Early Voting open Oct 19-30: Find your polling place
New Poll: GOP leads generic ballot in Hawaii, Djou up by 6%
Fact check: Superferry, Aloha, Rail, Furloughs
Attack ads "coordinated' with alleged Pay-to-Play engineering firm
Barking Sands: Japanese Missile Intercept Sends Message to North Korea
$23M Emergency funds giveaway called “blind promise”
Abercrombie’s 100% anti-life voting record
VIDEO: Aiona focuses on drug prevention for a healthier Hawaii
Humpbacks recover, but Hawaii still losing sovereignty over State waters
Hawaii HEART: Moving 4,000 people from homelessness to permanent housing
Hawaii windfarm developer “could go under”
Terror Suspect Lived In Upper Manoa: Neighbors Were Suspicious Of Young Man In Million-Dollar Home
The split-level house is valued at about a $1 million on city tax records. The family which owns it rents it out through a real estate company which said Shehadeh was not the renter on the lease. (SO WHO PAID THE LEASE???) Neighbors wondered how he could afford to live in a house that would rent for several thousand dollars a month.
“He was the only guy who was there all the time,” said Merritt.
The FBI searched the house after arresting Shehadeh on Friday. He's charged with making false statements about why he wanted to travel to Pakistan in 2008. The FBI said he made statements he wanted to be trained there as a terrorist or guerrilla fighter and advocated violent jihad on the internet.
Similar statements at a Manoa mosque not far from the rented house led the Muslim association to ask him not to return, according to association chairman Hakim Ouansafi (the key figure behind the Islam Day scam).
“Our teachings are very clear about peace, love and compassion,” Ouansafi said (blablabla). “So when we hear something like that we get uncomfortable. We don't tolerate it. We don't allow it in our community.” (especially since the FBI was already all over this guy and helping him is a one-way ticket to the federal pen)
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Aiona, Finnegan make final pitch to E. Hawaii
Chris and Kendra Ignacio, co-owners of the diner, presented Aiona and Finnegan with two shirts to commemorate their visit.
"Down to earth, just overall nice guy," Chris Ignacio said as Aiona was leaving.
"I think he's going to be very good for our island," said Gail Elizares of Laupahoehoe. "We cannot spend more than we earn."
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Political radar: Rundown on competitive Senate and House races
Here is our final rundown of potentially competitive state House and Senate races for the November general election. We have updated with the latest campaign-finance figures and assessments from party insiders. We also put state House District 7 on the Big Island into play.
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The Election Is a Third Over
The absentee turnout for Tuesday's election is an early indicator that the state is on track for a year much like 2006, but far short of the record set in 2008.
| County |
Mail-in |
Walk-in |
Total |
Mailed Out |
Pct Returned |
| Honolulu |
68,000 |
15,476 |
83,476 |
104,781 |
64.9% |
| Hawaii |
6,921 |
7,464 |
14,385 |
10,909 |
63.4% |
| Maui |
7,299 |
2,416 |
9,715 |
11,438 |
63.8% |
| Kauai |
6,216 |
1,848 |
8,064 |
8,644 |
71.9% |
| Total |
88,436 |
27,204 |
115,640 |
135,772 |
65.1% |
Source: Hawaii Office of Elections and county elections officials
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“Progressive” Ian Lind votes against Appointed BoE
ILind: In response to a question about the need for a DOE audit, (Mr) Kim Coco Iwamoto (speaking against a comprehensive audit) pointed out that the auditor’s office already lists more than 60 DOE audits.
Fascinating. What did we learn from these partial audits?
And what have we learned from this column? The “progressives” Lind and Iwamoto are slaves to the HSTA.
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Former School Administrative Services Assistant Charged with Felony Theft and Forgery
The Department of the Attorney General filed a complaint alleging that between August 27, 2004, to and including September 6, 2008, Echiberi stole school funds and forged documents approving the use of school funds while employed by Lehua Elementary School.
See? This is why we must not have an audit. If we started digging around in the DoE budget, we would catch all kinds of thieves stealing from the children. And that would be very bad for the thieves. Thieves have rights, you know.
Hawaii DoE: Cost of waste, fraud, and corruption between $191M and $431M per year
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Evans, Henderson vie for District 7 seat
The Republican candidate is critical of measures Evans has supported in the Legislature.
"She votes for every tax hike that comes down the way," Henderson said, pointing specifically to an increase in the state barrel tax. "It's going to touch everything in our economy multiple times."
Henderson favors medical tort reform, term limits and increasing the use of geothermal energy on the Big Island.
"We're going to have to basically wrestle control of our public utilities from Hawaiian Electric," he said.
He also supports decentralizing the Department of Education, and equal funding for charter schools.
