Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi delivered his fifth State of the City address Tuesday with an emphasis on “wicked problems” that have long been painfully familiar to residents of Oahu — housing, homelessness and crime, as well as an outdated and cumbersome bureaucracy. Read more
It’s not mere appreciation of history that reveals the dark side of the current DEI purge; the campaign has real-time consequences within today’s Armed Forces. Read more
Now banned in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, cesspools are typically pits dug to process raw human waste and sewage. Read more
The federal administration is in the midst of a rapidly launched, blunt-force effort to hack back spending and staffing at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Read more
Around 130,000 veterans live in Hawaii, and many of them work at the VA. So concern is widespread over plans to eliminate 72,000 VA jobs nationwide, in addition to those already gone. Read more
Outrage that Hawaii’s keiki are being so monstrously beaten or starved to death — behind closed doors, but in our midst — must drive prevention. Read more
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Nobody knows for sure how budget cuts from Capitol Hill will land in Hawaii and other states. Read more
Construction of Oahu’s rail system has been fraught, to say the least. Running billions of dollars over budget, late and two stations short of original plans, Skyline has endured public pushback to the point that its mere existence is often used as a political cudgel. But on it rolls. Read more
Advancing bills crossed over from one side of the Legislature to the other on Thursday, reducing the number of bills alive from over 3,000 to under 800. Read more
A bill to restrict “non-medical,” i.e., religious, exemptions from Hawaii’s vaccine mandates has properly been put on ice in the state House, due to constitutional concerns. Read more
In tone, substance and consequence, Tuesday’s presidential speech before a joint session of Congress was like no other — more an amplified campaign rally than a unifying attempt at nonpartisan statesmanship. Read more
Hawaii, remote and surrounded by ocean, is particularly vulnerable to damage from hurricanes, tsunami, floods, drought, destructive winds and fire. These unique perils make monitoring the weather an essential service. Read more
It’s not a surprise that one of the first grassroots issues state Rep. Diamond Garcia encountered on his first campaign in 2022 was in the Villages of Kapolei, where residents have felt like stepchildren of the city government for decades. Read more
For many city dwellers, quashing crime typically ranks near the top of their government to-do hierarchy — from staid white-collar misdeeds to the more sinister robbery, assault and murder. Read more
Predictions pull short of recession, but economic activity is expected to be flat, at best. That’s going to affect every Hawaii resident in some way. Read more
The state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) received a transformational infusion of funding in 2022, when Act 279 — the “Waitlist Reduction Act” — became law, appropriating a historic $600 million to the chronically underfunded department. Read more
Given the insidious stifling of women’s reproductive rights nationally, state laws to safeguard bodily autonomy have become increasingly necessary. Read more
There is really no argument against the need for a pedestrian bridge route across the Ala Wai Canal, especially for emergency evacuations. Read more
