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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday establishing a Women’s Health Division within the National Institutes of Health. The new division is set to work with the agency’s existing Office of Research on Women’s Health, which was established in 1990 and “has served as the focal point for…
A small energy company that was assessed a hefty fine in July for what regulators said was five months of illegal natural gas flaring on the North Slope was cited again for another four months of gas flaring. The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, in an order issued Friday, assessed a $195,214 fine against
A suspicious envelope addressed to the Alaska Division of Elections in Juneau was intercepted by a hazardous materials response team and turned over to the FBI on Saturday, in what is believed to be part of a large number of mailings to congressional and election officials nationwide, according to Capital City…
Amid a global spike in fuel costs, the tiny Northwest Alaska villages of Shungnak and Ambler reported some of the most eye-watering prices at the pump in the past few months — more than $25 per gallon for gas in both communities, located on the Kobuk River. Enter the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority,
Most state offices may be closed on Monday for Alaska Day, but officials with the Alaska Division of Elections are planning to be at work for the first day of early in-person voting in the 2026 general election. In Anchorage, early voting will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday at Midtown Mall
Alaskans across the state rallied on Saturday as part of a nationwide No Kings day of action to encourage early voting in the November elections and criticize the Trump administration. Early in person voting begins in many locations in Alaska on Monday. Organizers at the No Kings event in Juneau urged Alaskans to vote…
Sport hunters will be able to bait bears in Alaska national preserves, under a final rule the Trump administration announced on Friday. The rule, proposed in March, overturns bans by the Biden and Obama administrations of the practice within National Park Service units. Bear baiting, which involves use of food…
The two leading candidates for Alaska’s U.S. Senate seat met in an acrimonious televised debate Thursday night in Anchorage, where Democratic candidate Mary Peltola and Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan accused each other of lying and repeatedly spoke over each other. “OK, let’s have some decorum here — candidates…
Do you have enough extra cash to fund massive lobbying campaigns? Outrageously expensive political campaigns? Could you afford it year after year, decade after decade? The wealthiest in our country can. They use their funds to acquire special preferences in law and regulations. Tax rates, cuts, breaks, loopholes…
WASHINGTON — The No Kings movement that has brought millions to the streets across the United States three times since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term is staging its next event at the polls. Organizers across hundreds of advocacy groups will pull together thousands of events nationwide Saturday to…
Weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s attempt to restrict mail-in voting in this year’s midterm elections, the president is calling on voters to vote early and by mail as he campaigns in support of Republican candidates nationwide. National polling has indicated that Democrats are more…
Clear communication at the state-run boarding school Mt. Edgecumbe High School is among the top priority areas to improve students’ residential and academic life, a special committee told members of the Alaska State Board of Education this week. The state board established the committee last March to review concerns…
The sheer size of investment in data centers is drawing concern as it surpasses all other historical booms and crowds out other more job-creating ventures. Until now, no industry had driven the U.S. economy with such force since the railroad expansion of the late 1800s, when titans battled one another to lay the…
In Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, schools in the flood zone remained closed. Homes swept away are still scattered across the tundra. Where crushing waves snapped essential boardwalks, the days now carry the drone of power tools worked by young Yup’iks determined to rebuild them. From a bird’s eye view, the land seems to…
At a rally in Wasilla on Tuesday, President Donald Trump and Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said America’s war with Iran is worth the resulting increased cost of fuel and food for Americans. “No matter what it is, it’s a small price to pay for stopping them from having a nuclear weapon,” Trump said of
More buses and cars will be allowed to travel on the sole road through Denali National Park, under a rule announced Thursday by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service. The new rule sets a limit of 160 permitted vehicles a day for the season that runs from the Saturday before
WASHINGTON — Democrats are touting an ambitious legislative agenda centered on affordability and accountability if they take back the U.S. House or Senate — or both — in November. A slew of pressing policy debates are on tap for Democrats, including healthcare, immigration, voting rights, the war in Iran, oversight…
One day after the U.S. Department of Justice requested the state of California remove suspected noncitizens from that state’s voter list, a spokesman for the Alaska Division of Elections said the DOJ has not made a similar request here. “We can confirm that to date the DOE has not received any requests from the DOJ
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump Thursday announced that the execution of a man convicted of the Fort Hood shooting will not be livestreamed, a reversal after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that Nidal Hasan’s death by firing squad would be public. “I think streaming the execution for all to see might…
The nation of Taiwan is coming closer to a multibillion-dollar investment in the trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline and is preparing to buy as much as 30% of the pipeline’s production, its economic affairs ministry said Wednesday. The announcement was short of the firm commitment that President Donald Trump and…
One year since the remnants of Typhoon Halong ripped through coastal communities of Western Alaska, displacing an estimated 1,600 residents and prompting the largest mass evacuation of the region in state history, the recovery effort is ongoing and uncertain. Today there is no official tally of how many residents are…
This summer, I stood with a landowner at the edge of a hayfield her parents cleared more than 60 years ago. Wisps of her grey hair caught in the wind, and her eyes narrowed as she looked out over her farmland ground, thinking about so many neighboring farms that have been converted to gravel pits
WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection need to improve oversight and guidance for federal immigration officers’ use of body-worn cameras, according to a Wednesday report from independent federal investigators. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security…
WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Tuesday extended a block on a Trump administration ban of press passes for three news organizations, which will allow them to continue to enter the White House grounds while a legal challenge to the ban, including a Wednesday appeal filed by the administration, plays out. U.S…
WASHINGTON — The Social Security Administration announced on Wednesday that recipients will receive a 3.6% increase in benefits in 2027. The cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, will begin for 72 million Social Security beneficiaries in January. It will apply for Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, recipients…
In a surprise announcement Tuesday, President Donald Trump said he is endorsing Republican Alaska gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson in the four-way race to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Polls indicate Wilson and two other Republicans — Dave Bronson and Treg Taylor — are trailing the lone…
The bedroom community made famous during former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s 2008 vice presidential run took center stage on Monday in the national fight for control of Congress. President Donald Trump came to Wasilla to campaign for U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican facing a stiff challenge from former U.S. Rep. Mary…
In the course of a single election cycle, the backlash against data centers has grown from an issue at local planning commission and city council meetings to become a flashpoint in state and federal races across the country. Candidates who once touted data centers as an economic boon have backtracked, and voters in at…
The history is clear, especially in more modern times. If a sitting U.S. president visits Alaska, it tends to mean a quick few hours in Anchorage, with as much refueling as anything else. Donald Trump in 2019 and 2025. Joe Biden three times from 2022 to 2023. George W. Bush in 2002 and 2005. Bill
For Alaskan voters this election, we may not have a candidate we love in every race, but we do have candidates who are much better poised to improve our lives in concrete ways. For families in Alaska, our biggest expense after our mortgage or rent is childcare. This recent article in the Beacon covers past
Three weeks before Election Day, the Trump administration’s sprawling project to send sensitive personal information on millions of voters to the Department of Homeland Security has been declared illegal by a federal judge. The blistering court decision comes after the Department of Justice pressured or sued states…
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola reiterated her support for construction of the proposed Izembek road between Cold Bay and King Cove during a visit to King Cove this month. Peltola’s position is identical to the one held by incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, whom Peltola is challenging in the…
Alaska has for years designated the second Monday of October as a holiday to honor the nation’s Indigenous cultures and acknowledge the harms of colonialism instead of observing Columbus Day. In Alaska, Indigenous Peoples Day has been an official holiday since 2015. Gov. Bill Walker’s yearly proclamations were…
One of the many issues before the next governor of Alaska will be the growing gap between available providers and the demand for childcare, which some advocates are calling a “childcare crisis.” Many Alaska families are grappling with finding reliable care due to a lack of childcare facilities and workers that…
The Alaska Beacon’s election coverage is aimed at informing the state’s electorate with timely, nonpartisan news and information that they need to cast their vote. We think our work connecting Alaskans to their state government is key to a healthy democracy.
