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Birthers beware: Hawaii may start ignoring your repeated requests for proof that President Barack Obama was born here.
The Hawaii Tourism Authority projects 200,000 more visitors this year, and has not wasted any time making sure it happens.
If you've ever had a hankering to wheel one of those big yellow pine trucks down the highway, Tuesday is your chance. Maui Pineapple Co. is auctioning off about 16 of the behemoths, along with a practically unused, state-of-the-art cannery and lots of other stuff that was left over when Maui's last pineapple plantation closed at the end of 2009.
The head of the state Department of Human Services yesterday said the proposed budget for her agency would result in cuts that are "draconian" and would cause "significant harm" to the people who need services the most.
People attending Hawai'i's biggest new-car show will be greeted by a Hawaiian Electric Co. display in what may mark the dawn of the era of the electric car
John Johnson was playing cards at a picnic table in Kapiolani Park when he learned that the Honolulu City Council had passed a ban on tents in parks unless the user has a permit.
You may have seen it, a black flag with the silhouette of a soldier. It's called the "prisoner of war, missing in action" flag. And if a bill clears the Legislature, that flag will fly at the State Capitol, six days a year.
A University of Hawaii student could face disciplinary action for taking nude and semi-nude photos and videos of himself in U.H. Manoa classrooms and posting them on the Internet.
A bill that would outlaw smoking in any motorized vehicle occupied by a child or young adult was advanced Tuesday by a 6-3 vote of a County Council committee.
Outgoing Environmental Management Director Lono Tyson contradicted two of his employees Tuesday, claiming that the department had no intention to close the Kealakehe green waste site and move green waste collections to Puuanahulu.
A 2nd Circuit Court judge has dismissed all remaining claims in a lawsuit filed against the county by three county employees.
Manu Kai, the primary support contractor for the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility, will be notifying 14 full-time employees this week of impending lay-offs, the company’s program manager said Wednesday.
State senators yesterday moved toward a general excise tax increase to help with the state's budget deficit after finding that targeted tax hikes on businesses would likely be passed on to consumers and could undermine economic growth.
A plan to raise the general excise tax 1 percentage point is on the move, but Senate leaders are predicting it will not get far.
The Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee has scuttled a proposed tax on Hawaii health insurance premiums.
House lawmakers passed a bill aimed at stopping private landowners from planting vegetation that encroaches onto public beaches.
Authorities said drunken driving arrests are up in Honolulu, in part because police are stepping up enforcement of DUI laws
It took a lot of trying, but the lone Mānoa coqui frog has been captured.
The skipper of a Pearl Harbor-based attack submarine was fired this week after he was found guilty of drunkenness and conduct unbecoming an officer.
The city's planned route for a new $5.3 billion rail system runs too close to runways at Honolulu International Airport, and that has become a major sticking point holding up the project.
Central Pacific Bank has announced a new chief executive - and a new strategy to build its cash reserves as required by federal banking regulators. The new strategy includes downsizing, and employees have been told there may be layoffs.
Everyone Acts Small in Local Banking
Hawaii's House of Representatives wants to spend $200-plus million to build Big Island schools, roads and even a hydroelectric power plant that may never move beyond a wish-list status.
A
lthough Kaua‘i has the restrictive agricultural-land subdivision rules, people have still been able to navigate around the system and establish residences on prime agricultural lands while not necessarily being engaged in substantial farming.
The Hawaii County Council has been given the Big Island Press Club's 13th annual Lava Tube award. According to the club, the award recognizes the year's most notable offense against the public's right to know.
Mayor Billy Kenoi's administration has done an about-face on selling its coqui frog sprayers following an outcry from a community group that's been conducting its own eradication program.
The coming months will result in the most difficult Maui County budget process in memory, Mayor Charmaine Tavares said Monday as she revealed her administration's fiscal year 2011 budget proposal.
With $53 million less in the county's anticipated fiscal year 2011 budget revenues compared with last year, Mayor Charmaine Tavares on Monday proposed to increase or "adjust" the real property tax rates for several classifications.
State law- makers are con- sidering a temporary solution to the con- tinuing problem of homeless campers living in some of Hawaii's most popular parks. They want the state to designate land for homeless safe zones.
The three leading candidates in the May special election for Congress differed sharply last night on the value of the federal economic stimulus package, with former Congressman Ed Case and state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa contending it was necessary to get through the recession while Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou argued it was too costly and ineffective.
Congressional candidates sought to set themselves apart from the pack last night as six of the challengers vying to replace Neil Abercrombie debated their positions on issues including health care reform, the national debt, public education and campaign finance reform.
The first debate for the six candidates running for Neil Abercrombie's congressional seat was held Monday night.
Debate video
Honolulu City Councilman Rod Tam, who will face a censure vote tomorrow, continued to use his city allowance to pay for meals with constituents and retirement party gifts even when he knew he was being investigated for possible abuses by the city Ethics Commission.
If Hawaii smokers think they are getting a deal buying cigarettes on the Internet, the state attorney general has some advice: Forget it.
Maui and Kauai plan smaller budgets in the next fiscal year, including plans for worker furloughs.
Mayor Charmaine Tavares presented her fiscal year 2011 budget Monday, and it includes increases in fees for water, wastewater, landfill tipping and auto registrations, as well as fare increases for the Maui Bus.
Following the state’s lead and attempting to keep its head above water during a weak economic climate, Kaua‘i County intends to furlough its employees two days per month.
The Kauai County Council’s annual budget deliberations, during which the heads of various county departments and agencies are grilled about their spending proposals, could once again take place with the cameras off.
A $36.7 million contract for Honolulu's planned train project failed to garner any competition.
The company that created the gay and lesbian cruise concept is commemorating its 25th birthday with a Silver Anniversary Cruise in Hawaii.
With Hawai'i's unemployment rate hovering at the highest level in three decades, Gov. Linda Lingle will offer $10 million to help businesses hire new workers by covering half of the workers' health care premiums for one year.
It was a war of words at the state capitol and Governor Linda Lingle took the first shot.
A bill moving through the Legislature would allow the Health Department to use the fees it gets from restaurants to hire more inspectors and put food violation records online.
Funding is in jeopardy for a clinic that has provided prenatal care to 200 pregnant women struggling with addictions and has delivered 82 babies with good results.
The one-woman show that is Project Prevention completed a three-day stint in Honolulu last week, generating 37 calls to the toll-free line and debate about Barbara Harris' unconventional approach to stopping substance-exposed births by paying drug addicts and alcoholics $300 to obtain long-term birth control or be sterilized.
Oahu Publications, Inc.(OPI) is selling the assets used in connection with the publication of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper, including the Star-Bulletin masthead and the URL, starbulletin.com, and related land, buildings and production assets.
Maui County's budget shortfalls have led to another cutback - television coverage of county boards and commissions.
Akaku: Maui Community Television and other public-access television stations would not have to compete for their contracts under a bill moving through the state Legislature.
The United Public Workers union announced that one of its units, which represents 9,000 blue-collar workers, overwhelmingly approved a new contract agreement with the state and counties.
Hanalei Bay might be touted as the best beach in America, but the bathroom facilities would likely be rated the worst, said Kaua‘i resident Jeff Tucker.
Plans by China's Hainan Airlines to provide service between Beijing and Honolulu appear to be running behind schedule again.
Embattled Honolulu City Councilman Rod Tam said he will introduce a resolution to eliminate the discretionary fund allowance given to council members to avoid the same problems he has encountered.
Police cited 167 Big Island drivers in the first two months of the new ban on using cell phones and hand-held electronic devices while driving.
The parking lot at Pu'u Pua'i Overlook in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park will be closed Monday, March 15, through Wednesday, March 31, for repaving.
Hundreds of beer enthusiasts ascended upon Kailua-Kona Saturday, taking in the views while enjoying a few cold brews to support local nonprofits.
Aging in 22-ounce bottles at the Kona Brewing Company is a very green beer.
For 17 years, the Friends of Moku'ula have dug through red tape to unearth ruins linked to Hawaii's ancient monarchy - and what many consider to be the greatest archeological find in the entire state.
The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service jointly published a proposal to "up-list" North Pacific turtles to endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
The state Council on Revenues delivered mixed news yesterday: No need for any more state budget cuts to get through the fiscal year that ends in June, but the state will have to find more money to stay out of the red next year.
