A 7.3 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Sand Point rattled communities across southwestern Alaska on Wednesday, triggering tsunami warnings, evacuations, and a flurry of political grassroots efforts on the topic of the public broadcasting.
The earthquake, which struck at 12:37 pm about 54 miles south of Sand Point, prompted a tsunami warning stretching from Kennedy Entrance to Unimak Pass, including Sand Point, Cold Bay, Kodiak, and the Homer Spit. By 1:50 pm, the National Tsunami Warning Center had downgraded the warning to an advisory after detecting small tsunami waves, none of which were expected to cause significant flooding.
Although no serious damage was reported and the situation quickly stabilized, the alert lit up social media in a different way.
As people grabbed their go-bags and headed for higher ground, a few turned to their phones not just for evacuation information, but to push a social media post for federal public broadcasting funding. Volunteer KMXT Kodiak radio host Mike Sirofchuck was among those who seized the moment, posting on Facebook during the warning:
“Right now is an excellent time to call Dan Sullivan and reminde [sic] him why public radio is an essential service in our community,” he wrote. “7.3 earthquake in Sand Point; Tsunami Warning issued. KMxT broadcasting up to the date essential information.”
Sirofchuck, who is often seen trolling Republican lawmakers, included the Capitol switchboard number and urged followers to contact Alaska’s Sen. Dan Sullivan to support continued federal funding for public broadcasting. The rescissions vote-a-rama was already underway in the Capitol at the time of the tsunami.
Yet, the irony was hard to miss: Most Alaskans learned of the tsunami alert not through the radio waves, but through automatic alerts sent directly to their mobile phones. Emergency text messages, part of the wireless emergency alert system, reached residents in affected areas within minutes of the earthquake.
In Homer, the mayor issued an “all clear” shortly after 2 pm, while Anchorage remained outside the warning zone altogether. People were advised to stay away from beaches and docks as a precaution, with reports of small waves and light currents but no widespread damage.
The incident reignited a perennial debate in Alaska, where rural communities embrace public radio, but residents everywhere increasingly depend on smartphones for emergency updates on weather, earthquakes, road closures, and even tsunamis.
With congressional votes underway to slash federal public broadcasting dollars, Wednesday’s tsunami warning became an unexpected and momentary rallying cry for supporters of local radio, whether or not they were tuned in when the alert came.
No further tsunami threats are anticipated, according to the National Tsunami Warning Center.
Congressman Nick Begich of Alaska announced a blockbuster campaign fundraising total of over $800,000 in the second quarter of 2025, setting a new record for off-year fundraising by any US House candidate or incumbent in Alaska history.
With more than $1.25 million cash on hand, Begich’s campaign now holds a financial edge that surpasses benchmarks set by former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who posted monstrous political cash hauls in her previous election cycle.
The second-quarter total for April through June 2025 more than doubles Begich’s own second-quarter performance from just a year ago, when he raised $311,000 during the 2024 race, in which he unseated Peltola, despite being outspent by her by more than 427.5%.
The second quarter in 2024 had been Begich’s best of the election cycle at the time, with a 44% increase over his first-quarter 2024 figures. Now, his 2025 pace is breaking new ground for Alaska’s US House races, and even he may have a hard time topping that during the third quarter, now underway.
Begich also set a first-quarter record earlier this year.
In stark contrast, Peltola raised $375,000 in the first quarter of 2023 and reported lower cash on hand in the second quarter of 2023 than Begich currently holds in the corresponding non-election year quarter.
Even more impressive is how his campaign has done compared with his peers in Congress. Based on the 2023–2024 cycle data, the average House candidate raised around $100,000–$150,000 in the second quarter of off-year 2023, with incumbents in competitive races raising closer to $200,000–$300,000. Begich’s campaign has this year attracted far more than that.
Begich’s $800,000-plus in the second quarter of an off-year puts him at a strong advantage at a time when Democrats are in disarray and have struggled to find a competent or marginally acceptable candidate to oust him.