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City Council Candidate Rich Turbin Receives Djou, Hirono Endorsements
EAST OAHU – Rich Turbin, Candidate for Honolulu City Council District 4, has received the support from both of Hawaii’s Congressional Representatives in the non-partisan race to represent East Oahu. Republican Congressman Charles Djou, who previously held the City Council seat, and Democratic Congresswoman Mazie Hirono say that Turbin is the best choice to represent the district spanning from Ala Moana to Hawaii Kai.
RELATED: Turbin Campaign Receives Threatening Text Message from Stanley Chang Campaign
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Proposed expansion of whale sanctuary draws controversy
a management-plan review is proposing the inclusion of additional species in the sanctuary, which is drawing ire and frustration from many local residents.
“From day one they’ve been trying to kill our people with laws,” Anahola resident Kawika Kutcher said. “I’m not against protecting things, but I’m against protecting things over human life.”
Kutcher, a Native Hawaiian, said he spoke on behalf of his 5,000 relatives spread over Hawai‘i.
“We do not want any more laws,” he said. “We want to be able to live our culture the way we decide, not some government that doesn’t represent us.”
Kutcher, along with roughly 200 people that packed Wednesday the KCC Learning Resource Center (library), watched for nearly an hour seven panelists respond to a simple question: Should we have a humpback whale sanctuary on Kaua‘i?
RELATED: Humpbacks recover, but Hawaii still losing sovereignty over State waters
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Judge upholds part of laws on political action committees and ads
A federal judge who lifted the $1,000 limit on contributions to political action committees rejected other challenges yesterday to the state's campaign finance laws.
U.S. District Judge Michael Seabright upheld the state law requiring noncandidate political action committees to make certain disclosures, including names of contributors.
He also upheld the law requiring the committees to include disclaimers in advertisements.
Seabright refused to grant the request by challengers Jimmy Yamada of A-1 A-Lectrician Inc., A-1 A-Lectrician and Russell Stewart to issue an injunction prohibiting the state from enforcing those laws.
Seabright set aside the $1,000 limit on contributions earlier this month after the challengers cited the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United case earlier this year that invalidated limits on corporate independent campaign spending.
RELATED: Pay to Play: Hawaii faces constitutional challenge
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Karr re-elected as UH Board of Regents chairman
(Inouye operative #1) Karr is a retired First Hawaiian Bank executive. Born in Honolulu, he graduated from Roosevelt High School and earned a bachelor of business administration from the University of Hawaii with a major in accounting.
(Inouye operative #2) Hirota is president of the civil engineering and surveying consulting company Sam Hirota Inc. The Punahou School graduate holds a doctorate in civil and sanitary engineering from the University of Michigan.
REALITY: Greenwood Mafia grabs two power positions in UH system
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Obama returning to Honolulu for third straight Christmas
President Barack Obama will be returning to Honolulu, where he was born, for the third straight Christmas, three sources told the Star-Advertiser today.
No immediate details were available, but the last two years, the president has spent at a vacation home in Kailua.
RELATED: Hanauma Dec 29: Did Mufi threaten retaliation against Obama?
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Southwest Airlines CEO mentions possible Hawaii route
Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly briefly mentioned the possibility of the airline flying to Hawaii in the future during the company’s annual Media Day this week.
Airwise: Southwest Aims To Expand Internationally
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New feed-in tariff has critics even before it begins
But critics have complained that the FIT program passed earlier this month by state regulators after two years of debate, and expected to be deployed in November, will have a meager effect on the solar industry, which is expected to benefit the most.
“I don’t see the feed-in-tariff as being anything more than just mollifying everyone on the feed-in-tariff idea,” said Jim Whitcomb, owner of Haleakala Solar on Maui.
“It doesn’t do anything to alleviate the number-one concern, which is grid access,” said Marco Mangelsdorf, president of ProVision Solar on the Big Island. “Hawaiian Electric has working groups and is studying it, but the feed-in-tariff document doesn’t adequately address the need or urgency of getting going on cracking the grid-access conundrum.”
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Hawaiian Electric Co. will begin high-tech grid upgrades with higher rates
With recent approval from the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, HECO will use a $5.3 million stimulus grant to install computer-controlled sensors and switches that automatically isolate outages and reroute power to affected customers. The upgrades could reduce outage times.
The total cost of the project is $15.4 million, $10.1 million of which will be passed on to customers (in the form of higher rates).
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MAUI NEWS:
Council Incumbent challenged by budget hawk
Election 2010: Retired teacher, businesswoman vie for BOE seat
SA: First-time candidates seek Oahu and Maui board seats
SA: Djou, Hanabusa invest shoe leather