The Trump administration’s order to allow import of Russian diesel violates a 2022 law banning Russian energy imports while the country’s war with Ukraine is ongoing, according to a bipartisan group of U.S. senators. Following an Oct. 9 call between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the U.S…
This story was originally published by ICT. WARNING: This story contains disturbing details about boarding schools and includes photos of caskets. If you are feeling triggered, here are healing-informed resources from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in the U.S. The National Indian…
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump this week will journey out West in an effort to galvanize support for Republican candidates three weeks before the midterm elections and convince voters to support his party amid low presidential approval ratings. As the deeply unpopular war in Iran enters month eight, resulting in…
The Trump administration on Friday announced that it will hold an offshore lease sale in federal waters of Cook Inlet next March, about a year after a similar federal lease sale offering the same acreage drew no bids. The auction — to offer 1 million acres of federal offshore territory — is part of a
The average price of a gallon of heating fuel — No. 1 diesel — in rural Alaska reached a record $7.97 per gallon in August, according to the latest biannual survey conducted by the Alaska Division of Community and Regional Affairs. The rural average, based on a survey of 100 communities taken between July 15
If elected, Republican governor candidates Dave Bronson and Bernadette Wilson said they would seek to roll back Alaska’s mandatory sick leave law and eliminate a minimum wage increase approved by voters in 2024. The two spoke at a forum hosted Wednesday in Juneau by the Juneau Chamber of Commerce, which is in favor of…
October is a time of witches, goblins, ghosts, and ghouls — and also a time for us to contemplate the ramifications of book banning as we recognize Banned Books Week this week. Book banning — and burning — is nothing new to the human species. According to a historical timeline on thisbookisbanned.com, early historical…
Seismic surveys, well drilling, ice road construction and other wintertime oil exploration activities on federal lands on the western North Slope will no longer be subject to case-by-case environmental evaluation, under a new rule the Trump administration announced on Thursday. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management…
WASHINGTON — Rebecca Myers lives in one of the nation’s most hotly contested congressional districts, and tariffs were on her mind as she voted early and in-person in Suffolk, Virginia in late September. The 44-year-old trained social worker said she and her husband, who recently retired after 25 years in the U.S…
The vast and largely unexplored seafloor off Alaska’s coastline produces occasional startling discoveries. The latest concerns the sponges that line the bottom of the ocean and contribute to an ecosystem that supports some of the nation’s biggest seafood harvests. Scientists have now identified nine previously unknown…
President Donald Trump is planning to fly to Alaska next week for a rally intended to boost the re-election campaigns of U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich III. According to the Trump 47 Committee, an operation of the Republican National Committee and Trump’s Save America PAC, Trump will speak at 3:30 p.m…
WASHINGTON — A federal judge will rule in the coming days on whether the Trump administration can legally rescind White House press passes for journalists at three news organizations, or if those reporters will be able to continue accessing the grounds while the case continues. U.S. District Judge for the District of…
The Department of Homeland Security obtained tens of millions of unspecified records as part of a sweeping nationwide effort to find voter fraud, according to internal DHS reports, and weighed using undercover agents to investigate voter registration efforts by nonprofit groups. The reports from May and June by…
Three of the four Alaska candidates for governor told a Juneau crowd they would live and maintain the seat of government in the state’s Southeast Alaska capital city at a forum in Juneau on Wednesday. The candidates’ commitment signals the potential for a significant shift. Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who has served for eight…
WASHINGTON — Every child in the United States with a valid Social Security number is now enrolled in a tax-advantaged investment account, titled a “Trump Account,” President Donald Trump announced Wednesday. Parents must claim the accounts by downloading a Trump Account mobile app. Children born from 2025 through 2028…
Alaska gubernatorial candidate Treg Taylor has agreed to pay a fine and update his campaign disclosure reports as part of a settlement with state regulators to resolve a campaign finance disclosure complaint. The complaint challenged Taylor’s failure to disclose details of more than $187,000 in expenditures to a…
