Sen. Lisa Murkowski has joined forces with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, to introduce legislation that would more than $50 billion in American taxpayer dollars to Ukraine over the next two years, as it fights with Russia.
The proposal was introduced by Sheehan on Thursday. President Donald Trump has set an Aug. 8 deadline for Moscow to engage in peace negotiations or face a new round of sanctions.
The Shaheen-Murkowski legislation would add to the over $460 billion already spent on Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia aggression.
The bill also appears to be a direct response to recent developments in Trump Administration policy. In March, Trump paused intelligence sharing with Kyiv for a week following a dispute with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Recently, the Pentagon delayed some weapons transfers pending a policy review.
The legislation may face political headwinds. Republican leaders in both the House and Senate are deferring to Trump on foreign policy matters, and the administration has taken a hard line against increasing foreign aid. Congressional appropriators advanced a separate defense funding measure Thursday that includes just $1 billion in Ukraine-related military assistance, a fraction of what the new bill proposes.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the US has allocated approximately $182.8 billion in emergency funding to support Ukraine and the region, with $175 billion approved by Congress through five bills, the most recent being $60 billion in April 2024.
Although Congress passed the aid package in 2024, the vote revealed fault lines within the GOP: 18 senators opposed the measure, including then-Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, now vice president.
As the Alaska Legislature prepares to gavel in for a special session on Saturday to consider overriding Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s recent veto of a fraction of the increase to education spending, new polling from the Democrat-leaning firm Data for Progress suggests that Alaskans side with the Democrats in the Legislature on this issue.
The survey, conducted just before the session convenes, shows Alaska voters want more support for public education, corporate tax transparency, and consumer protections. These findings were released to shore up support for veto overrides during what is predicted to be a one-day, override-and-out session.
No questions were asked about whether schools should be held accountable for being at the bottom of the performance matrix in spite of some of the highest funding in the nation.
According to the poll, 57% of Alaska voters support even more funding for K–12 public schools, while just 17% support decreasing it. A similar majority backs overriding Dunleavy’s veto of the education funding bill passed earlier this year. This suggests that there will be a veto override, but that the NEA and the Democrats will push for even more spending next session.
Other findings reveal public support for legislative action on several fronts, which may indicate the Democrats in charge and their Republican enablers will try to override more than just the governor’s partial veto of education excesses.
Oil Taxes and Transparency: Voters support reforming Alaska’s tax structure so that all major oil and gas producers pay corporate income tax. They also favor requiring the Department of Revenue to publish corporate tax audit results—another bill vetoed by the governor.
Payday Lending: Alaskans back a 36% interest rate cap on payday loans and support overriding the governor’s veto of legislation to enforce it.
Sales Tax Equity: Voters support taxing online companies based outside Alaska for sales made within the state, especially if the revenue goes toward public education.
Opposition to ICE Contracts: A majority oppose building an ICE detention center or contracting with ICE to house detainees from other states in Alaska.
Renewable Energy and Federal Cuts: Voters support a Renewable Portfolio Standard and oppose federal cuts to clean energy programs, public broadcasting, and fisheries protections.
Session Attendance: A majority of respondents said lawmakers should attend the special session and not skip out.
Miscellaneous Issues: The poll also found strong support for eliminating daylight saving time and disapproval of the omnibus legislation known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
Data for Progress says the poll sample was carefully weighted to reflect the likely electorate, including political leanings, age, race, geography, and voting history.
The polling was informed by Democrats and is intended to embolden Democrats in the Legislature, who currently hold effective control in both chambers, as they prepare for a likely clash with the Republican governor over budget priorities and policy direction.
What is unclear is how many Republicans will turn their backs on the governor during this special session.
A 31-year-old man from the village of Wainwright was arrested Wednesday by the FBI on multiple federal charges related to the alleged sexual exploitation of minors in his community, which has a population of about 600.