Hawaii's economy is showing signs of recovery, but uncertainty remains about how long it will be before the state fully emerges from recession
The momentum is shifting from negative to positive when it comes to the state general fund revenues.
The Council on Revenues Thursday forecast $48 million less in tax revenues to be collected by the state this fiscal year ending June 30, and next fiscal year.
Three marijuana bills are making their way through the Hawaii State Capitol.
Federal agents raided the downtown Hilo sanctuary of The Hawaii Cannabis Ministry Wednesday morning, assisted by local police.
Flag Bill Dead For Session
The state Department of Land and Natural Resources may issue a request for proposals for a kayak concession at Kealakekua Bay, the agency's director says.
A developer who hopes to build 3,500 homes makai of the H-2 freeway says farmers working on the land have found another place to plant.
It has taken six years, but Sterling Kim has gotten his final construction approvals from Maui County for phase one of his Hale Mua affordable housing project on about 200 acres mauka of Happy Valley.
The 16th iteration of a burial treatment plan that would allow Naue landowner Joseph Brescia to move forward with construction on his single-family home atop 30 known Hawaiian burials was approved this week by the State Historic Preservation Division.
The accrediting agency that six years ago raised serious concerns about the University of Hawai'i's operations is praising UH-Manoa for a big turnaround, saying the campus has "emerged from a difficult past," benefited from "stable" leadership and shows promise on meeting its goals.
Hawaii County's two bands will play on, according to County Council members working to preserve the $347,027 budget Mayor Billy Kenoi has proposed eliminating.
Dueling ethics proposals will be presented to the Hawaii County Council at an April 6 committee meeting, thanks to action taken Wednesday by the Board of Ethics.
State spending cuts significantly have worsened the effects of the global economic downturn in the Islands, according to several Hawai'i economists who spoke to more than 150 advocates, lawmakers and others at the state Capitol yesterday.
Lawmakers appear poised by the end of the legislative session in April to approve a bill to increase the "facility charge" all customers have to pay on their car rental bills from the current $1 a day to $4.50 a day.
Nearly one out of every six Hawai'i workers was either unemployed or underemployed last year
The state's resort real estate market is not out of the woods yet, but Honolulu analyst Ricky Cassiday said he believes he has detected signs that it finally touched bottom in the last quarter of 2009.
Maui's hotel occupancy rate jumped to 67.5 percent in January from 59.8 percent in the same month last year. For the state as a whole, occupancy rose from 63.1 to 66.5 percent.
As a Child Welfare Services specialist on the Big Island, Patrice Bell has seen spending restrictions and budget cuts reduce her office size by about one-third.
For more than 15 years, medical hope for House Clerk Pat Mau-Shimizu was sitting next to her on the House floor — C.J. Leong, House assistant clerk.
The federal government added 48 species found only on Kauai to the endangered species list yesterday, boosting the number of species classified as such by the Obama administration from two to 50.
Native flora and fauna on the verge of extinction for more than a decade have officially been added to the federal list of threatened and endangered species, according to a press release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wednesday
Mitsuo "Mits" Shito, a strong public housing advocate at the state Legislature, died of natural causes last month. He was 79.
Fire rescue crews say tiger sharks are hampering their search for a missing surfer on Oahu's North Shore.
State Sen. Colleen Hanabusa formally filed nomination papers Wednesday morning to run for the First Congressional District in a special election.
Hawaii County's cost to prepare for the recent tsunami threat: $274,067.
In stark contrast to last year, only one Hawaii County Council member is attending the National Association of Counties convention in Washington this week
Reacting to a study saying Kona coffee farmers lose $14.4 million to blenders each year, some processors and sellers claim changing state law to ban the practice of blending Kona coffee or require more Kona coffee in blends would negatively impact farmers, jobs and profits.
The $39 million project will take two years to complete and there will be construction delays, but the end result should be shorter commute times for those driving between Puhi and Lihu‘e, state officials said.
Starting May 11, Hawaii Island builders will have to observe a newly enacted county code that demands higher energy efficiency in newly constructed houses and, in some cases, in older houses undergoing renovation.
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