Local News
![Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga [SN file photo]](https://www.samoanews.com/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/field/image/Gov%20Lolo%202833%20web_2.jpg?itok=mDpmvSh4 "Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga [SN file photo]")
Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga has called on directors to structure their budgets for the new fiscal year (2018) in accordance with the threshold ceiling of 90% of the approved FY 2017 budget, saying that the threshold is for all departments and offices funded by local revenue.
Of the total $380.48...
![Graduates of South Pacific Academy's Class of 2017 smiling for the Samoa News camera minutes before they were presented their high school diplomas last Saturday. [photo: Blue Chen-Fruean]](https://www.samoanews.com/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/field/image/Class%20of%202017.jpg?itok=rp1FONUR "Graduates of South Pacific Academy's Class of 2017 smiling for the Samoa News camera minutes before they were presented their high school diplomas last Saturday. [photo: Blue Chen-Fruean]")
![Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga [SN file photo]](https://www.samoanews.com/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/field/image/Gov%20Lolo%202833%20web_1.jpg?itok=Ypo1uI9A "Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga [SN file photo]")
With grant-funded employees now exempt from the reduction of working hours, executive branch directors have been informed to schedule a work plan for these affected employees to recover these hours, so they can get paid, via a separate pay check.
When the reduction of working hours, from 80 to 70...
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week the Office of Insular Affairs released $7.8 million remaining in grant assistance for fiscal year 2017 to the American Samoa Government through the Office of Insular Affairs’ (OIA) Operations Grant Program.
These funds are what remained of the annual $22.75 million...
In the U.S. territories, 5 percent of women who had confirmed Zika virus infection during pregnancy had a baby or fetus with Zika virus-associated birth defects, according to a report published this week in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Among the women with confirmed Zika infection...
![Homeland Security director Samana Semo Ve’ave’a [SN file photo]](https://www.samoanews.com/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/field/image/Samana.jpg?itok=FEHrRAPM "Homeland Security director Samana Semo Ve’ave’a [SN file photo]")
Local Department of Homeland Security director Samana Semo Ve’ave’a has echoed the call by local leaders including Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga for the community to join together to “eliminate” the drug problem in the territory.
As part of his remarks at last Friday’s 25th Police Academy graduation...
![Six of the 74 graduates of Nuuuli Vocational Technical High School’s Class of 2017 who received their diplomas last Friday. [photo: Blue Chen-Fruean]](https://www.samoanews.com/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/field/image/NVTHS%20Class%20of%202017.jpg?itok=c7Q1I1Vz "Six of the 74 graduates of Nuuuli Vocational Technical High School’s Class of 2017 who received their diplomas last Friday. [photo: Blue Chen-Fruean]")
![[SN file photo]](https://www.samoanews.com/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/field/image/EOB_1web_21.jpg?itok=2kfqPEnJ "[SN file photo]")
The government has finally identified a course of action on how to pay ASG employees who worked during recent holidays — Flag Day, Good Friday, and Memorial Day.
Paying employees who worked during the recent holidays has been delayed due to ASG’s current financial woes.
This was noted in a June 9...
![[SN file photo]](https://www.samoanews.com/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/field/image/AM%20Samoa%20HC_25.jpeg?itok=7uSji9N8 "[SN file photo]")
In their closing arguments, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued for the Trial Division of the High Court to rule in their favor in the Congregational Christian Church of American Samoa’s complaint against Rev. Amaama Tofaeono and his wife Joan Aleluia, who is also an ordained CCCAS minister.
The...
![[Courtesy photo]](https://www.samoanews.com/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/field/image/gov%20rex%20lee%20auditorium.jpeg?itok=LmOahZrE "[Courtesy photo]")
To ensure that the government is not in the red at the end of the current fiscal year, Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga has emphasized to his cabinet directors the importance of continued efforts to keep spending down by cutting unnecessary expenses for the rest of FY 2017.
One such expenditure, which...