The Associated Press

Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Monday that she recently tested positive for COVID-19. She made the announcement on the social media.

Alaska is burning this year in ways rarely or ever seen, from the largest wildfire in a typically mainly fireproof southwest region to a pair of blazes that ripped through forests and produced smoke that blew hundreds of miles to the the Bering Sea community of Nome, where the normally crystal clear air was pushed into the extremely unhealthy category.

The state of Alaska plans to begin distributing this year's oil-wealth fund check and a special energy relief payment to residents on Sept. 20. The timeline was announced July 15 by Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the state Department of Revenue.

Alaska had about 7,900 more jobs last month than in June 2021 but most industries still fell short of their job numbers three years earlier, before the pandemic, the state labor department said Friday.

To this day, Flo Buffalo doesn't drink milk — not since two nuns force-fed her the sour milk she had refused at the Catholic-run Ermineskin Indian Residential School for Indigenous children that she attended in the 1960s. With international attention focusing on the former school in the prairie town of Maskwacis as Pope Francis visits Monday to apologize for abuses in a system designed to sever Native children from their tribal, family and religious bonds, Indigenous Canadians such as Buffalo are voicing a range of skepticism, wariness and hope.

A man has been sentenced to six months in prison for illegally selling big game guiding services, the Alaska U.S. attorney's office said July 20.

A far-right internet personality pleaded guilty Friday to joining the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol, where he streamed live video that incriminated him and other rioters, according to a court filing.

Both pilots of a firefighting helicopter that crashed in Idaho have died, the U.S. Forest Service said Friday. Mary Cernicek with the Salmon-Challis National Forest said Thomas Hayes, 41, of Post Falls, Idaho, and Jared Bird, 36, of Anchorage, Alaska, died from injuries they sustained when their CH-47D Series "Chinook" crashed in the Salmon River about 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

Brooke Merrell has been named superintendent of Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska and is the first woman in that role in the 105-year history of the park, the National Park Service announced Thursday.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is expected next week to sign legislation to formally recognize tribes in the state. The Alaska Federation of Natives announced the bill signing would take place Thursday. Shannon Mason, a Dunleavy spokesperson, confirmed the timing.