Hope McKenney

Unalaska celebrated its second annual LGBTQ Pride event Friday under gray skies and drizzle. But the weather didn’t deter dozens of community members from showing up to the two-hour event to play games, answer trivia questions on LGBTQ history and enjoy homemade corn dogs and rainbow cupcakes to the soundtrack of the musical Hair and Diana Ross hits.

Ben Knowles, who served as a firefighter in Minnesota before joining the Unalaska Fire Department in 2018, was promoted to the head role on June 1. Knowles has held several leadership positions with the department, and has been recognized with statewide awards for both service and leadership.

Dozens of Unalaskans turned out Friday evening to celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Across the country, Pride Month celebrations take place each June to honor the 1969 Stonewall riots, which started in response to police raids of gay bars in New York City.

Dozens of Unalaskans turned out Friday evening to celebrate LGBTQ Pride Month; there was a major vehicle collision on Unalaska’s S-curves Monday afternoon; and the state’s health department has a new program to prevent opioid overdose deaths among workers in Southeast Alaska fisheries.

Nearly 2,000 tons of subsea fiber has begun the journey from Europe to Alaska and its eventual home on the ocean floor along the Aleutian Chain. The fiber — which is the foundation of GCI’s 800-mile Aleutians Fiber Project — would close the digital divide and bring high speed internet to homes in some of the most remote communities in the nation, including Unalaska.

One of the most sealed off communities in the country is under a hunker down order following a surge of COVID-19. Roughly half of all coronavirus cases recorded on St. Paul Island since the start of the pandemic have happened in the last two weeks.

Nearly 2,000 tons of subsea fiber has begun the journey from Europe to Alaska and its eventual home on the ocean floor along the Aleutian Chain; Celebration — the every-other-year gathering of Indigenous people in Southeast Alaska — kicked off Wednesday in Juneau; and a group of researchers is hoping that data collected from Gulf of Alaska's sea floor will shed new light on the environmental effects of bottom trawling.

St. Paul Island is at its highest coronavirus risk level, as active cases in the small Pribilof community rose to 12 on Wednesday; Sen. Dan Sullivan honors Mike Livingston and Gertrude Svarny as "Alaskan of the Week;" and Sen. Lisa Murkowski was one of several congressional candidates in Kodiak over the weekend for the island’s Crab Festival.

The new strain of bird flu that arrived in Alaska with the spring migration has now been detected in a fox that died in the Aleutian Islands; a bill awaiting Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s signature has some Alaska seafood processors thinking of expansion; and Alaskans will soon be able to reach a suicide prevention hotline by calling a three-digit number instead of a ten-digit number.

Private George Fox — the only Unangax̂ soldier killed fighting in World War II and any war since — was finally honored for his sacrifice in a special Memorial Day celebration; early and absentee in-person voting began Friday for the U.S. House special primary election; and a panel of health and local officials will answer questions and talk about ways to improve Unalaska's healthcare system.