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Current Topics
Russian Research Vessel Intercepts U.S. Icebreaker in the Arctic. Maritime Executive
Healy's course took her through international waters, well north of the Russian coastline. Russia jealously guards control over the Northern Sea Route (NSR) through its near-coastal waters, and Russian regulations require foreign vessels to obtain prior permission to navigate this route and to take on Russian pilots. The requirement is not consistent with the right of innocent passage established by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, but there are few publicized challenges to Russian restrictions on transits.
$1.7 million aid distribution benefited food banks, communities statewide.
In February, the Administration reallocated $1.7 million from an unutilized state program as a short-term bridge towards achieving long-term goals – to update and improve the processing of applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The program was then experiencing months’ long backlog in redeterminations.
Team running Golden Lion says first month of service has been ‘incredibly smooth’. Alaska News Source
It’s been roughly a month since residential operations at the former Golden Lion Hotel began, allowing low-income tenants a chance to find affordable housing.
Stickiest states. Axios
The share of people born in the state and still living there in 2021. Lowest is WY at 45%. Alaska is at 48.7%.
Education
Alaska’s newest education commissioner discusses trans athletes, increasing child literacy and reducing turnover. Alaska Public Media
Recorded interview
Economy
Proposed Sale of Carrs Safeway Grocery stores in Alaska. ADN
The deal has raised concerns in Alaska that it would cause store closures and higher food prices, increase risks to a fragile supply chain, and threaten the livelihoods of hundreds of workers. Unions representing workers at the stores, along with Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola and some state lawmakers, have called on the federal agency to block the deal.
Minerals
Investing in Graphite One. Alaska Beacon
An Alaska Native corporation said Tuesday it is investing in a project that could result in the first graphite production in the United States in decades. Bering Straits Native Corp., the corporation for the Inupiat and Yup’ik people of the Bering Strait region, will put $2 million into the Graphite One project being explored about 35 miles north of Nome.
Catch up fast on the global mineral race. Axios
"Ghana's sovereign wealth fund will invest almost $33 million in a lithium mine in the country and take a minority stake in its developer Atlantic Lithium (A11.AX), the company said on Friday," Reuters reports. Mining giant Glencore is making its first investment in a lithium mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo via a deal with the Canadian firm Tantalex.
(My comment: Will these resources be extracted with environmentally sound practices, such as are used here in Alaska? Will children be employed for cents/day, which is banned here in Alaska? Do you want to purchase your electronics, renewable energy and EVs built with products unethically mined? These are serious questions for Americans and Alaskans.)
The battery boom. Axios
Daimler Truck, Cummins and Paccar unveiled a joint venture that will invest $2-$3 billion in making cells for commercial vehicles and industrial uses. Big players, including BlackRock and Temasek, are pouring $542 million in new equity investments into battery materials firm Ascend Elements. Oman's wealth fund is investing an undisclosed sum in the U.S. battery firm Our Next Energy, per Oman's news agency and multiple reports.
(My Comment: This will require mining, such as the deposit at Graphite One.)
Electric Vehicle Numbers. EIA
Hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery-electric vehicle sales in the United States have increased in recent years as sales have decreased for non-hybrid gasoline- or diesel-fueled vehicles. In the second quarter of 2023 (2Q23), hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery-electric vehicles collectively accounted for 16% of light-duty vehicle sales in the United States, according to data from Wards Intelligence.
Germanium in Alaska. North of 60 Mining News
In addition to hosting 6.3 billion pounds of copper and 88 million lb of cobalt critical to the energy transition, the Bornite deposit in Alaska's Ambler Mining District may also be a significant source of the germanium essential to both clean energy and high-tech.
A new e-waste program is recycling tons of batteries from rural Alaska. Alaska Public Media
The organizers of a new initiative that retrieves e-waste from across rural Alaska report they collected and recycled over 145,000 pounds of lead-acid batteries from 45 communities last year.
Politics
Alaska Department of Corrections lowers age for corrections officers. Alaska Beacon
The council that sets and enforces standards for employment, training and certification of law enforcement officers in the state approved a proposal to lower the minimum age of state corrections officers from 21 to 18 years old on Thursday. The proposal will go out to public comment before any regulation change takes effect.
(My comment: Yikes! Instead of addressing the reason for recruitment crisis, the State is just lowering the standards. Bad approach. We know that brain maturity (decision making) doesn’t complete until about age 24. Corrections is a highly skilled, intense, crisis-decision making job. Not an appropriate venue for youth.)
Fisheries
Study: “Forever Chemicals” barely present in Arctic Alaska Fish. KINY
A new study has found minute levels of chemical contamination in a small sample of Arctic coastal fish species, an encouraging finding for residents who rely on them for subsistence foods.
Health Care
Health care may soon push up inflation. Axios
Medical services could soon prove an unpleasant source of higher inflation. Quirks in how health insurance prices are measured, and how medical providers set prices, have led to a downturn in inflation in recent months, but that trend looks likely to reverse.
Shrimp and Salmon Reference Materials Could Help Combat Seafood Fraud. NIST
At your local supermarket, you can usually find all sorts of seafood on display, but it’s sometimes hard to know if it’s correctly labeled. If you purchase seafood marked as wild-caught salmon, for example, how do you know that you’re not actually getting cheaper farm-raised salmon, or even an entirely different kind of fish?
Tree Nut Reference Materials Support Food Allergen Testing. NIST
Food allergies affect millions of Americans every year. Though medications can treat allergy symptoms, preventative measures such as accurate food labeling and stopping cross-contact with potential allergens during food preparation can help ensure people are not exposed to foods that might cause an allergic reaction.
Alaska's Health Department works through one food stamp backlog only to confront another. Alaska Beacon
The division fell behind on newer applications and while staff worked through backlogged cases. Etheridge said this time there are 6,000 Alaskans waiting for food aid.
Congress has a chance to reduce drug patent abuses, lower costs for Alaskans. Alaska Beacon
One of the most egregious tactics Big Pharma employs to abuse our patent system is called “product hopping.” This is when companies make small changes to a drug, such as its intake method or dosage, and then file new patents to protect these changes. Meanwhile Big Pharma companies shift patients from the older version of the drug onto the newer version, which has new patents. By doing this repeatedly, pharmaceutical firms are able to create “patent thickets” around their most lucrative products. This locks patients into paying higher prices for the same drugs while preventing them from accessing more affordable alternatives.
(My comment: Insurance Companies use Pharmacy Benefit Managers who negotiate rebates from Pharma and pocket the money.)
Measuring the Accuracy of PCR Tests Can Improve Health Care Beyond COVID-19. NIST
The development of the clinical COVID test is a triumph of molecular biology and applied genetics. The most common version of the test is based on a powerful, and widely used, lab technique called the polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
RNA Structure and Dynamics: The One-Two Punch in the Fight Against COVID-19. NIST
Before the proteins that infect your cells can be built, the viral RNA, which contains the blueprints to produce proteins essential for viral replication, must be read by the ribosome, the place where proteins are put together within a cell. Parts of the viral RNA form flexible structures that regulate the ability to read and create proteins from it.
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