Former Alaska US House Rep. Mary Peltola, the Democrat who sat for two years in Congress, has yet to announce her political plans for 2026, but the money has been dripping in from far beyond Alaska.
According to her latest Federal Election Commission filing, Peltola raised over $90,600 in the second quarter of 2025, an unusually large haul for a politician who is not currently in office and has not declared her candidacy for any race.
But wait: Almost $54,000 of that is from a fundraising list that she sold to a fundraising company based in Lincoln, Nebraska. She sold donors names and phone numbers. She sold their addresses and giving propensity scores.
She received $8,500 in PAC contributions from the Cache Pac in Virginia and the SD PAC of Washington DC gave her $5,000 in this reporting period. In terms of individual donors, she only raised $28,000 and had to refund over 20% of it ($6,000).
Most of her individual donations came from East Coast donors, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington, D.C., fueling speculation that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is being successful in rallying Democratic support for Peltola to take on Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan next year. Further underscoring that speculation is that her expenditures show several meetings at the National Democratic Club in the past three months.
Alaska political observers have been buzzing for months about Peltola’s next move. She has stayed quiet about her intentions, but behind the scenes, top Democratic operatives at the national level are urging her to challenge Sullivan, who is up for reelection in 2026.
It’s important to note that before the final count was tallied in November, Peltola refiled for the House seat and is still considered an active candidate on paper.
Others believe Peltola may have her eye on the open governor’s seat, as Gov. Mike Dunleavy is term-limited.
However, under federal campaign finance law, the funds she has raised can only be used for a federal race — meaning the House or Senate.
She has spent money from her federal account and only has $78,531 cash on hand. Many expenditures were for apparent meetings in Juneau, and Washington, DC. Here’s a snapshot of a few of those meetings:
She also spent tens of thousands of dollars on travel to and from Washington, DC, and has several undisclosed expenditures that are simply listed as her American Express card.
During the first quarter of the year, Peltola has a negative in the net contributions reporting at FEC — she had to refund more money than she took in during the first quarter.
If she chooses to run for governor, Peltola would have to start fresh with state-eligible funds. If she runs for Senate, she enters the race with a modest start in fundraising.
Meanwhile, in the House race, Republican incumbent Congressman Nick Begich has already raised more than $800,000 this year, with over $1.25 million cash on hand. Given Begich’s strong fundraising performance and the fact that he is seen as a rising star in Washington, political insiders say it’s increasingly unlikely Peltola will attempt to reclaim her old House seat.
The clock is ticking. By this time next year Alaska ballots will already be printed and on their way in the mail to overseas voters. The deadline to file for office is next June 1, meaning Peltola will be making a decision soon.
For now, her fundraising is unimpressive, depending mostly on the selling out of her donors names, addresses, phone numbers, and propensity for giving.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski spoke on the Senate floor Wednesday to express her opposition to the proposed federal rescissions package, which seeks to cancel roughly $9.4 billion in previously approved government spending.
The package, supported by President Donald Trump, targets $8.3 billion in foreign aid and $1.1 billion in domestic programs, including funds allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Murkowski, criticized the proposal for undermining commitments already made by Congress. She raised concerns about the potential impact on communities that had been counting on this funding for infrastructure, public services, and other local priorities.
“It’s not that I don’t think we should be doing more when it comes to ensuring that we’re working to get our levels of spending down,” she said, although she has no history of attempting to reduce spending and a long history of supporting increased spending.
“But I also think we need to be doing more as legislators, more as lawmakers, more as senators when it comes to our own authorities, our constitutional authorities, when it comes to the power the purse. We do rescissions. We do rescissions in our annual budget bills, in our own appropriations bills, in fact, bills we are working on right now as appropriators. We’ve got a series of markups that are going to be coming up this week, we had some last week. We do this. We look to provisions that have been included in the budgets, we look to programs, we look to rescind. We do that as legislators. There’s a good reason I think we haven’t seen a successful rescissions package before the senate for in almost 33 years. It’s because we’ve recognized that hey, that’s our role here,” she said.
