September 9, 2026 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

Hawaii Daily News Read

Wednesday, September 9, 2026

September 9, 2026 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 8:38 AM :: 81 Views

Hawaii County Public Hearings Scheduled for Proposed Solid Waste Fee Increase

Restraining Orders: Hawaii to copy Washington State method designed to get more guns from legal owners, but none from criminals

CB: … Under Hawaiʻi law, the targets of temporary restraining orders and domestic abuse protection orders must relinquish firearms to police when they are served. Officers can confiscate firearms and ammunition in plain view when serving the orders, but they cannot search a property without consent. If the person being served a restraining order has registered firearms that they have not handed over, police can apply for a search warrant to try to find them, but if someone has hidden, unregistered firearms, there isn’t much police can do.

The Washington unit is focused on getting hidden firearms out of abusers’ hands by investgating all restraining order and protection order cases where victims say firearms are present.

The advocates dig into each case and review documents including victim testimony, bills of sale, pawn shop records, police reports from various jurisdictions and other court records that may contain evidence of the abuser’s firearm ownership and submit them to the court.

“When the court is reviewing each of these cases for compliance, they can say, ‘Hey, it looks like you purchased a pistol in 2022,” Shanahan said. “‘Tell me what happened to that firearm.’”

If an accused party claims the gun was lost, stolen or sold, the judge will follow up and ask for corroborating evidence such as a receipt of sale or police report documenting it was stolen.

Theresa Cachuela’s estranged husband used a ghost gun to kill her in 2023, despite the fact that he was prohibited from owning firearms. Police had previously confiscated five guns registered in his name. (Honolulu Police Department)

Ultimately, the firearms enforcement unit faces the same limitations cops have always faced in these cases. If the firearm isn’t in plain sight of a police officer, they can’t go rummaging through people’s closets to look for it, Shanahan said.

(TRANSLATION: This is still a system to take guns from LEGAL owners. It does NOTHING about criminals with guns.)

Despite the limitations, King County officials say having a unit focused on firearms has created a culture of compliance. For people served a restraining order, just knowing that someone is looking into their firearms history can be enough to make them turn over a weapon that may have otherwise been left sitting in a drawer.

A University of Washington study on the firearms enforcement unit found that the number of firearms relinquished in domestic abuse protection order cases dramatically increased after the creation of the unit….

Domestic violence advocates and law enforcement officials from across the state have been studying the shortfalls of Hawaiʻi’s temporary restraining order and domestic abuse protection order laws as part of a working group formed in 2025. They are also seeking input from survivors of domestic violence through an anonymous survey that will be open through Oct. 1.

“The more input that we can get, I think the more robust understanding of the experience will be,” said Llasmin Chaine, (who replaced Mrs Kaniela Ing as) executive director of the (useless) Hawaiʻi State Commission on the Status of Women, who is part of the working group. “And those lived experiences will help inform the changes that get pursued.”

(TRANSLATION: On Opening Day of the Legislature, we will put on a ‘feminist’ agit-prop show for the Washington plan.)

IDEA: All convicted felons subject to a TRO should therefore have their premises searched for guns. They should be arrested and charged for every gun found. 2A rights are for law-abiding citizens only.

June 22, 2026: KPD: Kauai Killer Kept 20 Guns Under multiple TROs because Police only take Legally Registered Guns

read … Restraining Orders Can Fail Abuse Victims. These States Have Ideas - Honolulu Civil Beat

The Hidden Logic of the Hu Honua–Hawaiian Electric Standoff

IM: … For nearly a decade, Hu Honua Bioenergy’s biomass plant in Pepeʻekeo has sat essentially complete and idle, while a legal fight with Hawaiian Electric grinds on without resolution. On paper this looks like dysfunction — two sophisticated parties failing, again and again, to just finish it. Life of the Land attended a few of the occasional court hearings. A close read of the court record suggests something less like failure and more like a mutually convenient arrangement. Neither company appears to want a final verdict. Both benefit from an ongoing, unresolved dispute….

Both courts have effectively been told: don’t decide anything yet, we might settle. And "might settle" has now stretched across more than a year without either a signed PPA or a trial date….

