens International, Merrill Field, and Elmendorf.
To mitigate potential impacts, the FAA is reviewing possible redesigns of local airspace and flight procedures. This includes evaluating instrument approaches, air traffic flows, and classifications for Class C and D airspace, as well as special Anchorage Terminal Area flight rules.
Class C airspace is a type of controlled airspace established around airports with moderate traffic levels, such as Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, to manage air traffic and ensure safety. It is designed to handle a mix of commercial, general aviation, and sometimes military operations, with specific rules to regulate aircraft movement.
Class D airspace is a type of controlled airspace surrounding airports with an operational control tower but typically lower traffic volume than those with Class B or Class C airspace, such as smaller regional or general aviation airports. It is designed to manage air traffic and ensure safety in the vicinity of these airports. Merrill Field is considered Class D. Lake Hood, the world’s busiest seaplane base, shares a control tower with ANC but operates its own Class D airspace for seaplane and general aviation operations. Its airspace extends from the surface to a similar altitude as Merrill Field’s, with a radius tailored to its operations.
An Ad Hoc Committee led by the Alaska Department of Transportation has helped shape proposed redesigns. Those designs have been shared first through the committee process, with the public’s initial opportunity for feedback coming at the airspace meetings.
Proposed changes to air space in Anchorage.
Meeting attendees will be able to present comments, ask questions, and submit written materials. Both sessions will be recorded and made available on the FAA’s YouTube channel.
Comments can be sent to: Byron G. Chew, FAA Western Service Center, 2200 S. 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198, or by email to [email protected] (subject line: “ANC Class C”).
A pair of men resembling Secret Service agents were spotted Monday surveying rooftops, cameras, and vantage points in downtown Anchorage, likely scoping out sniper stations and security hazards ahead of this Friday’s historic meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The summit, expected to take place Friday, aims to chart a potential path toward peace in Ukraine. Security preparations are intensifying, with federal teams expected to occupy strategic positions on buildings and parking garages in the days ahead.
But as the security operation ramps up, Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s administration appears to have made no visible headway in clearing downtown streets of homeless encampments, which present their own hazards.
On Tuesday morning, as on countless mornings before, vagrants could be seen sleeping on sidewalks throughout the city’s core, along the same routes where international journalists, dignitaries, and diplomats will walk this week. Not to mention the Alaska protesters who don’t want peace, as well as protest organizers who will be flown in from out of state.
In advance of a presidential visit, it’s normal for the Secret Service to have meetings with state and municipal officials. Thus, it’s likely that LaFrance has been contacted by the president’s security detail and that requests have been made to secure the downtown area. The Secret Service will also have been working with the Anchorage Police, Alaska State Troopers, and the Governor’s Office.
One particularly stark scene was seen early Tuesday morning by the the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center, where a man sat on an orange mat beside a charred patch of pavement, evidence of a fire set directly on the sidewalk. Behind him, shopping carts piled with personal belongings stood parked near flower planters. The street people of Anchorage are using the planters for mattresses and toilets.
Must Read Alaska’s Tuesday morning photo tour shows that Anchorage has not figured out where to put all the bodies:
Egan Center entryway.
Visitors center.
Hotels are filling up fast — one night at the Hilton Garden Inn in midtown will set you back $783 on Friday — but there’ just one room left. Friday night at the Home2 Suites by Hilton in midtown is going for $987.
The high-level summit, which is presumed to be in Anchorage and not at some other location in Alaska, is expected to draw global attention, but for now, the most visible reality on the streets is not the arrival of world leaders, it’s the entrenched human crisis that greets visitors at every corner every hour of the day.
