The Northern Marianas is expected to receive stimulus cheques worth about $US47 million as part of the $US900 billion federal pandemic relief package.

Here's what is happening in news from around the Pacific today, Tuesday 5 January.

The ship Tahiti Nui has arrived in Suva to deliver relief items provided by French Polynesia to assist Fiji's rebuilding work in response to last month's Cyclone Yasa.

Lemanu Peleti Palepoi Sialega Mauga has been sworn in as the new Governor of American Samoa.

Political leaders in Papua New Guinea have attended a viewing of the late prime minister Sir Mekere Morauta who is lying in state at Parliament House.

Samoa is tightening access further by banning the entry of travellers who might be carrying the new Covid-19 strain.

The French Polynesian government has agreed to subsidise the domestic carrier Air Tahiti for another six months to maintain loss-making routes.

The Northern Marianas has recorded two new Covid-19 cases, raising the total to 124.

Tight restrictions remain in force for Papua New Guinea's West New Britain province because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Tight restrictions remain in force for Papua New Guinea's West New Britain...

The first batch of coronavirus vaccines arrived in Palau early on Saturday morning, greeted on the tarmac by the president-elect and health minister.

More than 2,000 people remain in evacuation centres in Fiji's cyclone-battered north and east, two weeks after one of the Pacific's most powerful cyclones.

Fifteen people are missing after a landslide in a remote part of Papua New Guinea's Central Province.

Playwrights, teachers, reverends, advocates and athletes are among the 13 Pacific people who have received New Year's Honours.

The crew of a Chinese vessel who have been detained in Palau since 12 December will be released without charge and ordered to leave the country.

The Marshall Islands has became the first independent nation in the Pacific region to begin Covid-19 vaccinations.

Authorities in Fiji have confirmed another three cases of Covid-19, all of them in border quarantine.

More than 4-thousand people are still in evacuation centres in Fiji nearly two weeks after Cyclone Yasa.

The House of Representatives in the Northern Marianas has passed a bill that would ban the use of styrofoam food containers.