Where have they all gone? Alaska snow crab season canceled as officials investigate mysterious disappearance of an estimated 1 billion crabs – Unprecedented 90% drop in population

In a major blow to America’s seafood industry, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has, for the first time in state history, canceled the winter snow crab season in the Bering Sea due to their falling numbers. While restaurant menus will suffer, scientists worry what the sudden population plunge means for the health of the Arctic ecosystem.

An estimated one billion crabs have mysteriously disappeared in two years, state officials said. It marks a 90% drop in their population.

Did they run up north to get that colder water?” asked Gabriel Prout, whose Kodiak Island fishing business relies heavily on the snow crab population. “Did they completely cross the border? Did they walk off the continental shelf on the edge there, over the Bering Sea?

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Biden Admin Spends Tens Of Millions To Deliver Fiber Internet To Only About 90 Rural Alaska Households

President Joe Biden’s Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending tens of millions in tax dollars to bring fiber optic internet to rural southeast Alaska.

As part of USDA’s “Reconnect Program,” it awarded a roughly $33 million grant to the Alaska Telephone Company (ATC), the agency announced last Thursday. Fiber will be delivered to 92 households and a total of 211 people and five businesses in two Alaska native villages called Skagway and Chilkat, according to a federal grant award listing.

ATC’s fiber plan will cost around $204,000 per passing of each residence and business, according to an analysis by Fierce Telecom, a tech publication. ATC also said in a Sept. 22 statement it will invest roughly $11 million into the fiber project.

“The Klukwan-Skagway Fiber project will spur economic growth and significantly enhance quality of life in very remote, hard-to-serve locations, empowering rural Alaskans with options for remote work, distance learning, telemedicine, and more,” Mike Garrett, CEO of Alaska Power & Telephone Company, which oversees ATC, said in the statement.

Fiber is a type of broadband connection that involves plastic or glass cords and is used for cable television and telephone signals as well as internet. It is roughly 20 times faster than standard cable internet and 80 times faster than digital subscriber line (DSL), another internet technology, according to HP.

USDA’s reconnect program allocates up to $1.1 billion in grants and loans to areas in rural America that lack “sufficient access” to broadband internet, a type of internet through service providers. The program was authorized under Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed in November 2021.

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Officer Arrested for Raping His Daughter to Prove She Was Not Gay, Before Murdering Her And Her Mom

As TFTP reported in 2019, in one town in Alaska, the “bad apple” excuse goes completely out the window as every single cop on the force at one time, had been convicted of domestic violence. One of the cops was even a registered sex offender.

According to the report, Nimeron Mike was a registered sex offender and had served six years behind bars in Alaska jails and prisons. He’d been convicted of assault, domestic violence, vehicle theft, groping a woman, hindering prosecution, reckless driving, drunken driving and choking a woman unconscious in an attempted sexual assault. Among other crimes.

Nevertheless, when Mike put in his application, he was hired immediately. But Mike is only one of seven cops in the town who has a history of beating and raping women. Every other cop on the force, including the current police chief has a criminal record involving abuse of women, yet all of them remain cops.

This week, we have learned the inevitable and horrifying results of looking the other way as cops dole out violence on their families. Jalonni Blackshear, 39, has been transported back to Alaska after he was found hiding out in New York. He is currently in a cage — where he belongs — and is being held on a $15 million bond for horrifically unspeakable criminal acts against his own family.

According to police, Jalonni Blackshear had an argument with his 14-year-old daughter in March when she came out as gay.

“She was told that she could not be gay,” Jeri White, who is Raechyl Blackshear’s mother and Jayla’s grandmother told Superior Court Judge Kevin Saxby during an arraignment hearing Tuesday. “And then several hours later, he attempted to prove to her that she was not gay by doing these unmentionable, unspeakable things that good fathers would never do — that good fathers would actually lay down their lives to protect their children from.”

As Anchorage Daily News reports:

On March 30, the morning after the argument, Jayla told her mother she had been sexually abused in their home while Raechyl Blackshear was working an overnight shift as a nurse at a local hospital, according to a bail memorandum written by prosecutors last month and filed this week. The 34-year-old mother took her daughter to the hospital, and they were then directed to Alaska CARES, where a sexual abuse evidence kit was collected. Alaska CARES is a child advocacy center that focuses on helping children who have experienced trauma from abuse.

After the sexual assault allegations, Raechyl Blackshear and her children stopped staying at the home. She and Jayla were sleeping at a hotel, according to the bail memo. Jalonni Blackshear was at a hotel room with his brother and one of his children, the document said. Three of his sons were staying with a family friend.

Four days after officer Blackshear raped his own daughter, he threatened her mother and forced her to recant her statement to the police. On April 3, Jayla Blackshear went to the police department with her mother and retracted her statement, claiming the sexual abuse allegations were false.

Hours later, Blackshear would find his daughter and his wife at their home where he murdered them both with a shotgun.

He then stole his daughter’s phone and began texting family — pretending to be his daughter — to throw police off his trail before fleeing to New York state. Because of this, their bodies would not be discovered for ten more days when a nationwide manhunt was launched for Jalonni Blackshear.

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Alaska village requires full vaccine for in-person shopping

A village in Alaska has mandated that only fully vaccinated people will be allowed into the community’s stores and businesses.

Kongiganak had 50% of its eligible residents vaccinated with at least one dose as of April 9, KYUK-AM reported Wednesday, citing the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation.

Kongiganak reported that it had a population of 439 people in the 2010 U.S. Census.

Sheila Phillip, the Kongiganak Traditional Council secretary, said that people who are fully vaccinated can go inside the village’s two stores if they wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines.

People not fully vaccinated “can still make phone orders and their orders are delivered to their home,” Phillip said.

The general manager for Qemirtalek Coast Corporation, Harvey Paul, said his village store allows four people inside.

Paul said his employees verify that a customer is vaccinated by checking that their name is on a list provided by the tribe, KYUK-AM reported.

“Every couple of days, they’ll give us a new list,” Paul said. “The list keeps getting bigger and bigger. That’s a good sign, you know?”

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Health worker in Alaska had serious allergic reaction to Pfizer’s vaccine

A health worker in Alaska had a serious allergic reaction after getting Pfizer Inc’s coronavirus vaccine, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing three people familiar with reports of the person’s health.The allergic reaction occurred on Tuesday and the person was in stable condition after being hospitalized, the New York Times reported.It was not clear if the person had a history of allergic reactions, the report said.

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