New sandbag-style barriers installed along a river in Alaska's capital city held back record levels of flooding and prevented widespread damage after an ice dam at the nearby Mendenhall Glacier released a massive amount of rainwater and snowmelt downstream, officials said Wednesday.
Water pooled on several streets, in some yards and in some homes in Juneau after the Mendenhall River crested earlier in the day. But the water receded and by late afternoon officials had reopened affected areas to residents, many of whom evacuated ahead of peak water levels. There were no damage reports similar to the last two years, when flooding was rampant and some homes washed away.
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This image provided by the City and Borough of Juneau shows flooding from a release of water and snowmelt at Mendenhall Glacier covered some roads and threatened homes along the Mendenhall River in Juneau, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (City and Borough of Juneau via AP)
This drone image provided by the City and Borough of Juneau shows flooding from a release of water and snowmelt at Mendenhall Glacier covered some roads and threatened homes along the Mendenhall River in Juneau, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (City and Borough of Juneau via AP)
This image provided by the City and Borough of Juneau shows flooding from a release of water and snowmelt at Mendenhall Glacier covered some roads and threatened homes along the Mendenhall River in Juneau, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (City and Borough of Juneau via AP)
HESCO flood barriers, to protect property against glacial outburst flooding, separate a residential area from the Mendenhall River, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025., in Juneau, Alaska. (Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News via AP)
The Mendenhall Glacier is visible in the distance from a residential area, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025, in Juneau, Alaska. (Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News via AP)
FILE - A canoe, bottom right, glides on Mendenhall Lake, in front of the Mendenhall Glacier, on Sunday, May 18, 2025, in Juneau, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, File)
People view Mendenhall Glacier from the Mendenhall Glacier Visitors Center area, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025, in Juneau, Alaska. (Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News via AP)
The barriers have been a point of contention, with some homeowners in the flood zone objecting to their cost and suggesting officials should pursue a longer-term fix. But they "really have protected our community,” Juneau City Manager Katie Koester told a news conference.
“If it weren't for them, we would have hundreds and hundreds of flooded homes,” she said.
The Mendenhall Glacier is about 12 miles (19 kilometers) from Juneau, home to 30,000 people in southeast Alaska, and is a popular tourist attraction due to its proximity and easy access on walking trails. Homes on the city’s outskirts are within miles of Mendenhall Lake, which sits below the glacier, and many front the Mendenhall River, into which the glacial outburst flowed.
Juneau, which is accessible only by boat and plane, is 570 miles (917 kilometers) southeast of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city. The flooding won’t impact Friday’s summit in Anchorage between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Flooding from the basin has become an annual concern since 2011 and has gotten worse in recent years. It happens because a smaller glacier near Mendenhall Glacier retreated — a casualty of the warming climate — and left a basin that fills with rainwater and snowmelt each spring and summer, dammed by the glacier.
When the water builds up enough pressure, it forces its way under or around the ice dam, enters Mendenhall Lake, and flows down the Mendenhall River.
The city saw successive years of record flooding in 2023 and 2024, with flooding extending farther into the Mendenhall Valley.
Last year, nearly 300 residences were damaged.
A large outburst can release some 15 billion gallons of water, according to the University of Alaska Southeast and Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center. That’s the equivalent of nearly 23,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. During last year’s flood, the flow rate in the Mendenhall River was about half that of Niagara Falls, the researchers say.
City officials responded to concerns from property owners this year by working with state, federal and tribal entities to install a temporary levee along roughly 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of riverbank in an attempt to guard against widespread flooding. The 10,000 “Hesco” barriers are essentially giant, reinforced sandbags intended to protect more than 460 properties, said emergency manager Ryan O’Shaughnessy.
The Juneau Assembly required homeowners in the flood zone to cover 40% of the cost — about $6,300 each over 10 years. Additionally, a handful of homeowners were asked to chip in $50,000 toward reinforcing the river bank. About one-quarter of the residents formally objected, not enough to torpedo the project.
Two homeowners have sued, complaining that the government was taking their property to erect the barriers without compensating them.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, some water seeped into yards through drains that had been installed under the barriers. In other spots, trees floating down the river struck and damaged the barriers, officials said.
Ann Wilkinson Lind, who lives on the banks of the Mendenhall River, said water seeped through small culverts under the barrier in her backyard and reached knee-deep in her home's crawl space. The damage wasn’t catastrophic, but it was still disturbing after the installation of features intended to protect against flooding, she said.
“I felt confident that the barriers had a chance,” she said. “I never, ever, ever thought about the culverts … and I was just shocked and bowled over by it.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is at the start of what’s expected to be a yearslong process of studying conditions in the region and examining options for a more permanent solution, such as a levee. The timeline has angered some residents, who say it’s unreasonable.
Outburst floods are expected to continue as long as the Mendenhall Glacier acts as an ice dam to seal off the basin, which could span another 25 to 60 years, according to the university and science center researchers.
Associated Press writer Becky Bohrer in Juneau and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report.
