The Arctic Hunter is still aground outside Unalaska. /Credit: Annie Ropeik

Work is progressing slowly on the grounded crab boat Arctic Hunter as salvagers plan how to pull it off the rocks.

The 93-foot vessel has been grounded outside Morris Cove since Nov. 1. The boat’s insurer is coordinating some of the operations that need to go on before the wreck removal can start.

Insurance adjustor Jim Ronning says last Friday, crews from Unalaska-based Mac Enterprises cleared some debris from the Hunter that had washed up on shore.

Federal regulators still don't have enough detail on Shell Oil's latest Arctic drilling plans to judge whether the company is ready to proceed this summer.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management went to Shell on Tuesday seeking more information about the company's operating and exploration plans for the Chukchi Sea. This is the second time that BOEM has come back with questions since Shell's initial filing in November.

City council heard one last capital projects update from outgoing Public Works Director Nancy Peterson last night.

Peterson and her husband Jeff Hawley, the director of Parks, Culture and Recreation, are retiring next week.

Mayor Shirley Marquardt and all six councilors thanked Hawley and Peterson for six years of service to the city.

City council will start the budget planning process for 2015 at their first meeting of the new year tonight.

City manager Chris Hladick will discuss where the city will earn its money, and how much, in fiscal year 2015 with the council. The projected revenues next year are $34.8 million. It's more than the projections for this fiscal year, but about the same as the actual revenue in 2013.

The central cone in Akutan Caldera. /Courtesy: Cyrus Read, USGS

A new study says Akutan Volcano could be an even more promising source of geothermal energy than previously thought.

It’s been three decades since the U.S. Geological Survey last studied Akutan’s volcano-powered hot springs. Since then, head researcher Deborah Bergfeld says the springs have gotten stronger.

The Coast Guard medevacked a fisherman with an eye injury to St. Paul on Friday.

The injured man was aboard the 109-foot fishing vessel Prowler. The ship’s crew called the nearby Coast Guard Cutter Munro to report the injury Friday afternoon. The Prowler was 74 miles southwest of St. Paul at the time.

Coast Guard public affairs officer Shawn Eggert says the injured man reported a piece of jellyfish was stuck between his contact lens and his eye. But Eggert says they're not sure what exactly happened.

Coast Guard crews airlifted three mariners with unusual injuries near Cold Bay last night.

Petty Officer Shawn Eggert says a distress call came in from the fishing vessel Pavlof around 11 p.m. A 50-year-old man had gotten sick aboard the crab boat.

"He was reported to have a staph infection and his vital signs were decreasing," Eggert says.

An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter attached to the patrol cutter Munro picked up the sick man about 50 miles outside Cold Bay. Eggert says they took him to Cold Bay’s clinic, and then transferred him to a LifeMed flight bound for Anchorage.

A flatbed and a pickup truck had a head-on collision near the airport Wednesday. /Courtesy: Mike Holman, UDPS

A head-on collision next to the airport runway injured four people Wednesday morning. Two were medevacked to Anchorage.

Public Safety director Jamie Sunderland says the crash happened just after 10:30 a.m. on Ballyhoo Road at the end of the runway. He says a flatbed slid head-on into a pickup truck.

Sunderland says black ice on the road appears to have caused the crash.

The male driver of the flatbed was medevacked to Anchorage as a precaution, as was one man in the pickup truck. Two others in the pickup truck -- a man and a woman -- were taken to the Iliuliuk Family & Health Services clinic. Sunderland didn’t know details of their injuries.

The Polar Star stopped in Unalaska last June before undergoing ice trials in the Arctic. /Credit: Audrey Carlsen

The Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star is standing down from a rescue mission in Antarctica after the vessels it was going to assist broke free on their own.

The Polar Star had been called in to clear a path for two ice-bound vessels: a Russian research ship and a Chinese icebreaker.

The Polar Star departed Australia for Antarctica on Saturday and would have arrived on scene Jan. 12.

The Coast Guard says the stranded ships got favorable winds Tuesday and were able to break out of the ice on their own.