According to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska, Robert Segevan faces charges including receipt and possession of child pornography, attempted enticement of a minor, and attempted production of child pornography. If convicted, he could face a minimum of 15 years and up to life in federal prison.
The North Slope Borough Police Department first received a complaint on Oct. 22, 2024, from a 15-year-old who reported that Segevan had repeatedly asked for sexually explicit photos via a digital messaging app. Despite attempts to block him, the victim said Segevan allegedly created new accounts to continue making contact.
Two other minors also reportedly received similar requests. Authorities say the contact began in 2023 and persisted over time.
On Nov. 7, 2024, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children flagged an account linked to Segevan for child sexual abuse material. The report indicated that Segevan had allegedly asked a fourth minor victim to meet for sexual contact.
A search warrant return on Nov. 14, 2024, provided law enforcement access to two of Segevan’s user accounts on the platform. Investigators say they found several explicit images sent from a fifth minor.
Police executed a search warrant at Segevan’s residence on Dec. 24, 2024, seizing electronic devices that are still being analyzed.
On June 30, 2025, the FBI received another complaint alleging that Segevan continued to ask one of the previously identified victims for explicit images and had been harassing other minors in the Wainwright area.
Segevan is formally charged with one count of receipt of child pornography, one count of attempted enticement of a minor, one count of possession of child pornography, and one count of attempted production of child pornography.
The case is being investigated by the FBI Anchorage Field Office and the North Slope Borough Police Department, with support from the Anchorage Police Department as part of the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office encourages anyone with information about Segevan or any of the usernames he is alleged to have used — including “Ethan Allen,” “tukak,” “robertsegevan20,” or “robertsegevan24” — to contact the FBI Anchorage Field Office at (907) 276-4441 or submit a tip anonymously at tips.fbi.gov.
China is the world’s largest generator of wind power and a team of researchers at the heart of the global wind industry has just discovered an inconvenient truth: weather-dependent sources of electricity are a bad bet when the climate is changing.
In an article published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, the Beijing and Shenzhen-based researchers find that around 20% of the globe’s wind turbines are located in areas that will become increasingly susceptible to “wind droughts” due to changing climactic conditions. As the name implies, wind droughts are sustained periods of uncharacteristically low gusts that render wind turbines useless. Even with aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the researchers predict that these acute snaps of atmospheric stillness will become both more frequent and longer in a global geographic belt that stretches north of Houston to just south of Anchorage.
These findings will come as little surprise to utility operators across Western Europe, who are also located within the latitudinal wind lacuna. Germany, which has the largest wind fleet in Europe, was blighted by calm skies in March of this year. Electricity prices soared 48% higherrelative to the preceding March and coal and natural gas plants carried the burden in Europe’s largest economy.
Inept during periods of calm, wind power also struggles in wild weather. The goldilocks requirements of wind were notably evident in Texas, which has the largest wind build-out of any state, during Winter Storm Uri of 2021. Though the storm drove down electricity generation across the board, nuclear, natural gas, and coal proved to be the most resilientsources of electricity during the assault on the Lone Star state’s grid.
The oscillation between erratic booms and busts of renewable electricity generation chips away at the wind industry’s key selling point of reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Coal plants may pick up the slack during wind downturns, but they otherwise operate below their designed capacity due to an influx of federally subsidized renewables into the grid. Yet, operating a coal plant below capacity is inefficient and typically results in higher greenhouse gas emissions on a per megawatt hour basis. The federally induced proliferation of wind turbines thus lock the grid into a twist: dispatchable power is a necessary stopgap for increasingly intermittent wind generation, but a surge in wind generation increases the relative emissions of approximately 20% of America’s dispatchable electricity generation, which leads to progressive calls for a build-out of more wind power that will require a stopgap.
