Published Jun 28, 2023 by Haley Lehman/News-Miner

Firefighters responded to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Tuesday afternoon after a 911 caller reported smelling smoke in a campus building.

The person reported to dispatchers about 1:15 p.m. Tuesday that they smelled smoke in the Eielson Building at UAF.

Firefighters investigated the building but did not find anything, Greg Bean, UAF fire department battalion chief, said.

The building was evacuated for no more than 10 minutes, Bean said.

Published Jun 28, 2023 by Ashley Carrick

Alongside the K-12 vetoes, our avowedly pro-family and pro-workforce governor has made $36 million in cuts to the University of Alaska. These funds were set aside to address a small portion of the increasing deferred maintenance backlog, as well as invest in workforce development programs, including for the technical and vocational education jobs the state desperately needs right now and into the future. As an institution, the University of Alaska leads the way in developing Alaska’s workforce. Especially when Alaska is poised to receive billions of dollars in federal infrastructure money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, why would we cut programs to help alleviate the issue of a workforce shortage when ensuring an Alaskan workforce has remained a stated priority of the governor’s administration?

Ultimately, I wanted to serve in the Alaska State House because I truly believe in the long-term future of our state. The governor has said that a budget demonstrates our values, but our annual operating budget for this year fails to adequately invest in the most precious resource we have: the next generation of Alaskans.

Without delay, the Legislature needs to go into a special session and override these vetoes. My House Minority Coalition colleagues and I support a very brief special session to make these votes. Our coalition has also formally asked for a poll of the House membership so that we will know who among the House Majority is willing to uphold and protect the education funding that they wholeheartedly supported earlier this year.

Published Jun 27, 2023 by Alex DeMarban

Sullivan, who called the youth mental health crisis “the challenge of our generation,” said legislation is in the works to rein in social media sites to better control age restrictions, potentially pushing them to 16, and require that companies release more data about how their sites are being used.

“The way in which the surgeon general has been talking about this is that, can we be sure that it’s safe for our kids?,” he said of social media. “The answer is absolutely not. We can’t be absolutely sure. So why wouldn’t we want to be putting guardrails on it now to figure this out? If we overshoot, we’re overshooting with regard to protecting our youth.”

Published Jun 27, 2023 by Claire Stremple, Alaska Beacon

Alaska will receive $1 billion in federal funding for affordable, high-speed Internet service, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced Monday. Nearly 90,000 homes and small businesses in the state lack access to a high-speed connection, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Sen. Dan Sullivan highlighted the announcement at a press conference with U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, where they urged action and awareness about the nation’s youth mental health crisis. Sullivan said that as Internet access expands, there is a need for policies to protect Alaska youth from adverse mental effects from social media.

“How that’s done, and the safeguards we need to put on social media, it needs to happen. It needs to happen on the national level. There’s a growing bipartisan consensus for the need to do that,” he said.