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Maureen Pao is an editor, producer and reporter on NPR's Digital News team. In her current role, she is lead digital editor and producer for All Things Considered. Her primary responsibility is coordinating, producing and editing high-impact online components for complex, multipart show projects and host field reporting.
By Kavitha George (Alaska Public Media) • Dec 28, 2020 Jack Sprat owner and operator Frans Weits. (Erin McKinstry/Alaska Public Media) Halfway through the city’s third pandemic shutdown, Anchorage’s hospitality industry is struggling and increasingly frustrated. “Being shut down the entire month of December is a big blow to our restaurant,” said Frans Weits, co-owner of Girdwood eatery Jack Sprat. “We depend on December to make up for some slow fall months.” Weits said swinging between shutdowns and partial-capacity reopenings over the last eight months hav...
Print article A group of restaurateurs this month met with Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson and her administration to pitch them on new safety measures, aimed at allowing participating restaurants to open during the city’s monthlong closure of bars and restaurants due to the pandemic. Both sides say the Dec. 8 meeting was productive, but Quinn-Davidson ultimately turned down the offer. The plan was based around more strict sanitizing practices, like having customers sanitize their hands upon entering and sanitizing bathrooms every 30 minutes. “They heard us, they listened, but the b...