Author: Joe Viechnicki, KFSK

An internal audit by the U.S. Forest Service says the federal agency mismanaged two timber sales. The report blames pressure to meet timber harvest targets. Mistakes meant $2 million less for habitat restoration work on the Tongass National Forest. Auditors also found the sales failed to outline planned restoration work and potentially violated conflict of interest rules among other findings.

A man accused of killing a young woman in the Southeast village of Kake will now stand trial in Juneau. The presiding judge agreed with the prosecutor that the COVID-19 pandemic would make it difficult to hold a jury trial this year in Petersburg.

By the end of last year, the Petersburg borough had spent all of its 3.9 million dollars in federal funding from the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security or CARES Act. Much of it went to salaries and equipment for the local government and school district, along with grants to businesses and non-profits.

Alaska’s Board of Game Thursday voted to postpone in-person regulatory meetings for a year and will meet online in 2021 on only it’s most pressing decisions.

A judge has agreed to another extension for a final rule on designating critical habitat for endangered and threatened humpback whales in the Pacific Ocean.