Power largely restored after Kauai suffered an island-wide outage last night

The best update was when they had to report the outage took the outage map itself offline:

Vivid article by Susan Orlean about young female surfers on Maui

The original article is from 1998:

Before women were encouraged to surf, the girls in Hana must have been unbelievably bored

...

One afternoon I went to Hana to meet Theresa McGregor, one of the best surfers in town. I missed our rendezvous and was despairing because Theresa lived with her mother, two brothers, and sister in a one-room shack with no phone and I couldn’t think of how I’d find her. There is one store in Hana, amazingly enough called the General Store, where you can buy milk and barbecue sauce and snack bags of dried cuttlefish; once I realized I’d missed Theresa I went into the store because there was no other place to go. The cashier looked kindly, so I asked whether by any wild chance she knew a surfer girl named Theresa McGregor. I had not yet come to appreciate what a small town Hana really was.

...

Last year, the surfer moms in town held a fund-raiser bake sale to send Theresa and two Hana boys to the national surfing competition in California.

...

I stayed up late reading about how Christian missionaries had banned surfing when they got to Hawaii in the late 1800s

And the follow-up from 2021:

Tell me how the story came to be. How did the assignment happen?

Well, it was kind of funny. I had been doing stuff for Outside, and Susan Casey, who was then running Women Outside, said to me, “How would you like to do a story about these girls who are big surfers in Hawaii?” Generally, I come up with my own story ideas. It’s rare that I respond well to someone’s suggestion. But I thought it sounded great. And as I recall, I basically got a flight and went, and when I arrived in Maui, I started calling the different girls whose names Susan had given me. And one after another, they said, “Oh, I don’t surf anymore” or “Yeah, I’m not that interested in surfing.” It was every reporter’s nightmare. It was like, “What? You don’t surf anymore? Here I am in Maui, and I spent all this time and the magazine’s money to come here, and none of you guys surf?” I was very discouraged.

...

Do you remember that first drive out to Hana?

Oh my God, yeah. Anybody who has done that drive doesn’t forget it, because it is a very challenging road. It’s not very far, and I’m a totally fearless driver—I have no fear of driving anywhere—but it’s the most harrowing drive

Via.

Two killed and three others shot at a cockfight on Oahu

AP:

Police in Hawaii have vowed to step up illegal gambling enforcement after one of the most serious shootings in state history called attention to the dangers that come with cockfighting, which has deep roots in the islands and remains popular despite being illegal.

...

Authorities say investigating cockfights is difficult in part because they are highly organized events on private property and their illegal nature and the large amount of money wagered means they often have links to organized crime. 

...

[A former Maui police chief said], “It’s something that is so huge and so popular in Hawaii that it really can’t be controlled by law enforcement”

"The new Aloha Stadium has hit another delay and will likely not be ready until the 2028 football season"

"It was only last month when the governor announced that the stadium would be delayed until 2027."

A Hawaiian state representative reportedly "conspired with midwife activists" to have her colleagues arrested for DUI after they rejected her "controversial midwifery bill"

Civil Beat:

[She reportedly] took pictures of members walking to their cars and texted an acquaintance in law enforcement and asked them to come to the Capitol. Midwife activists also followed at least one member to their car.

...

she has been ostracized by her colleagues including the progressive members she aligned with. Efforts are already underway to find a replacement for her should she resign or run for reelection next year.

The "wall" of green lasers seen in Hawaii in January was reportedly a scanning laser from a Chinese satellite

Vice:

Last month, a camera from a telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawai'i's tallest mountain, captured something eerie: a wall of green lasers visibly shooting across the sky.

...

"According to ... a NASA scientist working on ICESat-2 ATLAS, it is not by their instrument but by others," the update stated. "His colleagues ... did a simulation of the trajectory of satellites that have a similar instrument and found a most likely candidate as the ACDL instrument by the Chinese Daqi-1/AEMS satellite.

...

Daqi-1 was launched last year and serves a similar purpose to ICESat-2, being designed to monitor atmospheric pollution using lasers.

*Previously: Absolute laser bombardment at Egypt-Senegal World Cup qualifier

Interior camera captured the moment a massive boulder smashed through a Honolulu home

(Video has audio.) (The area is north of Diamond Head.)

