Courtesy of U.S. Congress

In this Q&A, Democrat U.S. Senator Mark Begich says his reelection campaign's focused on rural Alaska: "For a healthy state, you need both urban and rural working together."

Courtesy of U.S. State Dept.

In this Q&A with Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Dan Sullivan says he's "very much focused on less government, more freedom."

(Credit: NPR)

In Tuesday's election, Alaskan voters will decide whether the state should regulate marijuana like alcohol. It's measure two on the ballot. 

Unalaska’s city council made a rare move in October when they passed a resolution urging residents to vote against that proposal. 

But some locals took issue with that decision.

As KUCB's Annie Ropeik reports, they feel their city government isn’t speaking for them.

Annie Ngo / KUCB

Operations are on hold at the City Dock after high winds damaged the only working crane for loading cargo.

Ports director Peggy McLaughlin says the crane was being moved Friday morning to accommodate an incoming Horizon Lines container ship. A gust of wind caught the machinery and slammed the crane against its emergency stops.

"It hit it pretty good and there’s some obvious repair work that needs to be done to that end of the crane where the stops were," McLaughlin says. "There was a little bit of visible damage on the crane."

Lauren Rosenthal/KUCB

Laying out neighborhoods isn’t the world’s most glamorous job. But every October, urban planners make an extra effort to get people interested in that work for National Community Planning Month.

In Unalaska, that meant helping some of the town’s youngest residents design a world all their own. KUCB’s Lauren Rosenthal was invited to take a tour and brought back this report.

Federal regulators are standing behind their decision to sell oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea, after a court-ordered review of how development would affect the Arctic.

The lease sale held in 2008 was supposed to yield about 1 billion barrels of oil. Based on sale data and current economic conditions, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management says the potential is much higher -- just over 4 billion barrels. But the agency doesn't recommend that the sale be reversed.

Caribou on Adak in 1985. (Credit: USFWS)

Adak Island is home to something you won’t find much of elsewhere in the Aleutians: a herd of caribou, introduced in the 1950s as a hunting option for the naval base. The base has since closed, but the caribou are still there -- and lately, some have been striking out for new pastures.

As KUCB’s Annie Ropeik reports, it’s got wildlife refuge managers looking to keep a herd from forming where hunters can’t follow.

Lauren Rosenthal/KUCB

The port of Dutch Harbor will hang onto its title as the nation’s busiest fishing port for another year.

According to the latest rankings from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, about 753 million pounds of seafood were landed here in 2013. That’s more than any other port in America. It's also the 17th consecutive year Unalaska has gotten that distinction.

It’s mostly due to the large volume of pollock brought in from the Bering Sea, along with crab and other groundfish. Those deliveries were worth slightly less last year. But at $197 million, they were still the second most profitable in the nation.

Unalaska’s mayor and city councilors say they don’t want to see marijuana legalized in Alaska. That's ballot measure two in next week's general election.

At their meeting Tuesday, the council made that opposition official. They passed a resolution urging Unalaskans to vote against legalization -- over one councilor’s objections.