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Tevita Fetu’u (27) received a suspended sentence for causing serious bodily harm when he fractured a 25-year-old man’s jaw in an assault at a bar in Vava’u. The judge ordered that for the next 12 months he must not enter licensed premises or a bar and must not during that period drink in public. He advised the accused to give up alcohol altogether because “it seems you are unable to control yourself.”

Lulutai Airlines has chartered a Saab 340 aircraft from Air Chathams, including its own crew at a fixed price, to operate 12 flights a week between Tongatapu and Vava’u.

Following this morning's magnitude 7 earthquake, Nomuka Island in Ha'apai experienced a temporary disruption to both electricity and communications. Nomuka Town Officer, 'Elenoa Moala, told to Matangi Tonga that these services were restored within half an hour after the earthquake.

The Tonga Legislative Assembly resumed its 2024-2025 session this morning, but before they got down to parliamentary business, exhausted members talked about the strong 7.0 M earthquake that shook Tonga at 1:18am and kept them awake during the night. In an emergency operation, Police had helped to move people away from coastlines in Tongatapu, Vava’u and Ha’apai.

Kisina Neiufi (33) who is already serving four and half years imprisonment for previous drug offences, received an additional 30 months for possession of 13.68 grams of methamphetamine seized last year.

Forty years ago, in 1985, the people of Rongelap Atoll in the central Pacific were forced to evacuate their radioactive home after enduring years of health impacts from the US nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands. Yesterday, the community came together in Mejatto to light candles, to sing and remember the terrors of the nuclear testing in the Pacific and their displacement from their home.

A donation of disability equipment, including wheelchairs, was presented by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to the Vaiola Hospital in Tongatapu yesterday, 26 March 2025. The equipment will help to replace the wheelchairs that have gone missing from the wards at the Hospital, where they are needed for disabled patients. It is the fourth such donation the church has made to the hospital.

Australia and Tonga have agreed to an AUD85 million (TOP125 million) budget support program over the next four years to support a stronger economy and national budget. “This is the largest investment in our partnership’s history,” stated a joint announcement yesterday, on the margins of the Special Forum Economic Ministers Meeting (FEMM) in Nuku'alofa.

Viliami Makahokovalu Tuputupu, the former captain of Tonga's inter-island domestic ferry, the MV ‘Otuanga’ofa, who is serving two years in prison, had his appeal against his sentence dismissed by a Supreme Court judge, who upheld the original sentence, emphasizing the need for public safety and adherence to regulations.