Kenai Peninsula

Homer News editor and reporter Michael Armstrong is retiring Friday after more than 23 years with the paper. Armstrong made his way to Alaska from Florida four decades ago, and in May of 1999, he started working at the Homer News as an editorial assistant, typing letters to the editor, compiling Town Crier and Cops and Courts, and working the front desk taking classified ads, subscription orders and rolling quarters. He became a reporter for the paper in 2003 and then its editor in 2017.

A years-long plan to update the highway through Moose Pass continues to draw pushback from residents of the small community, who worry the project will be disruptive to their properties and community.

One woman with Soldotna roots is gearing up for an all-women’s off-roading rally this fall.

All restrictions on burning on the Kenai Peninsula have been lifted.The wet weather over the weekend brought the wildfire risk substantially down on the peninsula.

A volunteer group in Cooper Landing with a fun name and a messy job has been keeping unmanned dump sites on the Kenai Peninsula clean for more than 25 years.

The Kenai Peninsula was rocked to sleep last night by a pair of minor earthquakes.The first, a 4.3-magnitude quake, hit just before 7 p.m. in the Primrose area, near Moose Pass. The second, a 4.7, was just before 11:30 p.m. near Tyonek, on the other side of Cook Inlet.

Nearly 150 wildland fires are actively burning across Alaska. There are no large wildfires in the Kenai area. But smoke from the Interior is blowing down to the region. The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation has issued a “moderate” air quality warning for Southcentral Alaska.

The reserve’s series of public lectures and hands-on demonstrations cover a different topic each month, like tide pool invertebrates, volcanoes and earthquakes along the Ring of Fire. This month, Bentz said, her organization chose the watershed workshop because of how many researchers studying local watersheds happened to be in town.

Alaska’s in some of its hottest days of the summer yet. But some mushers already have winter on the brain. Saturday was the first day to register for the 2023 Iditarod and 21 are already signed up, including last year’s champion, Brett Sass of Eureka.

A proposed solar farm in Sterling could add to the peninsula's growing portfolio of renewable energy projects.