Unemployment in the Aleutians West Census Area was down in February. The jobless rate dropped from 7.6 percent to 5 percent, the lowest in the state. Many of the jobs gained were temporary seafood-processing jobs, pegged to the busy pollock and crab seasons.
While Unalaska and the rest of the Aleutians West Census area traditionally has one of the lower unemployment rates in the state, the Southwest region has the worst jobs figures overall. Unemployment in the whole region is estimated at nearly 13 percent, brought up by the Wade-Hampton Census area, where one in five people is without a job.
Cleveland Volcano is continuing to erupt. The restless volcano on uninhabited Chuginadak Island exploded twice on Friday, sending up small ash clouds.
A larger eruption on Wednesday destroyed a lava dome that been growing in the summit crater. Cleveland has been experiencing a pattern of lava dome growth and destruction since last July. Scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory said in a release that there’s no sign of new lava dome growth since Friday’s explosions.
The Aleutian Chain needs more coordination among its young leaders. That was the takeaway from the LEAD:Aleutians conference that took place in Unalaska last week.
The conference brought together twenty-odd young people to mingle and share ideas about how they’d like to see the region develop in the future. Participant and Unalaska resident Corey Nelson explained the idea behind the conference during a public presentation on Friday.
In Unalaska, crime is a laughing matter. It's not the crimes that have residents chuckling so much as how they're written about. The Unalaska crime report is full of eagle aggression and intimate encounters gone awry in the Aleutian Islands.
When Sgt. Jennifer Shockley heads out on patrol each day, she's got the police blotter on her mind. Her goal is to paint a detailed picture of the town's often ridiculous crimes.
Gov. Sean Parnell’s pick for the Alaska Public Offices Commission pulled his name from consideration on Thursday because of disparaging remarks he had previously made about Alaska Natives.
David Eichler, a dentist from North Pole and former head of the Alaska Dental Society, came under fire after comments he made during a legal dispute in 2006 were published online. He suggested that higher rates of tooth decay in rural Alaska were the result of cultural deficiencies and that tooth decay was a form of child abuse in Native communities. He wrote that any “culture that allows such disease will soon disappear and rightfully so.” Eichler also argued for the end of federal health subsidies in Bush communities, because it was preventing Alaska Natives from assimilating into American society.
If you’re hoping to buy plain plastic Easter eggs this weekend, good luck. The Unalaska Convention and Visitor’s Bureau may have bought them all out in anticipation of their busiest day in years.
The Crystal Serenity, a jumbo-sized luxury cruise ship, is expected to come in this weekend for a longer port call than usual, and the schedule change is forcing the CVB to get a little bit creative.
When the Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered a blowout a year ago, radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean was a major concern. People wanted to be sure that the marine ecosystem remained healthy and that the seafood they ate was safe.
To confirm that was the case, an international team of researchers took water samples as far as 400 miles out from the meltdown and tested them for radioactive isotopes. They published their research this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and what they saw was mostly what they expected: Areas near Japan and in the line of strong currents experienced higher levels of radiation than usual, but the effect on marine life was minimal beyond Japan’s coast line.
The Alaska Redistricting Board adopted two new maps of the state’s legislative districts on Thursday, but so far it’s unclear which will actually be used for the upcoming elections.
The Amended Proclamation Plan is a major overhaul of the Board’s original map, which the Alaska Supreme Court said last month had unduly disregarded the requirements of the state’s Constitution. The Interim Plan is virtually the same as the original although with some minor tweaks to district boundaries in the Fairbanks area.
A small explosion shook Cleveland Volcano early Wednesday morning. There is no monitoring network on the volcano itself, but distant seismic stations picked up the blast, as they've picked up several similar explosions over the last few months.
Scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory said in a release that the eruption probably produced a small ash cloud. None of the recent explosions has interrupted air traffic, but Cleveland does lie on a major international and the Observatory is keeping the aviation alert level for the volcano at orange.