The mounting academic and empirical warning signs of wind power’s shortcoming are lost on the global climate lobby, which continues to recycle decades-old talking points. Just last week, the former president of the Socialist International turned United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres declared that the future must be powered by renewables, in part, because there are “no embargoes on wind.” Given the exacerbation of conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan during Guterres’ term as Secretary General, it remains to be seen how the Secretary General will negotiate the end of a wind drought with the skies.
For Guterres and his comrades, recent research on wind droughts should provide another data point that illustrates how today’s renewable technology will fail to propel the world’s economy. Neither citizens nor the environment are well served by constructing rhetorical Potemkin villages, where en vogue technologies are lauded and their drawbacks ignored. Realism around the strengths and weaknesses of various energy technologies is the only sustainable path forward.
Oliver McPherson-Smith, PhD served as the inaugural Executive Director of the National Energy Dominance Council in the second Trump Administration.
An Alaska-based veteran-owned business has filed a formal protest against the Municipality of Anchorage, claiming the city violated state and local laws in its handling of a $1.2 million housing project funded by opioid settlement money.
Zack Gottshall, owner of Cama’i Enterprises, submitted a detailed letter on Thursday to Mayor Suzanne LaFrance, Anchorage Community Development Authority Director Mike Robbins, and Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor. The letter alleges the city’s procurement process for the “Microunits for Recovery Residences” project unlawfully disenfranchised his company, a certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, by failing to apply legally mandated scoring preferences for veteran-owned and Alaska-based businesses.
Gottshall wrote that during a mandatory site visit, he raised concerns about the RFP’s omission of required bid preferences with a representative from the mayor’s office, but was told the scoring matrix would not be changed. He argues this amounts to a violation of Alaska statutes and Anchorage Municipal Code, and that the decision disadvantaged protected business classes, including his own.
He cites Alaska Statute 36.30.321, which requires the application of a 5% preference for Alaska bidders and veteran-owned businesses, as well as additional scoring benefits for disability-owned enterprises. He also references the Alaska Opioid Abatement Fund statute (AS 37.05.590), which places opioid settlement funds under state control and mandates that any spending from them comply with the state procurement code.
Gottshall contends that because the opioid funds used for the project originate from state litigation and are held in trust by the State of Alaska, any local use of the funds must also follow state procurement law, including all statutory bid preferences. He claims the municipality and ACDA failed to comply with those laws, thereby compromising the legitimacy of the entire bidding process.
He also accuses the city of violating multiple sections of Anchorage Municipal Code, including failing to ensure fair treatment of bidders, neglecting to support disadvantaged economic actors, and using evaluation criteria that discriminated against protected business classes.
Gottshall demands that the Municipality immediately suspend any award under the current RFP, disclose evaluation records and scoring documents, and either reissue the RFP with proper preferences or re-score the existing proposals in compliance with state law. He also calls for disqualification of any vendor that received an award based on what he describes as illegal scoring criteria.
In the letter, Gottshall emphasizes that the Municipality and ACDA were given ample notice and opportunity to correct the process. He warns that moving forward with the project as currently structured will result in legal and political consequences.
On Tuesday night, during a barely noticed portion of the Anchorage Assembly’s July 30 meeting, a well-connected Democrat-owned business quietly secured yet another long-term property tax exemption, again benefiting the owners of Fire Island Rustic Bakeshop.
The exemption grants 10 years of zero property taxes on the improvements to bakery’s building at 2530 E. 16th Ave. The property is in addition to the downtown Fire Island location, which also enjoys a full exemption from property taxes. The deal was passed after being buried in the Assembly’s “consent agenda,” a portion of the meeting where multiple items are approved all at once, often without discussion and rarely with public visibility. Consent agenda items are supposed to be noncontroversial, but in this case it was the process itself that is controversial.
Assembly Memorandum 2025-217, which authorized the exemption, was never posted to the municipal or Assembly websites. It did not include the property address, nor did it identify Fire Island as the applicant. It only listed only a parcel number deep in the consent agenda. The justification offered for the exemption was simply that the building was over 15 years old. There was no public hearing, no fiscal impact statement, and no scrutiny of the fact that the property owner and tenant are one and the same, undermining the core claim that the investment would not have been feasible without the tax break. The owners of the bakery are Democrats.
