Local News

A third seafood processing plant has shut down in the Aleutian Islands amid a COVID-19 outbreak, threatening to further derail lucrative winter fisheries in the region.

In the Aleutian port town of Unalaska, at least five local boats are stuck at the dock with nowhere to deliver their cod after the shutdown of the Alyeska Seafoods processing plant, according to a crew member on one of them, Tacho Camacho Castillo. 

A Pribilof Island community of less than 400 people has received more than $250,000 in federal funds to train locals to work at its commercial aircraft test range. 

The Aleut Community of St. Paul Island Tribal Government (ACSPI) announced it was one of seven recipients nationwide to receive the Economic Development Administration's STEM Talent Challenge grant Tuesday.

The ACSPI's aircraft test range will be through a partnership with Sabrewing Aircraft Company, a drone manufacturing company out of California. 

One of North America's largest fish processing plants is shutting down as a COVID-19 outbreak grows and owner Trident Seafoods struggles to test its 700-person workforce. 

The plant, on the isolated island of Akutan, is the second in the Aleutians to shut down this year, just as the billion-dollar Bering Sea pollock fishery was set to kick off.  

Unalaska students will continue with distance learning for the time being, while school administrators finalize a reopening plan. 

Administrators presented revisions of the district's Smart Start 2020 plan to the school board on Wednesday. The draft of revisions includes cohort systems, staggered schedules and remote teaching options. 

The plan also outlines how many positive coronavirus cases would determine when students are in the classroom, learning remotely or a hybrid of the two.