Education / How did a professor at UH-Manoa manage to help more than 1,000 kids from mostly low-income families in Hawaii save more than $115,000? In her new book, The Money Class, financial guru and TV host Suze Orman says the key to teaching children how to save money is how the information is presented.
Environment / While sailing from Hawaii to California in 1997, Capt. Charlie Moore discovered what would come to be called the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” In the doldrums and swirling currents of the North Pacific Gyre, Moore found a toxic soup of floating plastic debris everywhere he looked for hundreds of miles.
Health / The half-gram bottle of bath salts promises an “invigorating” and “energizing” experience. But the new designer drug, called MDPV (or “legal cocaine”) is sending an alarming number of curious teenagers and seasoned drug users to emergency rooms and mental hospitals throughout the country, according to the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center, the poison control center for Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Nevada.
Governemnt / The State Capitol is a mystery to many of us. Sure, the public has the ability to sit in during committee hearings, but other than that, the whole building–and what goes on behind those closed doors–is a big black hole.
Health / Millions of cigarette butts find their way onto our state’s beaches and nature trails, into city parks and on sidewalks and school playgrounds every day. Cigarette butts–the most littered item in the nation and the world–are more than an eyesore.
Community / It’s 7:30am on a Saturday morning and Juanita Kawamoto is frying dough at the YMCA in Kailua. Using locally bought ingredients, she molds dozens of malasadas for the World Wetland Day fundraiser that will be held later that day.
Gambling / In the early 1800s they were run by private individuals. One was even used to raise funds for George Washington’s army.
Community / There’s much confusion about whether or not fireworks are legal in the city of Honolulu. Will we see anymore epic displays like we did this past New Year’s Eve?
Health / Unusually heavy rains flooded a reservoir above Waimanalo Gulch Landfill in the early hours of Tuesday, Jan. 13.
Kawaiaha‘o Church / Plans to resume construction of a $21 million multipurpose building on the grounds of historic Kawaiahao Church are meeting renewed resistance from those who say the project is circumventing the state burial law. “We need to stop this now, because if Kawaiahao, a Hawaiian church, the church of the alii, is allowed to get away with it, and condones it, it will set a precedent for every other construction project coming down the line,” says Kamuela Kalai, whose great-great grandfather, a minister ordained at the church, is buried on its grounds.
Kyo-ya Hotels & Resorts / A glance at Google Earth reveals a new problem with Kyo-ya’s plans to build a 26-story beachfront hotel/apartment building in the middle of Waikiki Beach, right next to the surf racks and police substation at Kuhio Beach Park. The problem is the tower’s morning shadow on the beach during summer months.
community / Daniela is five months pregnant and mother to Kainoa, 20 months. She works at a full-time job for the city.
Defeat Autism Now / Katie Berry is my new hero. She’s a funny, crafty, talented military mom who happened to be the parent of an autistic child.
Community / Prompted by a tip from a former employee who detailed the squalid conditions of the dogs at Bradley Hawaiian Puppies in Waimanalo, Last Chance for Animals (LCA), a mainland animal rights group, sent an agent to Hawaii to work undercover and surreptitiously film the “puppy mill” earlier this year. The video clearly shows animals lying in their own filth, suffering from untreated medical conditions and living in an area with a major rat infestation.
Agriculture / The Hawaii Crop Improvement Association (HCIA), a nonprofit trade association, recently announced the impressive growth of the seed industry in our state –estimated at more than $220 million and growing at a rate of 26 percent every year. Although the local seed industry represents only a small percentage of our overall acreage (only 6,000 acres), the industry’s potential longterm value has analysts pointing out that the fate of Hawaii’s agriculture industry depends upon the pace of research focusing on transgenic seeds.
Health / It’s time for lunch and you’re craving a plate of ‘ahi, a sushi roll and a bowl of saimin. Since you skipped breakfast, you tell yourself that a snack of midnight malasadas is completely justifiable.
Environment / The coqui frog has garnered quite a bit of attention in Hawaii during the last decade. It’s reached unprecedented numbers on the Big Island, largely because of the absence of predators and the fact that its climate is perfect for the development of what Patricia Tummons, award-winning editor of Environment Hawaii, calls “frog cities.” “As much as the noise of the coqui is a nuisance in populated areas,” says Tummons, “it’s the frog’s presence on the islands that poses a potential environmental nightmare of even greater dimensions.” In a recent newsletter, Tummons reports that a coqui infestation in Wahiawa, Oahu took nearly six years and $290,000 to eradicate.