She spoke to not knowing which specific accounts could be impacted and said she wanted more clarity from the Administration. And she lamented she hadn’t gotten enough information about global health programs that would be cut. Then she strongly defended the Corporation for Pubic Broadcasting.
“You don’t need to gut the entire Corporation for Public Broadcasting.” She said if public broadcasting is biased, that could be addressed in a different way, although she has never suggested this before.
It was five minutes of, essentially, her opposition to Donald Trump, who was elected by 54.4% in Alaska in 2024.
Murkowski was one of three Republicans who tried to block the package from coming to the Senate floor. Vice President JD Vance had to come into the Senate chambers and break the tie to move it forward. With Senate Democrats largely unified against the measure, its passage remains uncertain.
A final vote on the rescissions package is expected later this week.
We are lawmakers. Our responsibility is to legislate, not to shrug our shoulders and take direction from the White House. pic.twitter.com/gf6rGYQCY1
— Sen. Lisa Murkowski (@lisamurkowski) July 16, 2025
The Terrorist Screening Dataset is a watchlist that contains the names of over a million suspects who pose a threat to the United States. It was conceived in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks and is maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the use of multiple law enforcement agencies, such as Customs and Border Protection.
When most people think of how a terrorist might attempt to penetrate the U.S. interior, their thoughts understandably gravitate toward the southern border. But in 2023,85 percent of all land-based encounters with individuals on the terrorist watchlist occurred along the Lower 48’s northern border with Canada, according to an analysis by the Wilson Center.
The United States-Mexico border gets most of the attention, and that makes sense, considering how porous it has been over the years, functioning more like an international highway for people and drugs than a boundary between nations. There is ample reason to take seriously growing security concerns, not least because our border with Canada is the longest land barrier in the world, spanning more than 5,500 miles of mostly rough and remote terrain, making it increasingly attractive to traffickers and terrorist threats.
Although it has changed, the initial demarcation with our northern neighbors has its roots in the American Revolution. The same treaty that ended the war with Great Britain also created the boundary between the nascent United States and the British Empire in North America. Today, it encompasses more than 8,000 monuments, seven states, an equal number of Canadian provinces and one territory. The part of the northern border that separates Alaska from Canada consists of a stretch of land greater than 1,500 miles long. For comparison, the southern border with Mexico is only 400 miles longer. And yet, the Alaska-Canada border receives just a fraction of the resources and attention that its counterpart does.
It’s true that comparatively more drugs like fentanyl enter America through the south than the north. However, that does not change the fact that Alaskan boroughs have become hotspots for drug activity.
Through what it coined the “Disproportionality Index” (DI), the Manhattan Institute devised a system that allows for a comparison between a county’s proportion of large fentanyl seizures against its proportion of the national population for 2023-2024. A score of 1.0 means that the number of seizures is proportionate to the local population, while a score lower than 1.0 indicates fewer seizures than expected, and a score greater than 1.0 indicates more seizures than expected. Of the three counties or collections of counties along the northern border with an average DI greater than 1 were Juneau and Ketchikan, which the institute concluded is “suggestive of Alaska markets possibly being supplied from Canada.”
Notably, 2023 was the year that Alaska witnessed its highest number of opioid overdose deaths, the majority of which were attributed to fentanyl. That marked a nearly 40 percent increase over the previous year and the largest percent increase of any state during the same period. The staggering death toll has spurred various campaigns to raise awareness, such as Sen. Dan Sullivan’s “One Pill Can Kill” initiative.
“A single deadly dose of fentanyl fits on the tip of a pencil,” Sullivan says in an educational video released as part of the campaign. “Seven out of every ten pills seized by the DEA contain a lethal dose of fentanyl.”
On Wednesday, the Trump administration signed the HALT Fentanyl Act, which reclassified the drug as a Schedule 1 substance, placing it in the same category as the government’s most restricted substances. That’s good news for America, and great news for Alaska, which has been fighting an uphill battle out of the national limelight against the drug.
