The Unalaska school board has narrowed its superintendent search down to three finalists from a pool of eight total applicants.The three finalists include Kimberly Hanisch, an assistant professor of educational leadership at the University of Alaska Southeast. She has worked as the director of instruction and curriculum for the Kodiak Island Borough School District.Jesse Janssen is another finalist. He is the superintendent and career and technical education director for a school district in Kansas. He’s also worked as an assistant principal.The district is also considering Michael Franklin, an emergency medical technician. He’s worked as a principal and assistant principal for schools in Bend, Oregon.

A trial is set for late summer in the criminal case involving two Unalaska teenagers who died in a car crash on Unalaska’s Mount Ballyhoo nearly four years ago. At a hearing Jan. 28, Superior Court Judge Herman Walker Jr. scheduled the trial for late August in Unalaska.

The city of Unalaska agreed to pay $765,000 to settle four separate lawsuits against its police department, all brought by former Unalaska Department of Public Safety employees who say they were either wrongfully fired or forced to quit due to harassment and bullying within the department, which the city and the accused officers deny.

Unalaska is officially connected to high speed fiber internet, but not everyone on the island has access to the new service.GCI connected its first customers in December, and now, Rural Affairs Director Jenifer Nelson said around 200 homes in the community of about 4,500 year-round residents are turned on and either actively using the fiber broadband or ready to start service.

Dozens of Unalaskans marched to City Hall this past weekend to show support for Alaska’s Constitutional right in protecting reproductive choice. And to support others around the country who don’t have the same rights from their states.

The U.S. Coast Guard medevaced a man from a factory trawler near Unalaska Tuesday.A Kodiak helicopter aircrew hoisted the mariner from the 310-foot fishing vessel Northern Eagle early in the morning on Jan. 24, according to a statement from the Coast Guard. He was then transported to the care of LifeMed personnel in Cold Bay.

The company aiming to bring geothermal energy to Unalaska plans to pay more than $90 million to an engineering and construction firm to build the volcano-powered project, under a contract announced Jan. 18.Ounalashka Corporation/Chena Power, LLC, the company behind the project, is a joint venture between Unalaska’s Native corporation and Fairbanks-based Chena Power. And while OCCP Project Manager Dave Matthews said they plan to start construction of the plant this coming summer, the company still hasn’t announced that it’s secured any funding.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has denied an emergency request Friday to close crucial habitat for Bristol Bay red king crab to all types of commercial fishing.That comes after Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers petitioned in late September for a closure of the red king crab savings areas to protect the species during a time of historically low stocks.The nonprofit, which represents independent crab harvesters, requested that the grounds be closed to all fishing gears from Jan. 1, 2023 through the end of June.

The collapse of the Bering Sea crab fisheries has put St. Paul Island at risk of losing some of its essential services.The city’s economy is about 90% dependent on the harvest of snow crab, which closed for the first time in the fishery’s history in October. Without Bering Sea snow crab or Bristol Bay red king crab — which has been closed since 2021 — the City of St. Paul is estimating a roughly $2.7 million hit.In light of those anticipated losses, St. Paul’s city government declared a cultural, economic and social emergency in late October, following the fishery closures, and subsequently implemented budgetary cuts, hiring freezes and other measures.Now, the Pribilof Island community faces the loss of its emergency medical services.

A collection of 50-year-old audio recordings from the Aleutians have been digitized and are now accessible online.The recordings were part of an Unalaska school project from the ‘70s. A group of students and their teacher recorded various Elders in hopes of documenting the language, culture and history of the Unangax̂ community and the Aleutian region.There’s about 60 reel-to-reel audio tapes that make up the collection. They include topics from day-to-day activities to historic events, fishing stories and recipes, to accounts from Makushin and the other lost villages that were forcibly evacuated during World War II.