Education center for ocean refuge ready to reopen

HILO » A downtown Hilo education center for the Papahanau­moku­akea Marine National Monument is reopening this month after a year of refurbishing.

The new Mokupapapa Discovery Center features a saltwater aquarium as well as new exhibits and artwork.

It will open to the public Saturday in the historic Koeh­nen Building. The new center has five times the space as the old one.

The Mokupapapa center first opened in 2003. The center hosts more than 60,000 visitors a year, including school groups, community groups, residents and tourists.

Allow football games at night, Schatz tells feds

U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz is asking the Interior Department to allow high schools on Kauai to play night football games again.

Kauai high schools have played football games on Saturday afternoons for the most part since 2009 because the lights interfere with the flight patterns of endangered birds called Newell’s shearwaters, or ao.

Schatz is asking for a solution that helps the shearwaters recover but would also allow for evening football, the Garden Island reports.

That would require a waiver from a 2010 settlement between Kauai County and the Justice Department over violations of the Endangered Species Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

"I write to encourage you to consider granting a waiver which would allow Kauai high schools to conduct football games for three hours per week during the high school football season in 2014," Schatz said in a letter Wednesday to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.