The last thing a hunter needs to pack before a moose hunt is a crash course in federal regulations and bureaucracy. We shouldn’t need to spend the days before a hunt refreshing federal websites, comparing land-status maps, deciphering emergency action, and trying to determine whether our regular hunting spot is…
As President Donald Trump refuses to rule out taking extreme action in the midterm elections, voting rights advocates and civil rights leaders are bolstering their voter protection efforts in anticipation of possible federal interference. The focus by activists comes amid uncertainty among advocates and election…
All four of the candidates in Alaska’s gubernatorial election this year support construction of a trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline and increased, state-backed drilling for natural gas in Cook Inlet. But in a pair of forums held Sept. 21 and Oct. 2 in Anchorage, the four differed on a variety of other topics…
A leading Democratic campaign committee is projecting confidence in U.S. Senate toss-up races four weeks before Election Day, though it has yet to commit resources to the reddest states that have recently entered the Senate map. Senate Majority PAC, which is run by allies of Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of…
Here in Alaska, if you need something done, you do it yourself. That’s why the right to repair is so important. If a plow breaks down in the snow, the nearest garage could be hundreds of miles up an ice road. If a truck engine dies, remote roads and blinding weather mean it’s not always
President Donald Trump wants to sharply curtail mail ballots. He’s called them “inherently corrupt” and baselessly condemned them as a major source of fraud. But with Republicans falling behind in the polls, the president is now urging his supporters to vote in the midterm elections any way they can, including by…
Near the end of a 33-minute speech to an enthusiastic Republican crowd gathered in a Fairbanks airport hangar on Monday, Vice President JD Vance got to the point about why he was making an extraordinary campaign stop in Alaska. Incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican, is facing a stiff challenge in…
One of the starkest contrasts in Alaska’s federal races for Senate and House this election season is about money. Two of the candidates, from rural Alaska and running to the left of two Republican incumbents, have few assets to their name. Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate against incumbent…
Alaskans who have applied for disaster assistance funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and received a denial may still appeal, according to an agency update. “This may not be the final decision as FEMA may simply require more information or additional supporting documentation from the applicant. Read…
The U.S. Department of Energy said on Monday that it has approved $150 million to partially fund a second electrical intertie between Southcentral Alaska and the Interior. When built, the Beluga-Healy Transmission Project would result in a redundant power link between Fairbanks and Anchorage, increasing the ability of…
A national Republican organization has put $1.6 million into the Alaska governor’s race — going toe-to-toe with Democratic money that’s also flooded into the state in recent days.
Over the past few weeks, the four of us here at the Beacon have been wrestling with a pretty tough decision, and we’d like to get your feedback. A few months ago, Jeff Landfield of the Alaska Landmine asked us if we’d be willing to help with an AARP-sponsored candidate debate. The Beacon would co-host
As Alaska heads into the general election, the Alaska Beacon, Alaska Public Media, KTOO and the Anchorage Daily News have an updated voter guide. Just like we did for the primary election, we worked together to build a guide to help Alaskans make informed choices when they vote, and you can find it in the
By the end of 2027, as many as 14,000 Alaska state workers could be paid by someone outside the state. After years of trouble within the payroll department within the Alaska Department of Administration, the agency is planning to outsource the state’s public employee payroll to an outside company. Proposals from…
Before he was known to Alaskans as “Uncle Ted,” Ted Stevens was a decorated war hero, making dangerous missions behind enemy lines to support the Flying Tigers, a group of American pilots who fought the Japanese in the China-Burma-India theater of World War II. Stevens represented Alaska as one of the longest-serving…
Alaska has roughly the population it had in 2013. What little growth the state has seen in the past three years came from residents over 65, while the working-age population shrank. A state that is not growing should not have a housing shortage. It has one anyway. Rental vacancy in March was 4.9% in Anchorage,
Editor’s note: This article was updated 12:45 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3 with additional confirmation of Trump’s visit. Vice President J.D. Vance will hold a campaign event on Monday in Fairbanks to boost Republican candidates in this year’s general election, and President Donald Trump is expected to visit Anchorage later…
When Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin declared in September that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could serve warrants on individuals at polling places this fall, officials in Denver, a liberal city where roughly 14% of residents are foreign-born, quickly sued. “Every day we find new things to be…
Prediction market platforms say they are like commodity markets that offer contracts to speculate on the future price of corn or oil — not sportsbooks that allow gamblers to place bets. But many states reject those justifications, arguing the platforms offer a backdoor to skirt state gambling regulations, particularly…
The U.S. Department of the Treasury released new guidance Thursday for participating states, scholarship-granting organizations and taxpayers as the federal scholarship tax credit program prepares to take effect in January. Created through President Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending law in 2025, the Education…
Korea has not agreed to invest $54 billion in the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline — and has not even agreed to invest at all, its national industry minister, Kim Jung-kwan, told reporters in Seoul on Thursday. His remarks came hours after President Donald Trump held a news conference in the White House to…
News that 20 or more bears have been killed in Anchorage this year, mostly because they’ve gotten into the habit of eating human trash, is both disheartening and infuriating. People who live in the municipality, like elsewhere in Alaska, have long known what steps to take to minimize bear-human conflicts. At the top…
WASHINGTON — U.S. senators departed Capitol Hill on Wednesday night for their campaign break, leaving numerous policy disputes unresolved. The chamber won’t return until Nov. 9 for the five-week lame-duck session, when party leaders will have to decide which bills they want to negotiate during what could be the final…
President Donald Trump is scheduled to kick off a month-long blitz of campaign stops with a Thursday rally in deep-red Oklahoma before heading to other states with strong Republican leanings. The first events in the closing stretch of the midterm election campaign suggest his strength with swing voters is limited, as…
The U.S. Department of Education’s suspension this year of a comprehensive monitoring process puts billions of K-12 dollars at heightened risk of undetected waste, fraud and abuse, according to a new report by the nonpartisan U.S. Government Accountability Office. The congressional watchdog’s report also raised…
President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that he had secured a deal with the Republic of Korea to spend $54 billion on a long-desired Alaska natural gas pipeline project, part of a $200 billion package of investments that include a major power plant in Texas and several nuclear power plants. Trump spoke in…
This commentary was originally published in the Anchorage Press. Subscribe here. Mary Peltola’s use of hateful speech, including the R-slur and the F-slur, is more than a political matter. It cuts to the core of who we choose to be: Will we be a people that allows for words like this to be wielded without
Alaska’s decades-long quest to obtain millions of acres of land from the federal government under the Alaska Statehood Act is getting closer to an end. But because the state is getting closer to its goal, its requests now exceed a limit in federal law. This week, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources announced…
President Donald Trump is tapping $20 million in Homeland Security funding to pay for TV ads that heavily feature him ahead of the midterm elections, Democrats said Tuesday as the promos critics call propaganda come under bipartisan attack. The Trump administration recently moved the funds into a U.S. Customs and…
The 2026 Permanent Fund dividend, worth $1,200 per recipient, will be direct-deposited into Alaskans’ bank accounts starting Oct. 1, according to a plan published by the Alaska Department of Revenue earlier this month. This year’s dividend was set at $1,000 by the Alaska Legislature in the state budget signed by Gov…
Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, site of the world’s biggest sockeye salmon runs, produced a total harvest this year that was a bit smaller than the 20-year average but fetched more dollars for fishers, according to a state summary. The 2026 sockeye salmon run totaled 45.7 million fish, making this the first year since…
Five weeks before Election Day, President Donald Trump’s sprawling effort to identify and remove noncitizen voters hasn’t produced the kind of large purges that could meaningfully affect the midterm elections. Even a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision giving states access to a supercharged Department of Homeland…
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration must spend the $810 million that it said last week it planned to cancel, according to a report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. The congressional watchdog’s decision contends the White House budget office doesn’t hold the ability to claw back…
