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Alaska State News

Alaska State News

  • The trial began Wednesday in Anchorage for a young man facing felony charges in a fatal Unalaska car crash case.Dustin Ruckman is charged with two counts of criminally negligent homicide for his involvement in the 2019 crash on Mount Ballyhoo. He was 18 at the time of the incident and was driving the truck that eventually plummeted about 900 feet down the side of the cliff. Ruckman sustained minor injuries, according to police, but two teenage girls were thrown from the truck and died in the fall: Kiara Rentaria Haist, 18, and Karly McDonald, 16.
  • After three long days of jury selection in Unalaska, court officials will return to Anchorage to restart their search and begin the trial for a young man involved in a fatal 2019 car crash. Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews told the court Friday afternoon that after questioning around 100 people this week, they could not find enough local impartial jurors.
  • Officials with the U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) told state and federal officials last month that they would be interested in expanding military access on Adak Island. The announcement was made during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Feb. 13, after Sen. Dan Sullivan pressed federal officials to strengthen military presence in Alaska.
  • The road would give King Cove residents access to potentially life-saving medical care, but it could threaten key subsistence species and create a dangerous precedent.
  • The U.S. Coast Guard removed a crewmember from a Norwegian cargo vessel roughly 240 nautical miles southwest of Unalaska Wednesday.A rescue coordination center in Norway contacted the Coast Guard around 7 p.m. Tuesday, requesting a medical evacuation of a sick crewmember on board the Fermita.
  • Earlier this month, commercial snow crabs started hitting Unalaska’s docks again, for the first time in nearly three years. The Bering Sea snow crab fishery reopened in mid-October, after billions of the crab disappeared and the fishery was shut down in October 2022. This season’s first catch was delivered on Jan. 15. Opilio, or snow crab, is generally fished in the new year and into the early spring. The season runs through the end of May.
  • Unalaska's U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit is investigating a fishing vessel that ran aground near Iliuliuk Bay. The F/V Northern Endurance was partially beached about three miles from downtown Unalaska, near Little Priest Rock on Thursday and was pulled free by the emergency response and salvage company Resolve Marine Friday morning around 9 a.m., according to Commanding Officer Lt. Lawrence Schalles.
  • Unangam Tunuu is taught in only a handful of classes in the public school system, and outside these sessions, the language is seldom spoken in everyday conversation. The struggle on St. Paul mirrors trends across Alaska. A 2024 report from the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council, a legislative council that advises the governor's office, found that all of the state’s Indigenous languages are critically endangered, with some spoken by fewer than a dozen people.
  • Unalaska High School junior Cache Henning came within one point of winning the Alaska state wrestling title for the 130-pound weight class last weekend. Henning faced Mt. Edgecumbe wrestler Elden Andrew in the championship match at the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage. Despite the narrow loss, Unalaska Head Coach Rainier Marquez said Henning’s second-place finish is a major accomplishment.
  • A new state championship banner will be hung in the Unalaska High School gym, and it will be the first time a girls sports team is featured on the gym wall as a state champion. The Unalaska Raiders girls volleyball team defeated the Susitna Valley Rams three matches to zero on Saturday, claiming their victory as the 2A Alaska State champions. They returned to Unalaska Monday, parading across the island in a procession of fire trucks, an ambulance and a local police squad car, showing off their trophy.