Unalaska, AK – A floating dry dock brought into Dutch Harbor Sunday will make it easier to repair Bering Sea fishing boats without a trip to Seattle.

The new 200-by-64-foot unit arrived at Magone Marine Service last night. Owner Dan Magone said its 45-foot-beam capacity should accommodate a good cross-section of Dutch Harbor's marine traffic.

"[The dry dock] will pick any of the old crabbers," he said. "It'll handle any of my vessels, it'll handle quite a few of the longline fleet."

Unalaska, AK – A North Carolina telecommunications company is buying TelAlaska, the rural phone, cable and internet provider with offices in Unalaska.

American Broadband Communications announced this week that it is acquiring the Anchorage-based company, which has been owned by the Rhyner family since it was founded in 1968.

Under the terms of the deal, TelAlaska will remain an independent subsidiary of American Broadband. TelAlaska CEO Jack Rhyner said that things will remain effectively the same for employees and subscribers in Unalaska and elsewhere in the state.

Unalaska, AK – Later this month, a team of tugboat crews, marine pilots, harbor officers and coastguardsmen will conduct the first test of the city's new emergency response system for vessels in distress. Prompted by the near-wreck of the freighter Salica Frigo in Unalaska Bay four months ago, the city purchased two sets of towing equipment that could be deployed quickly in the event of a nearby maritime emergency. KIAL's Charles Homans reports.

Unalaska, AK – This year's All-American Soapbox Derby kicked off Monday in Akron, Ohio. Two racers from Unalaska are competing, and one of them has already made headlines there. Nine-year-old Emerson Winters was featured in the Akron Beacon Journal on Tuesday, in a story about the novelty of somebody traveling nearly four-thousand miles from the Aleutians to Ohio to compete in the race.

Unalaska, AK – The Missile Defense Agency's Sea-Based X-Band Radar has returned to Hawaii from the Aleutians and isn't expected back in Alaskan waters until the end of this year.

The Honolulu Advertiser reports today that the SBX is in Pearl Harbor now, where it's scheduled for $27 million worth of repairs and upgrades. The giant radar is eventually supposed to be stationed offshore from Adak Island, although its originally scheduled departure from Hawaii last year was delayed because of ballasting problems.

Unalaska, AK – The National Marine Fisheries Service has released its report on 2006 seafood landings in the United States, and Dutch Harbor remains at the top of the heap.

Dutch Harbor hauled in 911.3 million pounds of seafood in 2006, 23 million pounds more than the port's landings in 2005 and more than twice those of the next largest port, Louisiana's Intracoastal City. Dutch Harbor comes in second for value of seafood as usual, after New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Unalaska, AK – Accompanied by American military and government personnel, a Japanese delegation visited the Aleutian island of Attu late last week. The group was examining graves dug after one of the most horrific battles of World War II, searching for evidence of the more than two thousand Japanese soldiers whose bodies remain missing on the island. KIAL's Charles Homans reports on what they found.

Unalaska, AK – A man who was found dead on the shore of Margaret Bay a week ago died of natural causes, according to the Unalaska Department of Public Safety.

A taxi driver came across the body at about noon on July 6 and called Public Safety. Sgt. Matt Betzen says that a subsequent investigation showed that the man apparently died of a heart attack. He was identified as 42-year-old Thanh Nguyen, a longtime employee of UniSea's Dutch Harbor plant.

Unalaska, AK – The archaeological team in charge of excavating the Amaknak Bridge Site will be giving a presentation for the public this evening on what they've found so far at the site.

The archaeologists are nearing the end of what has become nearly two summers' worth of work at the site, a village that dates from between 2,500 and 3,500 years ago. Bridge construction crews will begin work on August 15, and lead archaeologist Michael Yarborough said that his team will be done by then.