Since it deployed six years ago, the Missile Defense Agency’s most powerful mobile radar has traveled across the Pacific, conducting flight tests and keeping an eye out for any ballistic missiles targeted at the United States. But while it’s been to Seattle and Pearl Harbor, it’s never made it to its homeport of Adak, where a $26-million mooring for the radar lies unused. With the release of Missile Defense Agency’s funding requests, it’s looking even more unlikely that the radar will ever use that facility.

For months, scientists have been on watch for a possible eruption at Mount Cleveland. Now, another Aleutian volcano is acting up, too.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory issued an advisory for Kanaga Volcano after it experienced tremors and released a small ash cloud on Saturday. Kanaga lies just 16 miles west of Adak, but so far there are no reports that this weekend's explosive activity has affected residents. The community suffered disruptions to air travel when the volcano last erupted in 1995.

Part of the Cold Bay airport could be left in the dark.

The Federal Aviation Administration is considering decommissioning the approach lights on one of the runways, which could impact air travel to the Aleutian region.

Cold Bay has one of the state’s longest runways, and the airport often serves as a halfway point for PenAir flights traveling to Unalaska. The airline stops at least a couple of flights there daily to refuel or to wait out bad weather. And during busy times of year, they’ll land as many as 15 passenger planes in Cold Bay.

Cold Bay is an ordinary refueling point for PenAir flights. Their planes leave from Anchorage, touch down on the Alaska Peninsula, and then usually continue on to the Aleutian Islands. But this weekend, one of those planes took a big turn south. Instead of traveling to Unalaska, PenAir Flight 364 went all the way down to Hawaii.

"It’s pretty exciting. You don’t see a Saab turboprob going all the way from Anchorage, Alaska to Honolulu very often,” says Melissa Anderson, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing.

Gov. Sean Parnell joined The Exchange to discuss the legislative session and answe questions from our listening audience.

Gov. Parnell has been in office since 2009, and before that he served as Lieutenant Governor under Sarah Palin, worked for ConocoPhillips and the lobbying firm Patton Boggs, and represented the Eagle River area in both the Alaska House and Senate.

Listen to hear his thoughts on oil tax legislation, rural infrastructure, broadband internet, and more.

Firefighters in St. Paul stayed up through the night trying to put out a large blaze in the middle of town.

Anchorage television station KTUU first reported that a warehouse owned by Trident Seafoods erupted in flames at about 10:30pm Thursday. While the fire has continued to smoke through the afternoon, a group of 25 responders, including Coast Guard personnel, have been able to keep it from spreading to nearby buildings.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is asking for at least 15 months to assess the impact of their Steller sea lion protection measures.

Last month, a federal judge determined that the agency had violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to produce an environmental impact statement before shutting down two commercial fisheries in an effort to stop the decline of an endangered stock of sea lions. While Judge Timothy Burgess generally favored NFMS in his ruling and stated that he plans to keep the fishing restrictions in place, he still called upon the agency to review the environmental and socioeconomic effects of the closures as quickly as possible. In a brief filed yesterday, NMFS gave the court two potential timelines for doing so.

The Aleutians must stay together.  That was the conclusion of Alaska Superior Court Judge Michael McConahy in his ruling on the 2011 state redistricting plan. 

The plan divided House District 37 at Unimak Pass.  Aleutian communities to the west ended up paired with the Yukon-Kuskokwin Delta region while communities in the Aleutians East Borough stayed connected to the Bristol Bay region.  A lawsuit brought by two Fairbanks area residents contended that the configuration violated the state constitutional requirement that voting districts be contiguous and compact. 

The Alaska Department of Labor has released their jobs data for December, and the unemployment rate for the state remains at 7.3 percent.

But in Southwest Alaska, the number of people without jobs has gone up. While the Aleutians West Census area usually has one of the lower employment rates in the state, it shot up from 12.4 percent to nearly 20 percent. That jump can partially be explained by the seasonal slowdown in fishing. The region’s big groundfish fisheries closed up during the fall, and fishing for crab wrapped up early, leaving little product for area plants to process.