The legislation will also enable law enforcement to go after drug traffickers by shutting legal loopholes that had previously provided them with a measure of protection. In a statement to Must Read Alaska, a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Investigation said the agency is focused on identifying the source of the problem.
“The FBI remains focused on disrupting and dismantling transnational organized crime groups whose actions violate the laws of the United States and bring harm to U.S. citizens, wherever and however these crimes may occur,” said Chloe Martin, the public affairs specialist for the FBI in Anchorage. “We urge anyone who witnesses illicit drug trafficking or human trafficking activity in Alaska to contact the FBI.”
You may provide an anonymous tip to the FBI Anchorage Field Office at 907-276-4441, 1-800-CALL-FBI, or online at tips.fbi.gov.
We are being inundated with messages and misinformation stating we need to just spend even more on our K-12 education system to get better student outcomes.
This misinformation comes from various parts of the Education Cartel: local school boards, local school administrators, the NEA-AK, the American Federation of Teachers, the Alaska Association of School Boards, the Alaska Council of School Administrators, the Coalition for Education Equity, and others.
Note that all these vocal supporters of increasing K-12 funding benefit directly and indirectly from this additional funding. In effect, the State of Alaska and local governments are funding these voices of “raise the BSA.”
Let’s look at three state senators who have voted for increasing the Base Student Allocation and voted for overriding the governor’s veto of raising the BSA. To them, more funding is the answer to improve Alaska’s K-12 system. And it seems to them that more funding is never enough. The goalposts get moved: They just need more, and they don’t want any accountability to measure success. They don’t want to measure the return on investment.
How are the students in Sens. Loki Tobin’s, Bill Wielechowski’s, and Forrest Dunbar’s districts doing on the standardized state tests, the AKSTAR?
How much are we spending on the schools in these three senators’ districts?
Here is a chart showing the schools in Sen. Tobin’s district (District I), the per student costs, and the average student AKSTAR results:
The above data show that the lowest performing elementary schools in Sen. Tobin’s district (Mountain View, William Tyson, Fairview, and North Star) have the highest per student funding. There is a direct relationship between more funding and lower student achievement in these specific schools. Then why would Sen. Tobin want more funding? Would she want the AKSTAR schools to go down?
On the other hand, two of the highest performing elementary schools, (Aurora and Orion) have the lowest per student cost — nearly $10,000 less per student than Mountain View Elementary School.
Another strong supporter of more K12 funding with no accountability for results is Sen. Wielechowski (District K). Let’s see how the schools in his district fare for spending and student outcomes:
The above data show that Senator Wielechowski has some of the lowest performing schools in the Anchorage School District. This is nothing new. For many years these schools have been the lowest performing schools. What has Sen. Wielechowski done to improve his district schools?
His current solution is to throw more money at the problem without demanding accountability for results. He also voted to raise the BSA and voted to override the governor’s veto that would decrease the increased funding in the Anchorage School District a mere $4.3 million. Mind you, there is still an increase in funding, just not as much as the cartel desires.
Does Sen. Wielechowski really believe that increasing the per student funding of $32,180 for Nunaka Valley Elementary School would ensure that more than 30% of its students could read at grade level?
He hasn’t ever insisted on any accountability for the extra spending so we shall never know if there is a correlation between student achievement and that spending increase.
Now let’s look at the schools in Sen. Dunbar’s district (District J). Dunbar also voted to increase the BSA with no accountability. Here are the per student costs and student test scores for those schools:
A very bright shiny school in Dunbar’s district is Northern Lights ABC school. This is one of ASD’s lottery schools. One must win the lottery to get their child into this great school. Trouble is, not every parent wins the lottery, and their children are relegated to the lower performing neighborhood schools.
Northern Lights’ students perform well above average in the AKSTAR tests. Maybe that’s because it uses Saxon Math and phonics in its curriculum. One wonders why other ASD schools don’t replicate these programs to teach their students. Teachers love to teach at Northern Lights because the students are behaved, motivated, and want to learn. The curriculum also works for the teachers and the students. Finally, parents are involved in this great school.