Even more troubling is that this is not the first such exemption granted to the same ownership. In 2021, the Assembly approved another tax exemption for Fire Island’s 7th and K Street building. That building was purchased and remodeled by the owners to house three tenants, including their own bakery. The owners argued in their application, which was obtained only through a public records request, that they needed a 12% return on investment, despite controlling both sides of the lease. That property (Parcel 001-053-19) is now fully exempt from taxation — again without any public scrutiny or debate.
The Fire Island exemptions are just the latest examples of a growing pattern of opaque, politically selective property tax breaks for for-profit developers and businesses in Anchorage, a system that is ripe for abuse.
Consider the massive commercial building at 601 W. 5th Avenue, a neon-lit landmark owned by the Fang/Chen family(Parcel 002-105-70). It received a 10-year tax exemption under Resolution AO 2023-91, an estimated $600,000 per year loss to city tax revenue. The owners hold nearly the entire block, and the exemption language allows them to apply the tax break to anything they build there in the future. According to the Anchorage Daily News, a $300 million project is now underway on that site, which could result in a $5.1 million annual tax savings for the developer for a decade.
The trend doesn’t stop there:
A new hotel at 4th and C Street, backed by politically influential figures, received a 10-year exemption.
SpanAlaska Trucking, a subsidiary of the $4.5 billion Manson Lines, built a $26 million warehouse and received a full property tax exemption.
New $840,000 condos downtown are being advertised with a 12-year property tax exemption, boosting sales value while shifting the tax burden to other neighborhoods and other residents.
Many residents wrongly assume that when a property is exempted, the city simply collects less money. In fact, under Anchorage’s ad valorem tax system, the total amount of revenue stays the same, meaning everyone else pays more. Every exempted million-dollar property means higher tax rates for homes, small businesses, and commercial properties that are still on the rolls.
It’s like dining out with a group and someone walks out without paying their share, the rest of the table picks up the tab.
These exemptions are granted in closed-door meetings, and then often approved by Assembly resolution, rather than ordinance, which allows them to skip the requirement for public hearings. The Assessor’s Office is excluded from the decision-making and refuses to release details, citing confidentiality. The entire process is now handled by the Chief Financial Officer, a political appointee, and Assembly work sessions on the exemptions are not open to the public.
Though exemptions for seniors, veterans, and nonprofits are long-standing and well-understood, the new wave of exemptions for for-profit entities, often connected to influential donors or political insiders, raises serious concerns.
The Municipality of Anchorage is believed to be exempting over $20 billion in property value out of a $57 billion total tax roll. But there is no way for the public to know just how much is being exempted. It’s a ballpark figure that real estate analysts debate. While some of those exemptions might justified, the latest round of tax giveaways shows how ripe the system is for corruption.
Even with a Republican governor, a Republican lieutenant governor, an all-GOP federal delegation, and nominal GOP majorities in both legislative chambers, Alaska has been labeled a “purple” state by the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC).
In a national legislative map published by the RSLC, Alaska appears alongside just three other battleground states: Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — states with divided or weakly held Republican legislatures. The designation stands in sharp contrast to Alaska’s apparent political profile on the surface, where Republican officeholders dominate the executive and congressional branches.
The RSLC’s analysis doesn’t hinge solely on who holds seats, but rather on how those seats function. In Alaska, a coalition of Democrats, independents, and moderate Republicans currently holds effective control of the State House, and the Republican-led Senate often parts ways with the governor on fiscal matters. In the House, there are 22 Republicans out of 40 members; in the Senate, it’s 11 out of 20, and yet the Democrats are running the show because some members, such as Sen. Gary Stevens of Kodiak and Sen. Jesse Bjorkman of Nikiski, do not ally with Republicans, but with Democrats.