This image provided by the City and Borough of Juneau shows flooding from a release of water and snowmelt at Mendenhall Glacier covered some roads and threatened homes along the Mendenhall River in Juneau, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (City and Borough of Juneau via AP)
This drone image provided by the City and Borough of Juneau shows flooding from a release of water and snowmelt at Mendenhall Glacier covered some roads and threatened homes along the Mendenhall River in Juneau, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (City and Borough of Juneau via AP)
This image provided by the City and Borough of Juneau shows flooding from a release of water and snowmelt at Mendenhall Glacier covered some roads and threatened homes along the Mendenhall River in Juneau, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (City and Borough of Juneau via AP)
HESCO flood barriers, to protect property against glacial outburst flooding, separate a residential area from the Mendenhall River, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025., in Juneau, Alaska. (Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News via AP)
The Mendenhall Glacier is visible in the distance from a residential area, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025, in Juneau, Alaska. (Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News via AP)
FILE - A canoe, bottom right, glides on Mendenhall Lake, in front of the Mendenhall Glacier, on Sunday, May 18, 2025, in Juneau, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, File)
People view Mendenhall Glacier from the Mendenhall Glacier Visitors Center area, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025, in Juneau, Alaska. (Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News via AP)
Several Middle Eastern allies of the United States have urged the Trump administration to hold off on strikes against Iran for the government’s deadly crackdown on protesters, according to an Arab diplomat familiar with the matter.
Top officials from Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have raised concerns in the last 48 hours that a U.S. military intervention would shake the global economy and destabilize an already volatile region, said the diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive conversations.
Oil prices fell Thursday as the markets appeared to take note of President Donald Trump’s shifting tone as a sign that he’s leaning away from attacking Iran after days of launching blistering threats at Tehran for its brutal crackdown.
Nevertheless, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday maintained that “all options remain on the table” for Trump as he deals with Iran.
Here's the latest:
Exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi told reporters Friday in Washington that he still believes Trump’s promise that “help is on the way” for the Iranian people still stands despite lack of action by the U.S.
Asked if he’s lost faith in the U.S. president, Pahlavi said, “I believe the president is a man of his word. As I said before, how many days it may take? Who knows? Hopefully sooner than later. But as I said before, regardless of whether action is taken or not, we as Iranians have no choice to carry on the fight.”
There had been reports that Pahlavi met over the weekend with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, but Pahlavi refused to discuss any meetings with U.S. officials, including whether he’ll directly meet Trump.
“I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland,” the president said, without providing details. “We need Greenland for national security.”
Trump for months has insisted the U.S. should control Greenland, a self-governing territory that’s part of the kingdom of Denmark.
But he’d not previously mentioned using tariffs to try and force the issue.
European leaders have joined Denmark in saying the U.S. can’t control the world’s largest island.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights has opened fewer than 10 sexual violence investigations nationwide since it was hit by mass layoffs last March, according to internal data obtained by The Associated Press.
Previously, it had been opening dozens of such investigations a year.
The layoffs last year left half as many lawyers to investigate complaints of discrimination based on race, sex or disability in schools.
At the same time, the administration has doubled down on sexual discrimination cases of another kind. Trump officials have used Title IX, a 1972 gender-equality law, against schools that make accommodations for transgender students and athletes. The Office for Civil Rights has opened nearly 50 such investigations since Trump took office.
▶ Read more about Education Department sexual violence investigations
The president quickly turned his health care forum into a grievance session against Democrats and a bragging session on the votes he’s gotten in rural America.
“I’m all about the rural community. … We’re taking care of those great people,” he said, arguing that former President Barack Obama “didn’t care about the rural community, to be totally blunt.”
“The Democrats are so horrible toward the rural community,” Trump added. He asked voters to “remember ... in the midterms” that Democrats did not back his “Big Beautiful Bill” that included $10 billion for rural healthcare this year.
Trump effectively blamed Obama’s “Un-Affordable Care Act” for rural hospital closures and financial struggles. In truth, KFF has found that rural hospitals closed at a higher rate in states that did not expand Medicaid under Democrats’ 2010 health care overhaul than in states that did expand to take in more federal money.
“I actually want to keep you where you are, if you know the truth,” Trump told Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council.
Trump made the comment at a White House event on rural health, drawing laughter in the room. But it wasn’t clear the president himself was joking.
It comes as Trump is believed to be in final interviews with potential replacements for the Fed’s current chair, Jerome Powell, a frequently target of Trump’s public attacks.
“We don’t want to lose him Susie,” Trump said of Hassett to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who also at the health event. “We’ll see how it all works out.”
The White House is touting health care spending across small-town America intended to transform how care is delivered in places that have lost many hospitals and providers.
A look at some numbers:
That makes him the highest ranking U.S. official to visit the country following the U.S. military strike which captured former leader Nicolás Maduro.
Thursday’s meeting, first reported by The New York Times, was confirmed Friday by a U.S. government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The official said the meeting in Caracas came at President Trump’s direction and was intended to demonstrate the U.S. desire for a better relationship with Venezuela. The official said Ratcliffe discussed potential economic collaboration with the U.S. and warned that Venezuela can never again allow the presence of American adversaries, including drug traffickers.
