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The M/V Tustumena returns to service this week. That’s the only Alaska Marine Highway System ferry that sails between all 13 ports of call out the Aleutian Chain.The Kennicott has been the only ferry sailing to the Aleutians since the nearly 60-year-old Tusty went into the shipyard for repairs back in December.

How cold is the water in the Bering Sea? That’s what a group of researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wants to know. NOAA is currently out in the Aleutian Islands running their annual Eastern Bering Sea Bottom Trawl Survey. They've been running annual surveys since the 1970s, mainly to collect data on the distribution and abundance of bottom-dwelling species like crab and groundfish. But this year they’re paying special attention to the cold pool—a section of bottom water that stays cold through the summer. It affects everything from when fish spawn to what part of the ocean they live in.

The M/V Tustumena returns to service in the Aleutians this week; Alaskans have less than a week to register to vote in the August 16 special general election and primary; and two Alaska Native girls who died at a boarding school more than 100 years ago will return home.

The Army Corps of Engineers visited Unalaska in late June to teach Unalaskans about unexploded ordnance — that is, undetonated explosives. The U.S. military left lots of unexploded ordnance when they were stationed in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. And grenades, chemical weapons and other munitions have been turning up on the island’s hiking trails and beaches for decades.

A group of researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration travel to the Aleutian Islands for their annual Bottom Trawl Survey; Governor Dunleavy announced budget vetoes including a $5 million dollar cut to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute; and Tinikling, a Filipino folk dance, is making a comeback in Alaska.

A group of researchers aiming to curb greenhouse emissions within the shipping industry looks to the Aleutians as a possible 'green corridor'; low Chinook and chum salmon runs hit subsistence fishermen in Western Alaska; and going against decades of precedent in law on Native American sovereignty, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in an Oklahoma case that states can prosecute non-Native people for crimes against Native people that occur on tribal land.

The U.S. Air Force has agreed to pay more than $200 thousand in fines for mismanaging hazardous waste on a distant island in the far Western Aleutians. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a June 23 statement that the Air Force stored hazardous waste without a permit at Eareckson Air Station, on Shemya Island.

The U.S. Air Force has agreed to pay more than $200 thousand in fines for mismanaging hazardous waste on Shemya Island in the Western Aleutians; access to safe and legal abortions in Alaska will likely remain, but the overturning of Roe v. Wade could open the door to attempts to restrict that access; and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hosts a training for identifying and responding to unexploded ordnance.

Four people were on board F/V Pacific Sounder when she got stuck on the western shore of Unimak Island — between Unalaska and the Alaska Peninsula — on the morning of June 17. The Pacific Sounder hailed a MAYDAY call at 10:43 Friday morning but the crew waited three hours before they were rescued. Eventually, the Good Samaritan boat, the Polar Sea, arrived and found the crew unharmed.

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.