Furlough fighting, coffee picking, sugar era ends, floods threatening and other Hawaii news

State senators on a special legislative committee examining public teacher furloughs yesterday said they want to urge Gov. Linda Lingle to make use of $35 million in federal stimulus money that is entirely under her control.

Parents who want their children back in school on Furlough Fridays lost a round in federal court yesterday, but one attorney plans to appeal the ruling, and the judge urged both sides to settle the issue before it goes to trial.

State tax collection have dropped again.

The impending auction of a partial silver-plated serving set salvaged from the USS Arizona just months after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor is being condemned by at least one former sailor who witnessed the sinking of the battleship.

The National Weather Service on Monday issued a flash flood watch for all of the Hawaiian Islands to start on Tuesday night and last through Thursday.

Renee Mokihana Nobriga, 25, was crowned the 2010 Miss Hawaii USA on November 9, 2009 at LEVEL4 in the Royal Hawaiian Center in Waikiki.

Parker Ranch is selling its realty arm as the 152-year-old operation continues to liquidate assets and trim operating costs following a year of multimillion-dollar losses.

Kona resident Anthony Caravalho Jr.'s fingers flew Sunday morning, searching for and picking sun-kissed, ruby coffee cherries from trees at the Ueshima Coffee Co. estate in Holualoa.

Fifty-seven divers from Maui, Lanai and Oahu came out to the third and last Roi Roundup of the year.

The official end of Kaua‘i processed sugar officially came around 4 p.m. Monday, when the transport ship Moku Pahu left Nawiliwili Harbor with the last Gay & Robinson sugar from the final harvest.