A live, unresolved lawsuit is worth more to Hu Honua than a dead one, for a specific set of reasons:

A judgment against them is expensive, not just embarrassing. Hawaii’s fee-shifting statute for contract disputes, HRS § 607-14, requires the losing party in an assumpsit action to pay the prevailing party’s attorney’s fees, capped at 25% of the judgment or the amount sued for. If Hu Honua loses on the merits, it does not just fail to collect — it likely owes Hawaiian Electric a share of Hawaiian Electric’s own legal bill, on top of a decade of sunk construction and litigation costs on a plant that still is not generating revenue.

It would be easy to assume Hawaiian Electric, sitting on the stronger legal position, would want to finish Hu Honua off in court. The pattern of behavior says otherwise — the utility has repeatedly agreed to the delays rather than opposing them….

Litigation is expensive and exposes the company to discovery it would rather avoid. Forcing the case to trial means depositions, document production, and executive testimony about a contract Hawaiian Electric itself terminated and then spent years disputing….

A new PPA, if it happens, would require its own PUC approval fight — and Hawaiian Electric knows it. Any resumed Hu Honua power contract would go back before the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, where the 2023 Hawaii Supreme Court ruling on lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions and public-interest review remains binding, and where Life of the Land would be positioned to intervene again. Settling the litigation is not the same as clearing the regulatory path, so there is no rush to trade a known, containable lawsuit for an uncertain new PUC proceeding….

read … The Hidden Logic of the Hu Honua–Hawaiian Electric Standoff | Ililani Media

NYT: The Long Road to Rebuilding Lahaina After the 2023 Wildfire

NYT: … Hawaii’s housing crisis was at a breaking point even before the fire ….

read … The Long Road to Rebuilding Lahaina After the 2023 Wildfire - The New York Times

Transsexual Propaganda Removed from Federal Department of Education Survey Results

CB: … The Trump administration this week quietly released an update to a major survey on civil rights in schools that was scrubbed of all data related to nonbinary students or bullying based on gender identity.

The numbers come from the Education Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection, a federal survey of nearly every public school in the nation. The release this week covers the 2023-2024 school year, when the survey included “nonbinary” as a gender category alongside male and female.

However, an Associated Press analysis shows that in every column for information related to gender identity, the numbers were replaced with a code indicating “Suppressed in Compliance with Executive Order.” That refers to an executive order that President Donald Trump signed on his inauguration day calling for the federal government to define sex as only male or female….

(TRANSLATION: When Trump is gone, the data will magically reappear.)

read … Gender-Based Bullying Data Removed From Federal Survey - Honolulu Civil Beat

Can Oʻahu Spend Millions On Pandas And Also Upgrade The Zoo?

CB: … Giant pandas could be a big draw for the Honolulu Zoo. But would they distract from the mission of protecting species endemic to Hawaiʻi? …

TRANSLATION: “Free Tibet”

read … Denby Fawcett: Can Oʻahu Spend Millions On Pandas And Also Upgrade The Zoo? - Honolulu Civil Beat

Let’s Copy some Mainland Hysteria: Hawaii County proposal to ban AI data centers deferred until October

SA: … County Planning Director Jeff Darrow supports Bill 170’s distinction between modern data centers and traditional data processing facilities but thinks complete exclusion of data centers might have the unintended affect of precluding appropriately scaled facilities….

(BETTER IDEA: Just dump this bill. Nobody is going to build an AI center on the Big Island. The electricity is too expensive and the trans-oceanic internet cables mostly land on Oahu, not on the Big Island. Just because there is a political hysteria on the Mainland doesn’t mean the local hysterics should lead us around by the nose to copy it. To preserve local political culture, they should be required to invent their own political hysterias from scratch. Write that up as a gut-and-replace amendment to Bill 170.)

read … Hawaii County proposal to ban AI data centers deferred until October | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Lift restrictions on wastewater financing

SA: … For Hawaii, the need for financing parity is especially significant. Hawaii American Water provides wastewater service exclusively, serving nearly 30,000 residents. As the state works to replace aging cesspools with modern wastewater infrastructure, access to low-cost financing can help protect water quality, preserve our unique natural environment and stretch infrastructure dollars further while keeping customer costs as affordable as possible….

read … Column: Lift restrictions on wastewater financing | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

QUICK HITS: