ST. PAUL

One of the most sealed off communities in the country is under a hunker down order following a surge of COVID-19. Roughly half of all coronavirus cases recorded on St. Paul Island since the start of the pandemic have happened in the last two weeks.

Two years after becoming one of the most sealed-off locations in the United States, St. Paul Island is reopening to visitors. St. Paul Island Tour, a business within the Unangan-owned TDX Corp., is resuming its operations after a pause forced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A St. Paul toddler who authorities say was killed by his foster parents will be buried beside his mother on the remote Pribilof island. That’s following a ruling by a tribal court last week over a dispute between families about where the 2-year-old boy’s final resting place should be.

Ravn Alaska has partnered with the Food Bank of Alaska to help provide meals to Elders on St. Paul Island.Andronik Hanson is the food bank coordinator for the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island — the local tribal government. He said shipping costs for food can get expensive on an island in the middle of the Bering Sea.“The big thing they’re doing is donating freight to get the boxes,” Hanson said.

Family of a St. Paul Island toddler who authorities say died at the hands of his foster parents last month are at odds over where the boy should be buried. The 2-year-old boy’s parents are not directly involved in the decision; his father is currently facing charges of murdering his mother. The back-to-back murder charges are the first in the remote Pribilof Island community in 15 years.

The City of St. Paul says 12 people tested positive for COVID-19 so far this week – its largest spike since the start of the pandemic.

Two people from St. Paul have been charged with killing a toddler who was in their care, according to troopers. Earlier this month, 2-year-old Joshua Rukovishnikoff was medevaced to an Anchorage hospital with a serious head injury, according to a report Wednesday from Alaska State Troopers. He died at the hospital and his remains were sent to the State Medical Examiner for autopsy.

The council that manages fishing in federal waters voted to link groundfish trawl fishing in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands to halibut abundance today. The action caps — at least for now — a six-year debate about curbing halibut bycatch in Alaska.

St. Paul is getting a new police chief this week, about a month after the island’s entire police department resigned over a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.