How Ige Plans To Cut $220 Million From His Budget
Hawaii Gov. David Ige has proposed across-the-board cuts to his $28.5 billion spending plan for the next two years due to tax revenues coming in lower than expected. The biggest budget reductions would...
View ArticleReader Rep: Don’t Let Trump Overshadow Local Issues
With a reality-television farce for a presidency, Americans can’t help but be sucked eyeballs-elongated into the churning daily descriptions of federal buffoonery, cronyism and disruptive change....
View ArticleBig Changes In Store For Hawaii Public Radio
Fans of “Morning Café” with Gene Schiller will have to tune in to Hawaii Public Radio a half an hour earlier to hear the program’s familiar intro of tweeting birds. They will also have to change the...
View ArticleMeasure To Stop Mayors From Moonlighting Shelved
The fact that Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell is paid at least $200,000 annually to advise Territorial Savings Bank was a big issue in his 2016 re-election campaign. His opponents charged that the side...
View ArticleDrivers May Face Higher Taxes, Fees To Maintain Highways
Katherine Kupukaa of Mililani is living on a fixed income, so she must be frugal in her spending. And yet, state lawmakers are considering raising some of her expenses — specifically, three regarding...
View ArticleDenby Fawcett: The Donald Trump Diet Is One Way Of Coping
I am treating the Donald Trump era like Lent — a long secular Lent, not just 40 days but four years — a time of personal abstinence to focus on the battle ahead to lessen the damage done by a crazy...
View ArticleAre Hawaii’s Wind Farms Killing Too Many Hoary Bats?
Editor’s Note: As Environment Hawaii reports in a related article, the state’s wind energy facilities may be killing large numbers of endangered Hawaiian hoary bats faster than resource managers can...
View ArticleWhy Aren’t We Changing Waianae’s Culture Of Fistfights?
All is quiet in a cul-de-sac off Ala Akau Street, until a group of 25 to 30 students walks over from the high school across the street. They typically gather right after school on a grassy hill...
View ArticleTime To Legalize Pot
It’s time now to legalize cannabis for recreational use by adults in Hawaii. The recreational use of cannabis is already legal in Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon,...
View ArticleYes, We Can Build Our Way Out Of The Housing Shortage
Will Kakaako be yet another missed opportunity for urban affordable housing? In 1976, Kakaako was designated by the Legislature as an urban neighborhood. This allowed high density buildings as a way of...
View ArticleMinimum Wage Hike Clears Hawaii Senate Committee
Hawaii’s minimum wage would rise to $15 an hour in 2021 if a Senate bill survives the legislative session, but it could face resistance in the House. It would mark the second time in three years that...
View ArticleAnother Federal Injunction Issued Against Trump’s Travel Ban
In another judicial loss for the Trump administration, a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, has issued a preliminary injunction against the president’s attempt to suspend refugee resettlements and...
View ArticleHealth Beat: Remember When You Couldn’t Buy Insurance If You Were Sick?
If you didn’t have medical insurance through your job, would you be eligible to purchase it in the individual market? Prior to the institution of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, it was a lot harder...
View ArticleUS Senate Bill Calls For Better Monitoring of Volcanic Eruptions
WASHINGTON — Late last year, when a volcano in Alaska suddenly blew its top after 25 years of dormancy and began spewing ash more than 33,000 feet into the air, nobody was watching. The volcano,...
View ArticleWhy I Support Tulsi Gabbard Going To Syria
I served my country for 29 years in the U.S. Army/ Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. I also served 16 years in the U.S. diplomatic corps in U.S. Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia,...
View ArticleWill Hawaii Restrict Pesticides, Require More Disclosure From Big Ag?
A week ago, two legislative committees approved a slew of bills aimed at banning certain pesticides, funding studies and requiring large agricultural companies to disclose when and where they apply the...
View ArticleMedical Aid In Dying Bill Stays Alive In Hawaii Senate
Proposals for medical aid in dying didn’t even get a hearing in the Hawaii Legislature last year, but times have changed. Senate Bill 1129 would allow licensed physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of...
View ArticleAs Two Tax Bills Advance, Honolulu Rail Has Legislators’ Attention
Most of the action so far regarding finding more money for Honolulu’s rail project has taken place in the state Senate, but now the House of Representatives is getting involved. On Wednesday, two...
View ArticlePolice Chief Orders Full Review Of Toddler Assault Case
The Honolulu Police Department may reopen a criminal case involving the suspected assault of a toddler at a day care run by the wife of a Honolulu police officer in response to a Civil Beat story that...
View ArticleDeedy Case: Time To Let Go Of A Case That’s Gone Nowhere
It has been more than five years since Christopher Deedy fatally shot Kollin Elderts at a Waikiki McDonald’s. In that time, we have seen two trials of Deedy, but very little clarity as to what exactly...
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