AC rushes to refill shelves as weather, maintenance plagues cargo carriers

image from: knom.org

The Alaska Commercial Company (AC) is revamping its shipping plans this winter as a combination of severe weather and high seasonal demand has caused disruptions in Nome and nearby communities.

AC President Kyle Hill said the conditions have led to product shortages, delayed freight and increased spoilage — prompting both short-term action and long-term changes to the company’s supply chain.

“This year was particularly bad over the past month or two, from a weather perspective,” Hill said. “In those temperatures some food was freezing on the tarmac here [in Anchorage] when it was getting loaded onto a plane, or freezing in Nome when it came off the plane, which is a constant challenge.”

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An Alaska Town Is Now Key to Trump’s Global Ambitions

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To the unimaginative eye, the view of Nome, Alaska, from Joy Baker’s well-heated S.U.V. looked like a whole lot of nothing: The early winter sun was sliding below the horizon barely four hours after it had risen, the gray water of the inner harbor had already frozen over, and the only stirring came from a flock of hearty seabirds diving for dinner just off shore.

But Ms. Baker has a vision that goes well beyond the subarctic calm: “More traffic, more services, more jobs. More of everything for people here.”

Ms. Baker is director of the Port of Nome and thus the local overseer for a $548-million-and-counting plan to expand the port, in one of America’s most remote cities on the Bering Sea. Nome is a quiet, frozen frontier town much of the year, known mostly for the Iditarod sled race, and reachable only by air except for a few summer months when the water thaws enough to allow boats through.

Soon, however, Nome’s existing dock will be turned into the country’s first deepwater Arctic port, a critical hub in President Trump’s ambitions to make the United States master of the far north and compete with other world powers for untapped natural resources and shipping corridors.

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Student charged after bringing firearm onto Nome-Beltz campus

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 A male student at Nome-Beltz Middle High School has been charged with Terroristic Threatening in the second degree and Misconduct involving weapons in the fourth degree after being taken into custody the morning of January 6 after bringing a firearm onto school grounds.
No one was injured in the incident. 

According to a letter released by Nome Public Schools Superintendent Jamie Burgess just after 2 p.m. on January 6, the weapon was unloaded. Initially she wrote that students made staff aware that a student had brought a firearm to school at around 9:30 a.m. This timeline was updated in a follow-up letter on January 9 letter to roughly 10:30 a.m.

After being notified, staff initiated a “stay in place” response and called the Nome Police Department.

Nome Police Officer Dylan Howard told The Nugget in an interview that the Nome Police Department was dispatched at 10:31 a.m. and arrived at the campus seven minutes later. The officers met with the school administration, who told them they suspected that a student had a firearm. The principal fetched the student from class, and he indeed admitted to having the firearm in his pocket.

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Nome council moves to issue new taxicab permits

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The Nome Common Council voted unanimously Monday night to reject a proposed ordinance that would’ve repealed the city’s taxicab and motorbus licensing requirements. Instead, the council approved a motion to reissue 11 taxicab permits through a public lottery.

The move comes as Nome’s sole taxicab operator, Nome Checker Cab, ceased operations at the end of 2025. Nome City Clerk Dan Grimmer said at the meeting that Checker Cab’s licenses expired and that he had not fielded an application to renew them as of the Jan. 12 meeting. 

The vote followed more than an hour of public testimony and council debate over Ordinance O-26-01-01, which would have eliminated regulations governing taxi vehicle permits, including requirements for insurance, inspection, and identification, while retaining chauffeur licensing requirements. 

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Jirdes Winther Baxter, last survivor of 1925 Nome serum run, dies in Juneau at 101

image from: https://www.juneauindependent.com/post/jirdes-winther-baxter-last-survivor-of-1925-nome-serum-run-dies-in-juneau-at-101

Jirdes Winther Baxter, the last living survivor of the 1925 serum run credited with inspiring the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, died Monday at Bartlett Regional Hospital at the age of 101.

"This is kind of an end of an era for that period of time," Fred Baxter, one of her sons, said in an interview Tuesday.

His mother, born Jirdes Winther on Feb. 25, 1924, to parents who had moved from Norway to Nome, was hospitalized with diphtheria on Jan. 31, 1925, in the midst of an epidemic of the disease that winter. Only a few days earlier, Nome’s only doctor, Curtis Welch, sent an emergency telegraph to the U.S. Public Health Service requesting 1 million units of diphtheria antitoxin.

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Nome-Beltz student in custody after bringing firearm to school

image from: https://knom.org/2026/01/06/nome-beltz-student-in-custody-after-bringing-firearm-to-school/

A male student at Nome-Beltz Middle High School was taken into custody Tuesday morning after bringing an unloaded firearm to campus, according to Nome Public Schools Superintendent Jamie Burgess.

In a letter addressed to the community of Nome, Burgess said the incident occurred at approximately 9:30 a.m. after students alerted school administrators that another student had brought a firearm to school. The Nome Police Department was contacted immediately and two officers responded to the scene.

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