Note that less than 17% of the students in Airport Heights, Lake Otis, Williwaw, and Wonder Park elementary schools are proficient in reading.
Even worse, less than 14% of the students in Clark Middle School are proficient in reading. What will they do when they enter high school? Or are the other 86% of students destined to fail?
Dunbar believes that more funding is needed to help these students read at grade level.
What if parents in all these schools received at least one-third of the per student funding in the schools and chose the best education fit for their children? Maybe they could choose correspondence school. Maybe they could choose a private school. Maybe they could independently home school. Just maybe these students could really succeed in life.
The bottom line: More funding is not the answer to improve Alaska’s K12 system. Two years ago, the Alaska Reads Act passed into law. That’s when we learned that our university system was not teaching reading skills as a basic tenet of elementary school teacher’s curriculum.
Since then, the University of Alaska has added the science of reading to its elementary teacher program. And as bad as our reading scores are, they are improving.
The state cannot continue to throw more money at a broken system and expect different results. We must make targeted reforms that will improve our student outcomes.
The governor has called a special session in August to inform legislators what other states did to fix their underperforming schools. We need to open our minds and learn from others what works well to increase student achievement.
If we continue to focus on input (money) and not on output (student outcomes), then Alaska will continue to be mired in the morass of mediocrity while other States succeed in educating their children.
David Boyle is an education writer for Must Read Alaska.
The Alaska Department of Law announced on Tuesday a step toward expanding public oversight of government by launching a new process that allows citizens to request investigative grand juries to examine suspected systemic wrongdoing by public officials or entities.
This effort establishes a more accessible and transparent pathway for citizens to bring forward evidence of misconduct affecting public welfare or safety. The initiative includes a dedicated webpage, procedures and policies, and designated legal staff to review citizen-submitted requests.
The move follows a 2022 ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court, known as SCO 1993, which amended Alaska’s criminal rules to clarify the role of investigative grand juries. Under those rules, the Alaska Attorney General is tasked with reviewing citizen requests to determine whether they meet the legal threshold to warrant a grand jury investigation.
Attorney General Treg Taylor emphasized the constitutional foundation of the program, pointing to a key provision in Alaska’s Constitution which guarantees the right of grand juries to investigate public welfare matters.
Taylor said the formalized process ensures that “every Alaskan’s voice can be heard when it comes to safeguarding our community and holding our government accountable.”
The investigative grand jury process is distinct from criminal grand juries. While criminal grand juries are typically initiated by prosecutors or jurors to consider indictments in criminal cases, investigative grand juries are focused on examining broader issues related to public safety or governance when requested by citizens. Once convened, these panels have authority to subpoena witnesses, review documents, and take testimony under oath. After completing their work, grand juries can issue public reports—subject to judicial review—that highlight findings and recommendations.
The newly created webpage hosted by the Department of Law contains detailed guidance on how Alaskans can petition for an Investigative Grand Jury, including the criteria their request must meet and the application process. Citizens are now able to review the standards being applied, track the status of their submissions, and challenge outcomes if necessary.
The Department of Law noted that if a citizen request involves alleged wrongdoing within the department itself, a neutral prosecutor will be assigned to advise the grand jury, ensuring impartiality.
This formalization of the citizen-initiated investigative grand jury process comes amid increasing public interest in government accountability, following years of public disputes over the use of grand juries in Alaska. Legal observers point to recent debates surrounding judicial oversight and public transparency as factors pushing the Department to clarify procedures.
While the policy shift does not alter the grand jury’s authority, it creates the first structured and public-facing mechanism to petition for such investigations since the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling. The department characterized the launch as the “first phase” of its ongoing work to uphold constitutional rights and pledged continued improvements.
Weeks before the start of the new school year, Anchorage School District Superintendent Dr. Jharrett Bryantt issued a scathing letter to staff and families on Tuesday, sharply criticizing state and federal leaders over what he described as a “coordinated failure of leadership” that is forcing widespread layoffs and service cuts across Alaska’s largest school district.