Even as Gov. Mike Dunleavy called lawmakers to Juneau for a special session starting Aug. 2, tensions remain high over anticipated legislative efforts to override his recent partial education funding vetoes, a move that signals the limits of GOP influence in the Alaska Legislature.
The RSLC, which played a major role in defending and expanding Republican state legislative power in 2024, did not include Alaska on its priority list for investment or strategic targeting. Instead, it focused on battlegrounds where clear gains were achievable. That strategy proved fruitful: the organization reports it helped Republicans gain seats in deep-blue states like California, New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont, while flipping the Michigan House and breaking the Democrat trifecta in Minnesota.
By the end of the 2024 cycle, Republicans controlled 57 of the 99 state legislative chambers nationwide and gained three new supermajorities. Twenty-three states have a Republican trifecta — both houses of the legislature and the governor are Republican. Alaska is a trifecta state, but is the color purple, even though its GOP governor won outright without having to go into the ranked-choice voting roulette wheel.
Alaska’s unique ranked-choice voting system and open primaries may play a role in this classification. The electoral structure has frequently empowered leftist candidates, or Republicans who caucus or conspire with Democrats in the Legislature, weakening party cohesion and making GOP victories at the ballot box less meaningful once the Legislature gavels in.
Whether the RSLC has written off Alaska due to its internal political structure or simply sees its Legislature as too fractured to be strategically viable, the omission from the national Republican strategy map speaks volumes.
As lawmakers return to Juneau this week for the special session, their actions may once again reinforce the perception that, beneath the Republican-in-name banner, Alaska’s governing reality is no longer red.
A group of conservative members of the Alaska House of Representatives is signaling a strong commitment to attend the special legislative session called by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, set to begin Aug. 2, even as other lawmakers may push for a quick override of key budget vetoes.
At issue is the governor’s fractional veto of a $700 increase to the Base Student Allocation (BSA), which reduced the hike to $500 per student.
While the liberal House majority, their enablers among Republicans, and Senate leadership are expected to push for an override of that and other vetoes, several conservative legislators say they are coming to Juneau not to spend more, but to advocate for targeted reforms that demand better outcomes for Alaska students.
“I will be in Juneau to represent the people of Eagle River and hold the line on fiscal responsibility,” said Rep. Jamie Allard (R-Eagle River). “Overriding these vetoes would simply pour more money into a failing system without addressing the root causes of our education crisis. The Democrats and their allies are set on a quick override and adjournment — likely heading off to out-of-state events and conferences while Alaskans are left with the same broken policies.”
Rep. Kevin McCabe (R-Big Lake) pointed to the outsized influence of unions such as NEA-Alaska as part of the problem, arguing they resist reforms that would bring greater accountability and performance standards: “These unions fight every reform that threatens their grip on the status quo,” said McCabe. “I appreciate my conservative teammates in the House who stand with me and our Republican governor.”
House Rep. Rep. Cathy Tilton (R-Wasilla) also confirmed her intent, citing the importance of Dunleavy’s education reform agenda. “I appreciate the opportunity to work with my colleagues demanding meaningful education reforms such as those presented by our Governor including expanding charter schools, open enrollment, targeted reading programs, and teacher retention bonuses tied to performance with a focus on fiscal responsibility.”
Rep. Sarah Vance (R-Homer) pointed to solutions already on the table, including her House Bill 29, which would allow school districts to pool healthcare costs. “I remain committed to doing the will of the people by showing up, engaging, and voting for fiscal responsibility and smart education policy,” she said. “HB 29 would save districts millions that can go right back into classrooms.”
Rep. Rebecca Schwanke (R-Glennallen) emphasized the need for educational approaches rooted in culture, geography, and parental control. “If we’re serious about improving education, we need to decouple from the influence of the ed-tech industry,” Schwanke said. “Our Alaska Native communities are already doing this through tribal compacting. It’s time to truly embrace parental choice and return to the core principles of classic education.”