Anchorage Superior Court Judge David Nesbett has rejected speedy consideration of a lawsuit seeking to put a disqualified Anchorage state House candidate on November’s election ballot. That means Republican Sarah Short will not be a listed candidate for House District 13 and Democratic candidate Lisa Keller will run…
A national organization has put $650,000 into an Alaska political group, saying it aims to boost the campaign of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. Alaska political experts say Kreiss-Tomkins, a former state representative from Sitka, stands a strong chance of winning the general election…
A major dam failure at the huge gold mine proposed for rural Western Alaska could unleash catastrophic flooding that would make one village uninhabitable, poison drinking water sources and cause lasting damage to fish habitat, according to a new analysis by federal regulators. The hypothetical disaster is described in…
Before Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration leaves office in December, it’s planning to put its stamp on Alaska’s roads, bridges and infrastructure one last time. Earlier this month, the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities published a draft version of the Statewide Transportation Improvement…
An Anchorage Superior Court judge may rule by mid-October on whether or not Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom acted correctly when she restored Republican state House candidate Jose Tagle to November’s general election ballot. In an order signed Tuesday, Judge Josie Garton declined to promptly overturn Dahlstrom’s decision but…
The challenges and dire threats surrounding the unchecked growth of artificial intelligence appear unlikely to move Congress or President Donald Trump to act as the U.S. Senate enters its last week before the midterms. The rapid emergence of the technology has sparked a host of policy debates, with some warning of an…
I remember the feeling of panic that set in years ago when my daughter told me and my husband she had been feeling incredibly sad for an extended period of time and that a friend of hers had been self-harming recently. Even with years of EMS training and experience working directly with young people with
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S. Like many parents, Arielle Roth has concerns about her children’s screen time at school. But unlike her peers, she’s in a position to influence the issue at nearly…
Incorrect information provided by a Google AI overview caused a Kodiak woman to hunt snipe illegally on Sept. 5, according to a citation filed this week at the Kodiak district court. Writing in an affidavit attached to the citation, Alaska Wildlife Trooper Alex Wick said Weaver called troopers to self-report the…
Alaska observers say it is too early to say how reports of bad behavior by Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola might affect the state’s closely watched election, and some supporters suggested this week that she may be subject to a double standard because of her gender. “While it’s surprising news, I think…
This story was originally published by ICT. WARNING: This story contains disturbing details about boarding schools. If you are feeling triggered, here is a resource list from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. While everyone else in the household was asleep, Nyché Andrew worked late into…
WASHINGTON — An appeals panel Friday seemed inclined to agree that more than 100 Venezuelan men the Trump administration sent to a brutal prison in El Salvador are entitled to due process hearings to challenge their removal, which was made under an archaic 18th-century wartime law. Arguing on behalf of the class of…
Alaska childcare providers, families and employers are under intense strain with the lack of childcare availability and funding, according to advocates. They are calling for major state investment in the childcare industry and seeking policy changes under the next governor and Alaska State Legislature. Leaders with…
The respiratory virus that sparked a disruptive worldwide pandemic six years ago continues to circulate in Alaska, but its effects are much diminished from past years, according to state health statistics. In the 2025-2026 season, 22 Alaskans, including one child, died with COVID-19 listed as an underlying or…
When I leave my Boston condo every day, I say good morning to the concierge, who works for a contracting company providing staff to residential buildings. When I conduct an interview in a nearby building, the people who clean that office at night are contractors. The person who serves me my lunch sandwich is a
WASHINGTON — Despite skyrocketing fuel prices and sinking approval ratings for President Donald Trump’s conflict in Iran ahead of the November midterms, Senate Republicans blocked Democrats’ efforts Thursday to check the president’s unfettered military action in the Middle East. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa…