Grete Bergman had long wanted to get traditional facial markings, a practice for Indigenous women in Alaska that European settlers tried to extinguish.

But in 2016, Bergman became one of the first among the Gwich'in Nation — First Nations peoples whose homelands stretch from northeast Alaska to northwest Canada — to get tattooed, in a return to a centuries-old tradition.

"My dad would have hated it," Bergman said. "He would have looked at me and he would have said, 'What the hell you do that for?' "

The U.S. Justice Department will ask the Supreme Court to put on hold Texas' restrictive abortion law as legal challenges against the law proceed.

"The Justice Department intends to ask the Supreme Court to vacate the Fifth Circuit's stay of the preliminary injunction against Texas Senate Bill 8," Anthony Coley, a DOJ spokesman, said in a statement.

Pastor William Tauanu’u of Anchorage knows how dangerous COVID-19 can be. 

Last year, he spent weeks on a ventilator with the disease. He’s back to preaching Sunday sermons at University Baptist Church but he still suffers the effects of long-haul COVID, which leave him exhausted after bouts of effort. 

A potential gold mine is being explored in Western Alaska, just north of the Donlin Gold Project. But the company exploring the area says a mine actually being developed there is far from guaranteed.

The mine project is called “Flat Gold.” It consists of 92,000 acres of land located between Holy Cross and McGrath, just 25 miles north of the Donlin Gold Project.

Tectonic Metals is the company that will be exploring Flat for gold. CEO and President Tony Reda says there are key differences between Flat and Donlin.