Rep. George Rauscher (R-Sutton), while noting he may arrive slightly late due to prior training obligations, expressed his commitment to the session’s goals. “The Governor has approved a $500.00 per-student increase in the formula, and we all know that charter schools—and some other areas in education—have achieved better academic results with less funding,” he said. “Fiscal responsibility going forward is pertinent to the process.”
While legislative leaders have signaled plans to convene a joint session immediately to attempt veto overrides, conservative lawmakers say that is not enough. They argue that the governor’s proposals, including reforms aimed at accountability, parental choice, and improved student outcomes, deserve a full and fair hearing.
The people of Alaska deserve more than a rubber stamp override and a quick adjournment, these members are saying. Alaskans deserve a Legislature willing to work through real problems and deliver real results.
Alaska Commissioner of Revenue Adam Crum joined 25 other state financial officers this week in a pointed letter to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, warning that major asset managers are straying from traditional fiduciary responsibilities in pursuit of political and social agendas.
Crum, who recently submitted his resignation from the Dunleavy administration and is expected to file for governor in 2026, signed on to the letter as part of a broader push by conservative-leaning state officials to clamp down on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment strategies.
Crum is the national vice chairman of the State Financial Officers Foundation, which sent the letter, and speaks at the group’s events.
“As financial officers entrusted with safeguarding our states’ public funds, we write to express our deep concern about the erosion of traditional fiduciary duty in American capital markets,” the letter begins. It argues that large financial firms—BlackRock chief among them—have increasingly used passive investment vehicles like index funds to engage in corporate activism that strays beyond “materiality and positive financial return.”
The letter cites a January 2025 federal court ruling in Spence v. American Airlines, which found that the airline violated its fiduciary duty by allowing BlackRock to vote proxies in favor of ESG priorities. “The very occurrence of this case illustrates just how far fiduciary standards have splintered,” the officers wrote.
The multi-state coalition is urging BlackRock and similar firms to adopt five specific reforms:
Stop using deterministic assumptions, such as fake inevitable climate catastrophe, to justify activist corporate engagement.
Refrain from using passive investment funds as proxy activism, arguing that such vehicles are designed for low-cost market exposure, not ideological influence.
Avoid inflicting international globalist political agendas into investment strategies, including net-zero mandates or EU regulatory frameworks.
Publish clear and shareholder-value-focused proxy voting guidelines, free from environmental or social targets.
Disclose all affiliations with coalitions like Climate Action 100+, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), or the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), which may steer firms toward ideological goals.
“Fiduciary duty has long been a critical safeguard that facilitated efficient capital allocation grounded in financial merit rather than political ideology,” the officials wrote, calling for a return to traditional standards and warning against speculative, politically motivated investment strategies.
Crum’s participation in the letter comes as he transitions out of public office. Crum has served as Commissioner of Revenue since 2022, following his term as Commissioner of Health and Social Services.
The letter requests a formal response from BlackRock by Sept. 1, 2025, and invites further dialogue between the firm and state financial officers. It concludes with a warning: “Our public servants, retirees, and taxpayers deserve nothing less” than a financial system rooted in “financial integrity, not political advocacy.”
Whether BlackRock will respond, of course, is questionable. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset management company, with $11.5 trillion in assets under management as of 2024. That is its total value of investments it manages for clients, including institutional, intermediary, and individual investors across various asset classes like equity, fixed income, multi-assets, alternatives, and cash management. The company, which operates in 30 countries with 70 offices and serves clients in 100 countries, has a portfolio is roughly equivalent to half the Gross Domestic Product of the United States (2024 U.S. GDP was around $25.5 trillion) and significantly larger than the GDP of almost all other countries.
In 2022, Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor, also now on the verge of announcing his run for govern, joined a 21-state coalition to file a formal complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission about its proposed rule requiring ESG influence in investing decisions.