Health / In early 2003, Patti Isaacs, a mental health clinician, and Dr. Edward Suarez, vocational services coordinator at the state’s Adult Mental Health Division (AMHD) were assigned a new and exciting responsibility — to transform a portion of land at the Hawaii State Hospital (HSH) from a wild patch of weeds to an innovative garden of exotic and Hawaiian fruits and vegetables and a nursery.
The Hawaii Foodbank / Chances are that children in your neighborhood are going hungry as you read this. And it’s likely your pantry shelves are overflowing with extra cans of pumpkin-pie filling and canned yams, while old cans of tuna and Vienna sausages are pushed to the back shelf, forgotten or saved for a rainy day.
Community / The bombing of Pearl Harbor was one of the most shocking and incomprehensible events of the 20th century. Many compare the devastating attack to the Sept.
Peace Corps / In 1960, one of America’s greatest idealists, John F. Kennedy, sparked the volunteer spirit of students on campuses across the country.
Community / I recently attended a gubernatorial candidate’s forum on food security in Hawaii. In attendance were some of the most powerful figures in local food politics, from radical and industrial farmers, to concerned citizens, to bio-tech reps, university professors and elected officials.
Tamarindo / From pure recreation to a cult-like form of worship, surfing has taken the globe by storm. Less than 30 years ago, there were no surf training camps outside of the United States, and the small surfing population was found mainly in Hawaii, California and Australia.
Health / When I was about 7 years old, I accompanied my family to a neighbor’s house for dinner. As we approached the house, I heard loud barking sounds inside.
Daniel Ellsberg / In 1971, Pentagon consultant Daniel Ellsberg leaked 7,000 pages of documents on the Vietnam War to the New York Times. The documents revealed that at least two successive presidents–Kennedy and Johnson–had obscured the reality of the conflict in Vietnam and led to further erosion of the public’s support for the war and, more critically, to further erosion of the public’s confidence in government.
Given the city’s crumbling infrastructure and rail controversy, it’s hard to believe anyone would want to be the next mayor of Honolulu. But a few do want the job, including the incumbent, Mayor Peter Carlisle, the former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney who won a 2010 special election to fill the remainder of Mufi Hannemann’s term.
I’d never been to a Honolulu City Council meeting until a few weeks ago. Features, not politics, was my beat.
Victoria Holt Takamine is a kumu hula, a cultural activist and a teacher and has an impeccable pedigree to back up all these titles. Born of an alii family whose kuleana was in Moanalua, she graduated as a hula teacher under the legendary Auntie Maiki Aiu Lake and taught hundreds of students in her own halau (Pua Alii ‘Ilima) and at the University of Hawaii.
On April 25, a state judge dismissed trespassing charges against a Kauai man after finding that he had been exercising traditional native Hawaiian rights hunting wild pigs on private land. Kui Palama, 28, was arrested on Jan.
The city plans to dish out $3.5 million from its Affordable Housing Fund and either purchase or renovate a structure to provide transitional housing for Honolulu’s special needs homeless population. “Our community has invested considerable effort and resources in addressing homelessness,” Mayor Peter Carlisle said in a statement, “but there remains a population whose disabilities or chronic conditions make it difficult for them to participate in traditional shelter programs.” Carlisle is referring to those homeless with mental illnesses, addictions and physical disabilities.
Makaweli Poi faces an uncertain future after its owner, a corporate subsidiary of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) ordered the West Kauai mill to suspend operations May 23. Mona Bernardino, chief operating officer of the corporation, Hiipoi LLC, says the move to shut down Makaweli Poi was prompted mainly by financial concerns.
A resolution adopted by the City Council will solidify an agreement between the City and County of Honolulu and the University of Hawaii Water Resources Research Center (UH-WRRC) to conduct an analysis of impacts from ocean sewer outfalls on the marine environments off of Oahu. The city will pay UH-WRRC as much as $2.5 million for biological and sediment studies in portions between now and June 30, 2017 .
Along with the deep, verdant growth of spring sprouts an unyielding desire to spend more time in the open air. That’s why it should come as no surprise that National Bike Month falls in the sun-drenched time of May.
Of the many letters you publish against rail, how many offer an alternative that won’t send us into further economic demise? Billions of gallons of oil are imported for us from every oil-producing nation on this planet so that we can buy billions of gallons of gasoline.
TheBus is taking a back seat to rail. At the May 3 Downtown Neighborhood Board meeting, an audience member asked city Transportation Director Wayne Yoshioka when we could expect the bus route cancellations and changes to be reversed.
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