Alaska Beacon

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday said he will nominate Erica Schwartz, who served in the president’s first administration, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a seat left vacant for months after his last director said she was ousted in a rift over childhood vaccines. Trump announced his new pick on his social media platform, Truth Social, touting Schwartz’s career as a medical doctor with the U.S. armed forces. “She is a STAR!” he wrote.

Earlier this month, Golden Valley Electric Association held a community meeting in response to growing frustration among its members. The standing-room-only crowd at the Noel Wien Library included many familiar faces involved in Fairbanks energy issues. But what stood out were the people I didn’t recognize: residents who don’t typically show up to these kinds of meetings, clearly searching for answers to their high energy bills. A military mom with a toddler.

On March 31, President Trump issued a new executive order on citizenship records and mail‑in ballots entitled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” The order has nothing to do with election integrity — the name is like “Newspeak,” Orwell’s fictional language for a totalitarian state. It is an unlawful attempt to seize control of how Alaskans vote and to make an error‑ridden federal database the gatekeeper of our ballots.

At least 2.5 million low-income people quickly lost help affording groceries under a Republican-passed law that added new requirements for the nation’s largest nutrition program and shifted hundreds of millions of dollars in costs from the federal government to states, according to a study the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities published Wednesday.

by Larry Persily, Alaska Beacon April 8, 2026 Little kids can’t help but play with their food. Gamblers can’t stop playing with a pair of dice or deck of cards. Cats can’t help but play with a ball of yarn. It’s the same with legislators who play around with voter-enticing talk of a fat Permanent Fund dividend. They just can’t help themselves, particularly in an election year. Like kids, gamblers and cats, it’s in the DNA of too many elected officials.

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11:15 Commentary An election scholar explains why the Department of Justice is facing headwinds in its litigious quest for states’ voter information A sign posted on Aug. 18, 2024, outside of the Alaska Division of Elections office in Midtown Anchorage directs voters to the polling place inside. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) In May 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice began sending letters to state governments demanding copies of statewide voter registration lists.

This week, the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention posted online its first large tranche of advanced genetic data from measles viruses spreading last year. Scientists with knowledge of the operation expect the agency to post heaps more in weeks to come, revealing whether the U.S. has lost its hard-won measles elimination status. The CDC withheld the data for months as a team hit hard by mass layoffs and resignations sorted through the information.

Alaska is about to see $22 billion invested in energy production and storage over the next five years. That’s real money, real opportunity and something we shouldn’t take for granted. What we do with that investment matters far beyond Alaska. When you have a diverse energy grid, it’s harder to disrupt and less vulnerable to foreign pressure. That’s just common sense. Alaska can offer that diversity: oil and gas, hydropower, wind, solar. But only if we build it.

by Christine Peterson, High Country News, Alaska Beacon April 1, 2026 On March 31, the U.S. Forest Service announced plans to move its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City, Utah. It will also close or repurpose all nine of its regional offices, create 15 state offices, and shutter research and development facilities in more than 30 states.