Local News

After causing extensive flooding and record rainfall in Japan, former typhoon Hagibis is generating strong winds and stormy weather across the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.

Despite spending most of its pyrotechnics budget during the Fourth of July, the City of Unalaska will spring for fireworks this New Year's Eve.

It'll just be a smaller display than usual.

Last week, the City Council voted to hire the Utah-based Lantis Fireworks & Lasers to put on a $32,302 show — without the cakes and roman candles that typically provide the splashier sparks.  

Commercial fishing opens Tuesday, Oct. 15 for Bristol Bay red king crab.

This season, the declining population has forced managers to set the total allowable catch (TAC) at 3.8 million pounds.

That number is 12 percent lower than last year, as well as the lowest since the fishery was rationalized in 2005. Even if fishermen catch all of the TAC, it'll be the smallest harvest since 1982.

The U.S. Coast Guard is holding a preliminary hearing Wednesday for a seaman charged with killing his Cutter Douglas Munro shipmate in Unalaska last winter. 

The hearing's purpose is to determine whether there's probable cause that Seaman Ethan Tucker, 19, of Ludington, MI, struck and strangled Seaman Ethan Kelch, 19, of Virginia Beach, VA, before leaving his body in waters near the port.

Ceremonies comprised a good chunk of Tuesday's meeting of the City Council.

Councilors, city staffers, and community members delivered the biggest honors to Mayor Frank Kelty and Councilor Roger Rowland, two longtime local politicians who didn't seek reelection this year.

"I've had a great run," said Kelty. "Unalaska will always be my home."