 
KITV:

According to the Honolulu Police Department, the boulder appeared to have plowed through the property's cinderblock wall, struck the family's car, rammed through a glass door, across the living room floor and into another wall before landing in a bedroom on the second story of the Palolo Avenue home.

KHON:

Community members are raising concerns about a development next door that excavated the mountain.

They said there were no boulders rolling down the valley before the development, and they have now experienced three boulders coming down in the last 24 hours. 

Videos of wild coastal flooding in Hawaii from Tropical Cyclone Darby

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Group calling itself the "Occupied Forces Hawaii Army" ordered to leave the land it's occupying on Oahu

Civil Beat:

Instead of preparing to leave, the group has been welcoming reinforcements consisting of additional uniformed members of Occupied Forces Hawaii Army, which claims to be a uniformed force of “lawful military combatants” serving the “Country of Hawaii.”

...

[One of the individuals] sent an undated letter to the court in which he repeated language commonly used by the so-called “sovereign citizens movement,” whose followers reject the authority of the courts and the government. The movement is considered an extremist organization by the FBI and is tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“I am a man and one of the people of the Country of Hawaii, a living breathing sentient being on the land, a natural creation of the Father (God),” [he] wrote. “Let the record reflect that I can only come to court by special divine appearance.”

...

[Another individual] is now facing multiple criminal charges on Maui stemming from two separate incidents. She is charged with first degree burglary, theft and extortion, all Class B felonies, as well as other felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from the takeover of the home of a retired judge and his wife on Maui in January 2020.

Larry Ellison "is making his Hawaiian island more hospitable to the super-rich and pushing out families that have been there for generations"

Long article at Bloomberg about life on Lanai:

Lanai has largely been in private hands since the 19th century, but Ellison, with a net worth of about $90 billion, is far wealthier than its last owner

...

Ellison is a modern American king—incomprehensibly wealthy and powerful. Many residents both rent from him and work for him, and a provision in his residential leases states that if you’re terminated from a job with any of his companies, you can be kicked out of your home, too. Under Ellison, 30-day leases have become the norm for Lanai’s small businesses, as opposed to the five-year terms some were used to before.

There's a scandalous allegation about the world's most famous movie star far, far down in the article.

In his first news conference, Honolulu's new police chief described his adult son’s arrest for felony assault

For an alleged assault at Ala Moana park.

Two murder suspects on the run after Honolulu police officers gave them a courtesy transport from the scene

HawaiiNewsNow:

Honolulu police officers dropped two men now suspected in a gruesome murder off in Waikiki on Monday as an investigation was unfolding at the east Honolulu home they were staying in, Hawaii News Now has learned.

Sources say the “courtesy transport” was provided to [the two suspects] because investigators didn’t have enough probable cause to detain them and officers wanted to search their car. But plainclothes officers were not assigned to follow them.

...

An intense manhunt for the two continues.

ABC:

the victim is believed to be the 73-year-old owner of the Lelekepue Place property.

His body was found in a standalone bathtub that had been filled with concrete. Coffee grounds were on top of the concrete, likely to hide the smell of decomposition.

“When we entered, we smelled coffee no doubt,” [the lieutenant] said. “The body was in the standalone tub and it was in a state of decomposition once we chipped away at the concrete mixture.”

Update: 

BREAKING: US Marshals assisting HPD captured HI murder suspects in CA. Juan Tejedor Baron was in Anaheim allegedly trying to flee to Mexico, He was reportedly hiding on a Greyhound bus.
Scott Hanson was arrested in Inglewood. https://t.co/lJFO1hLLU8 #HawaiiNewsNow pic.twitter.com/tVU8P8sLGk

— Lynn Kawano (@LynnKawano) March 10, 2022

"Monsanto Company agreed to plead guilty to 30 environmental crimes related to the use of a pesticide on corn fields in Hawaii"

 "All told, the financial penalty for Monsanto totals $22.2 million."  The name of the product in question was "Forfeit 280."

Most of the possibly polluted Oahu water samples sent for testing were damaged in transit and couldn't be tested

Civil Beat:

Test results by the Hawaii Department of Health are providing few answers about the contamination of the Navy’s drinking water after several samples were damaged in transit and couldn’t be tested.

...

On Thursday, the Navy announced that its own testing had detected petroleum products in the Red Hill shaft, which provides drinking water to 93,000 customers. However, officials said Friday they still don’t know how petroleum got in the well.

...

Friday, the Honolulu Board of Water Supply ceased pumping from its Halawa shaft, which provides 20% of the drinking water for the region spanning Moanalua to Hawaii Kai.

In Hawaii, one acre lots start at $7.5 million, with property taxes of only $200 per year

The NY Times looks at homes in Hawaii getting bought up sight unseen:

At the private Hokuli’a community, one-acre lots start at $7.5 million. Carrie Nicholson, director of sales and marketing for Hokuli’a, said building prices would start around $500 per square foot but would more likely land in the range of $1,000 per square foot.

Residents of Hokuli’a, though, enjoy the advantage of an agriculture easement on their properties, which allows them to introduce organic farming with tax credits from the state. Ms. Nicholson said these credits could reduce property taxes to $200 per year, “leading to plenty of mango trees surrounding the properties inside the community.”

For the antisemitic anti-vaxxers on Oahu, it's "fun, like a party"

AP:

Since Hawaii announced a mandate earlier this month that state and county workers would have to show proof of vaccination or face weekly tests, 50 to 100 unmasked vaccine opponents have gathered almost nightly outside the downtown Honolulu condominium building where Lt. Gov. Josh Green lives with his wife and two children, ages 14 and 10.

Some yell into bullhorns and shine strobe lights into apartment units, Green said. Flyers with his photo and the words “Jew” and “fraud” have been plastered around the neighborhood. Green, who is Jewish, has been tearing them down and turning them over to the state attorney general’s office.

...

Ironically, Green wasn’t home during a recent intense weekend of protests. He was on the Big Island working on his other job as an emergency room doctor and treating mostly COVID-19 patients during a record surge in coronavirus hospitalizations in the state.

Hawaii News Now:

“It’s a small minority that is otherwise condemning society to a lockdown and potentially large-scale death,” Green said. “No one wants to close down businesses, no one wants to put in curfews, no one wants to curtail regular life or schools — but we have to keep people alive.”

Green added that as of Sunday, 58 of 68 ICU beds at Queen’s were filled. At the Hilo Medical Center, the hospital reports all 11 ICU beds are taken. Six of which are of which are COVID patients. 

...

“The loudest most oppositional defiant people that think it’s fun, they think it’s like a party

The wheels on Oahu's new trains are too narrow for the tracks that have been laid

If the wheels are replaced with thicker ones, then the train cars will become too heavy for the tracks. So, the tracks could be replaced instead, or the train cars could be made lighter in some other way...

U.S. Navy sailor dead from apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after long standoff at Oahu's Kahala Hotel

From several hours ago:

Shortly after the suspect allegedly fired the first shot, police were clearing the beach and beachside eateries at the Kahala Hotel and yelling at guests and passersby to get inside. More than 100 people were ushered into the ballroom, where they remained into the early morning. Guests staying in rooms near the barricaded man were also evacuated, and others were asked to stay in the lobby.

As the situation dragged on, the hotel provided displaced guests with food, blankets and pillows.

When they finally entered his room, they found he had died.

In other Hawaii news:

$30M worth of COVID testing kits expire in state storage facility

"Five current and former Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting employees are facing federal charges for allegedly accepting bribes"

"The alleged corruption has been going on for years, according to the indictments."

Hawaii’s beaches are disappearing because the wealthy keep building seawalls to protect their homes

Pro Publica:

Hawaii’s beaches are owned by the public, and the government is required to preserve them. So years ago, officials adopted a “no tolerance” policy toward new seawalls, which scientists say are the primary cause of coastal erosion.

But over the past two decades, oceanfront property owners across the state have used an array of loopholes in state and county laws to get around that policy, armoring their own properties at the expense of the environment and public shoreline access. 

... 

Over time, though, waves hitting the barriers pull the sand away from the shore and carry it out to sea. As a result, the government approvals have fueled beach loss and perpetuated the redevelopment of private properties along treasured and environmentally sensitive coastlines — all at a time when scientists have been warning of the dire need to push development inland.