— David Klepper
As Attorney General Pam Bondi approaches her first year on the job, the firings of Justice Department attorneys have defined her turbulent tenure. The terminations and a larger voluntary exodus of lawyers have erased centuries of combined experience and left the department with fewer career employees to act as a bulwark for the rule of law at a time when President Trump, a Republican, is testing the limits of executive power by demanding prosecutions of his political enemies.
Interviews by The Associated Press of more than a half-dozen fired employees offer a snapshot of the toll throughout the department. The departures include lawyers who prosecuted violent attacks on police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, environmental, civil rights and ethics enforcers, counterterrorism prosecutors, immigration judges and attorneys who defend administration policies. They continued this week, when several prosecutors in Minnesota moved to resign amid turmoil over an investigation into the shooting of a woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
▶ Read more about firings at the Justice Department
The White House and a bipartisan group of governors are pressuring the operator of the mid-Atlantic power grid to take urgent steps to boost energy supply and curb price hikes, holding a Friday event aimed at addressing a rising concern among voters about the enormous amount of power used for artificial intelligence ahead of elections later this year.
The White House said its National Energy Dominance Council and the governors of several states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, want to try to compel PJM Interconnection to hold a power auction for tech companies to bid on contracts to build new power plants.
The Trump administration and governors will sign a statement of principles toward that end Friday.
▶ Read more about the administration and AI-driven power shortages
The Justice Department’s investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has brought heightened attention to a key drama that will play out at the central bank in the coming months: Will Powell leave the Fed when his term as chair ends, or will he take the unusual step of remaining a governor?
Powell’s term as Fed chair ends May 15, but because of the central bank’s complex structure, he has a separate term as one of seven members of its governing board that lasts until January 31, 2028. Historically, nearly all Fed chairs have stepped down from the board when they’re no longer chair. But Powell could be the first in nearly 50 years to stay on as a governor.
Many Fed-watchers believe the criminal investigation into Powell’s testimony about cost overruns for Fed building renovations was intended to intimidate him out of taking that step. If Powell stays on the board, it would deny the White House a chance to gain a majority, undercutting the Trump administration’s efforts to seize greater control over what has for decades been an institution largely insulated from day-to-day politics.
▶ Read more about Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell
Trump on Thursday announced the outlines of a health care plan he wants Congress to take up as Republicans have faced increasing pressure to address rising health costs after lawmakers let subsidies expire.
The cornerstone is his proposal to send money directly to Americans for health savings accounts so they can handle insurance and health costs as they see fit. Democrats have rejected the idea as a paltry substitute for the tax credits that had helped lower monthly premiums for many people.
Trump’s plan also focuses on lowering drug prices and requiring insurers to be more upfront with the public about costs, revenues, rejected claims and wait times for care.
Trump has long been dogged by his lack of a comprehensive health care plan as he and Republicans have sought to unwind former President Barack Obama’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act. Trump was thwarted during his first term in trying to repeal and replace the law.
▶ Read more about Trump’s health care plan
Most American presidents aspire to the kind of greatness that prompts future generations to name important things in their honor.
Donald Trump isn’t leaving it to future generations.
As the first year of his second term wraps up, his Republican administration and allies have put his name on the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleships.
That’s on top of the “Trump Accounts” for tax-deferred investments, the TrumpRx government website soon to offer direct sales of prescription drugs, the “Trump Gold Card” visa that costs at least $1 million and the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a transit corridor included in a deal his administration brokered between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On Friday, he plans to attend a ceremony in Florida where local officials will dedicate a 4-mile (6-kilometer) stretch of road from the airport to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach as President Donald J. Trump Boulevard.
▶ Read more about Trump’s renaming efforts
Nearly a year into his second term, Trump’s work on the economy hasn’t lived up to the expectations of many people in his own party, according to a new AP-NORC survey.
The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds a significant gap between the economic leadership Americans remembered from Trump’s first term and what they’ve gotten so far as he creates a stunning level of turmoil at home and abroad.
Just 16% of Republicans say Trump has helped “a lot” in addressing the cost of living, down from 49% in April 2024, when an AP-NORC poll asked Americans the same question about his first term.
At the same time, Republicans are overwhelmingly supportive of the president’s leadership on immigration — even if some don’t like his tactics.
There is little sign overall, though, that the Republican base is abandoning Trump. The vast majority of Republicans, about 8 in 10, approve of his job performance, compared with 4 in 10 for adults overall.
▶ Read more about the poll’s findings
Several Middle Eastern allies of the United States have urged the Trump administration to hold off on strikes against Iran for the government’s deadly crackdown on protesters, according to an Arab diplomat familiar with the matter.
Top officials from Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have raised concerns in the last 48 hours that a U.S. military intervention would shake the global economy and destabilize an already volatile region, said the diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive conversations.
Oil prices fell on Thursday as the markets appeared to take note of President Donald Trump’s shifting tone as a sign that he’s leaning away from attacking Iran after days of launching blistering threats at Tehran for its brutal crackdown.
Nevertheless, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday maintained that “all options remain on the table” for Trump as he deals with Iran.
▶ Read more about Trump and Iran
— Matthew Lee, Aamer Madhani and Ben Finley
President Donald Trump speaks during an event to honor the 2025 Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