In the letter, Bryantt announced that ASD had begun issuing more layoff notices and reassignments district-wide, attributing the disruption to “unstable decision-making, delayed funding, and systemic negligence” from both Juneau and Washington, DC
“This letter is not just an update. It is a warning, and a call to action,” Bryantt wrote. He signed the letter, “In solidarity and resolve.”
According to Bryantt, ASD is reeling from a combination of a federal funding freeze and recent state budget increases that were trimmed back in a move he apparently did not see coming.
On July 3, the US Department of Education froze nearly $46 million in federal grants to Alaska schools, including more than $14 million earmarked for Anchorage. The abrupt freeze, Bryantt said, strips funding from essential services, which he describes as after-school programs, special education, English learner services, and Alaska Native student services.
He then blamed Gov. Mike Dunleavy for vetoing some of the massive increases that legislators had passed in education funding.
The administration is also pursuing regulatory changes through the State Board of Education that would cap how much local governments can contribute to their public schools, potentially draining millions more from Anchorage classrooms.
“This is not a coincidence. It is a pattern,” Bryantt said. “These decisions reflect a coordinated failure of leadership that disregards the will of Alaskans and jeopardizes the foundation of our public schools.” It seems that no one is smart enough to lead but Bryantt.
Bryantt detailed how ASD had already eliminated 42 central office positions, cutting over $30 million in salaries and services, drawing down reserves below policy minimums, and increasing class sizes. Even these measures, he said, were insufficient to absorb the latest wave of cuts.
“These are not abstract policy outcomes. They are real people. These are real losses. And students will feel the difference when they walk into school in August,” the superintendent warned.
Bryantt’s letter was sent with the Aug 2 special session in mind, where he hopes the Legislature will override the governor’s vetoes.
“This is what happens when systems fail students,” Bryantt wrote. “We are not just managing a crisis. We are resisting the slow dismantling of public education in Alaska.”
The letter concluded with a rallying cry to the Anchorage community, vowing that the district “will not be silent” in the face of what he called reckless governance decisions.
In a rare victory for the conservative minority, the Anchorage Assembly on Tuesday night passed an ordinance to rein in vagrant encampments on public lands, marking a sharp shift in the city’s approach to the growing crisis of vagrancy and drug addiction that has enveloped Alaska’s largest city.
The Assembly passed AO 2025-74, an ordinance that makes it illegal to camp on public property within city limits. The measure passed by a 7-5 vote, handing a win to those wishing to restore law and order in parks, trails, and other municipal spaces.
Under the new law, unauthorized camping is now classified as a Class B misdemeanor, meaning violators can face police action, fines, and even jail time. Enforcement set to begin within 30 days. Anchorage Police will be tasked with removing campsites and citing individuals in violation of the law.
The measure passed with support from Assembly Members Scott Myers, Keith McCormick, Zac Johnson, Daniel Volland, Yarrow Silvers, Jared Goecker, and Kameron Perez-Verdia. The remaining five members of the Assembly, including Assembly Chairman Chris Constant voted against it, expressing concerns about criminalizing homelessness without guaranteed shelter for all. Many of those living out-of-doors are doing so because they do not like the structure of shelters, which have rules of conduct.
Proponents of the ordinance argue it restores public access to parks and trails that have increasingly become semi-permanent encampments. Recently, the city removed 744,000 pounds of debris and stolen goods from Davis Park, one of the worst encampments. Many trails and parks are no longer safe in Anchorage for unarmed women or unaccompanied minors.
The ordinance requires the city to monitor shelter capacity and availability. Enforcement actions, including citations and removals, must be accompanied by tracking and annual reporting to the Assembly.
Anchorage officials are leaning on recent legal precedent to back up the ordinance. In their legal justification, they cite the US Supreme Court’s recent decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, which upheld the right of local governments to enforce anti-camping laws as long as shelter options exist and the laws regulate conduct rather than targeting status as homeless.
