Star-Advertiser owner buys The Herald

The Herald, a daily and Sunday newspaper headquartered in Everett, Wash., has been purchased by Sound Publishing, a subsidiary of Black Press Ltd., owner of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

The Washington Post Co. agreed to sell The Herald to Sound Publishing for an undisclosed price. The sale is expected to close in early March.

Sound Publishing is the largest community media organization in the state of Washington, with 39 newspaper titles and a combined circulation of 732,700. It prints all of its own newspapers as well as other publications at a state-of-the-art printing facility in Everett.

Parent company Black Press, headquartered in Victoria, B.C., Canada, was founded in 1975 and owns the Akron (Ohio) Beacon-Journal daily newspaper as well as the Star-Advertiser. It recently announced the purchase of the Garden Island newspaper, on Kauai.

Food & Wine Festival raises $210,000

Last year’s Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival, featuring some of the world’s top chefs in a series of 15 events, raised $210,000 for five Hawaii nonprofit organizations.

The 2012 festival proceeds were given to the Hawai‘i Agricultural Foundation ($80,000), Culinary Institute of the Pacific ($80,000), Leeward Community College Culinary Arts Program ($30,000), Paepae o He‘eia ($10,000) and Papahana Kuaola ($10,000). Since its inception in 2011, the event headed by chefs Roy Yamaguchi and Alan Wong has raised nearly $500,000.

More than 4,000 visitors and residents attended the festival, which highlighted the skills of 61 chefs, four master sommeliers, 25 winemakers and 31 local farmers, artisan food producers and food industry innovators. More than 200 culinary students from Kapiolani, Leeward and Kauai community colleges and Maui College worked alongside a lineup of celebrity chefs.

The 2013 festival, set for Sept. 1-8, is already in the works. Visit HawaiiFoodandWineFestival.com or follow the festival via social media on Twitter/Instagram (@HIFoodWineFest) and Facebook (facebook.com/hawaiifoodandwinefestival).

Honolulu among most romantic U.S. cities

Honolulu is the 18th most romantic city in the U.S., according to a new, pre-Valentine’s Day ranking by OpenTable.com, an online dining reservations and review site.

Hometown boosters may find it difficult to swallow that Honolulu is romantically ranked below Providence, R.I. (No. 3), Salt Lake City (No. 6) and Milwaukee (No. 12).

However, the index was calculated from among reviews posted on OpenTable.com using the percentage of restaurants rated "romantic," the percentage of tables seated for two, and the percentage of people who dined out for Valentine’s Day last year.

Texas tops the OpenTable romantic city index with San Antonio at No. 1 and Austin at No. 2. The full list is online at www.opentable.com/RomanticCities.

Honolulu’s 10 most romantic restaurants, according to more than 114,900 reviews are, in ranked order: La Mer at Halekulani; Michel’s at the Colony Surf; Sarento’s Top of the "I"; Azul, at Ko Olina; Azure at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel; Chef Mavro; Beachhouse at Moana Surfrider; Ocean House Restaurant; Top of Waikiki; and 53 By the Sea.

Goodwill to boost job training, placement

Goodwill Industries of Hawaii will participate in a national expansion of the Goodwill Beyond Jobs program that provides job training and placement services to unemployed and underemployed women.

The program, expanding to 45 communities across the U.S., was piloted by five Goodwill agencies in 2010 and originally served 1,342 women. The expansion is expected to extend Beyond Jobs’ reach to 12,250 women.

Women enrolled in the program will be linked to tools needed to be successful at work and at home, as the program is designed to help them build family-sustaining careers. Beyond Jobs support services may include financial education, early education and child care assistance and other types of family support. It is funded through a $7.7 million grant from Walmart Foundation.

Shields faulty, not 787 batteries, NTSB says

WASHINGTON » Despite a battery fire in one Boeing 787 Dreamliner and smoke in another, the type of batteries used to power the plane’s electrical systems aren’t necessarily unsafe — manufacturers just need to build in reliable safeguards, National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Deborah Hersman said Wednesday.

Hersman said she doesn’t want to "categorically" rule out the use of lithium-ion batteries to power aircraft systems, even though it’s clear that safeguards failed in the case of a Japan Airlines 787 that had a battery fire while parked at Boston’s Logan International Airport last month.

ON THE MOVE

Maryknoll School has announced:

» Glenn Medeiros will serve as the high school’s vice principal. He has been with the school for five years, first serving as an American history teacher, then as vice principal of the grade school and as interim high school vice principal. Before joining Maryknoll, Medeiros was a grade school and high school teacher for public and private schools in Hawaii for nearly 15 years. He is also a singer who found fame in the 1980s and 1990s with hits like "Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You" and "She Ain’t Worth It" (with Bobby Brown). Both songs hit the Billboard Hot 100 for a few weeks.

» Chris Loomis will be the grade school vice principal, serving alongside Shana Tong. She currently teaches sixth grade and will assume her new role full-time on April 8. Loomis has been with Maryknoll School for 24 years as a teacher.

First Hawaiian Bank has appointed Thomas Dixon to executive vice president and chief credit officer for the credit administration division. He started as a management trainee for First Hawaiian and has more than 41 years of banking experience.