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USA Today
2 days ago
- USA Today
Locals on Hawaiian island ‘agog' as Trump Jr. rolls in for deer hunt
Locals on Hawaiian island 'agog' as Trump Jr. rolls in for deer hunt The Honolulu Civil Beat reports that Donald Trump Jr. was on Lanai over the weekend for some deer hunting, and that folks at the laid-back Blue Ginger Cafe 'were agog when a small fleet of black SUVs and a large presence of security guards showed up.' The island of Lanai boasts the planet's highest density of free-ranging Axis deer. Regulated hunting is allowed as a means of managing deer numbers. Trump Jr. is the celebrity host of a Lanai hunt sold at auction by the Dallas Safari Club, but precise dates of the hunt were not made public. (The image showing Trump Jr. dressed in camouflage was used to promote the auction.) ALSO: Father, son land enormous black marlin after marathon battle The hunt, according to the Honolulu Civil Beat, was organized by Pineapple Brothers, a Lanai outfitter run by a former Navy SEAL member and a retired FBI agent. From the Pineapple Brothers website: 'Hunters can expect to see hundreds of deer daily, and will spot and stalk either in a large, flat plain known locally as 'the Serengeti,' or in steep, mountainous regions.' It was not clear who paid thousands to hunt on Lanai with the president's eldest son, who is an avid big-game hunter.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Yahoo
Lawmakers move forward on unprecedented measure that will impact anyone visiting Hawaiʻi: 'No other state has done something of this magnitude'
The Hawaiʻi state legislature has approved a landmark bill to help the state protect itself from the changing climate and protect its uniquely beautiful landscape and wildlife. According to Honolulu Civil Beat, the Hawaiʻi legislature passed a long-discussed visitor "green fee" to help pay for conservation efforts in the state and protect its environment. Under the new bill, visitors to the islands will pay a 0.75% tax on their hotel and short-term rental stays, and cruise ships that dock in Hawaiʻi will apply the same tax to their travelers as well. The governor's office estimates that the law will bring in over $100 million in revenue to the state, which will be put toward environmental projects across Hawaiʻi, conservation efforts, and initiatives to help make the state's infrastructure more resilient to rising global temperatures. "When we started this, it was a wild moonshot of an idea. No one ever thought this was possible," Jack Kittinger, a leader of the Care for 'íina Now coalition, the environmental group that has spent the last seven years trying to get the bill passed, told Honolulu Civil Beat. It will also create a fund to help offset the cost of future natural disasters. Hawaiʻi is particularly vulnerable to the current climate crisis. As an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it is more susceptible to the stronger storms and weather patterns that come from our planet's warming. What's more, providing aid during and after disasters can be challenging due to the island's remote location. Furthermore, because Hawaiʻi has such a unique, fragile ecosystem, it can be tough to adapt to shifts in weather patterns and climate. As a result, as the climate changes, the flora and fauna that make the islands so beautiful are more vulnerable. The bill did have opposition from the state's tourism lobby, which claimed the uptick in fees could see tourists choose to go to other, more affordable destinations. However, surveys of Hawaiian residents showed overwhelming support for the bill, and Gov. Josh Green is expected to sign it into law when it reaches his desk. Should the government be allowed to control how restaurants run their business? Never Only in some cases Only for chain restaurants Yes in all cases Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. "It's a historic piece of legislation," Green said Friday, per Honolulu Civil Beat. "No other state has done something of this magnitude to have an impact fee that goes directly to deal with climate change." Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Progress Report: Hawaiʻi's Working Families Need More Support
This article was originally published in Honolulu Civil Beat. Sarah Osofsky returned to school last year to earn her master's degree in social work, hoping to give back to her community and find a job that would pay enough to survive Hawaiʻi's high cost of living. Now, less than two weeks away from graduation, the mother of two is struggling to find a position that can sustain her family. Most social work jobs she's seen in recent months offer salaries of $60,000 or less — enough to disqualify her from safety net programs like food stamps, but not enough to comfortably provide for her kids. She's considered moving back to California where she has family who could support her, but she wants to stay in Hawaiʻi so her children can be near their dad. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter 'What I'm balancing right now is, do I take a low, low paying job that then I'll qualify for services like food stamps and Medicaid,' Osofsky said, 'or do I hold out and try to find those few and far between really good jobs that will make enough so I don't qualify but I don't need it.' Osofsky's struggle is a familiar one for working families in Hawaiʻi. In 2024, nearly 30% of Hawaiʻi households were living paycheck-to-paycheck and struggling to afford basic necessities like housing, child care and food, according to an annual count of the state's ALICE families — an acronym for people who are asset limited, income constrained, and employed. Like Osofsky, roughly 40% of these families considered leaving the state over the past year, according to a study from Aloha United Way. While some reports indicate that more locals have been returning to Hawaiʻi in the last few years, the state's high cost of living continues to drive some families away, straining the public education system and economy. Earlier this year, the Department of Education said its kindergarten enrollment dropped from 13,000 in 2019 to nearly 10,800 this year, citing estimates that 20% of people leaving Hawaiʻi are school-aged kids. The department is now starting the process of consolidating small schools, although it hasn't yet identified which campuses are at risk of closure. A few years ago, state lawmakers grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic proposed a bold slate of reforms to improve the plight of working families: free school meals for all, universal access to preschool and paid family leave. But the state's big plans for progress have resulted in incremental steps, and some families and advocates say change isn't happening quickly enough. Lawmakers this session created a working group to study paid family leave but failed to turn the yearslong proposal into law. The state expanded eligibility for preschool tuition subsidies and funded preschool construction but failed to address the ongoing shortage of early learning educators. And Senate Bill 1300 — considered one of the biggest wins for students this year — expanded access to free school meals but stopped short of providing them for all kids. At the same time, uncertainty looms around the future of programs that rely on federal dollars to support working families, including school meals and early learning centers. Amid the upheaval, state lawmakers were hesitant to pass big spending measures this year, opting instead to set aside $200 million to help Hawaiʻi prepare for federal funding cuts. But some advocates say now is exactly the time for the state to make a bigger investment in families. 'The state Legislature, and frankly, the counties, should be thinking, 'Bad stuff is coming,'' said Deborah Zysman, executive director of Hawaiʻi Children's Action Network. 'We don't quite know what yet, but we should be thinking about how to take care of our own people.' During the Covid-19 pandemic, Osofsky worried about the social development of her son, who was just turning 2 when lockdown restrictions began. But when he began attending the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa Children's Center later that year, Osofsky said, he received services for his speech delay and became comfortable making friends and recognizing letters. But paying for preschool was a challenge, Osofsky said. The Preschool Open Doors program provides a state subsidy to help cover tuition, but her son was ineligible when he started because the program only covered 4-year-olds at the time. The program expanded to include 3-year-olds last year. Hawaiʻi has pledged to offer preschool to all 3- and 4-year-olds by 2032. The Ready Keiki initiative, led by Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, currently estimates the state needs to add more than 330 classrooms in the next seven years to provide preschool to an additional 6,700 children. While lawmakers successfully expanded access to tuition subsidies and funded more preschool construction this year, progress toward the state's ambitious goal has slowed on other fronts. One successful bill this session expands eligibility for preschool subsidies by including 2-year-olds and repealing the requirement that families must use the subsidy at a nationally accredited provider, which has created financial and administrative barriers for smaller programs in the past, Zysman said. But the Department of Human Services is on track to spend only $20 million of its $50 million budget for preschool subsidies this year, said Scott Morishige, administrator of the department's Benefit, Employment and Support Services Division. To ramp up its spending, DHS is considering expanding the income eligibility to 500% of the federal poverty line. If DHS adopts the rules this summer, Morishige said, a family of four could make up to $184,000 annually and still be eligible for assistance, compared to the past income limit of $110,000. The state budget sets aside $20 million to build more public preschool classrooms over the next three years. The state plans on opening 25 public preschool classrooms this fall and an additional 25 classrooms the following year, far less than previous estimates that Hawaiʻi could build 40-50 classrooms annually. While the state would like to take a more aggressive approach to opening public preschool classrooms moving forward, Luke said, the Ready Keiki initiative is also relying on private providers and charter schools to help expand access. The state is starting larger construction projects, like standalone preschool centers, that could add seats more rapidly as they open in the next few years. 'There is an urgency for us to open as many preschool seats as we can,' she said. But families' demand for preschool could grow beyond what the state has anticipated if the federal government stops funding its own child care programs. Head Start, which relies on federal funding and serves roughly 2,800 children and pregnant mothers, is currently Hawaiʻi's largest provider of early learning services, said Ryan Kusumoto, president and CEO of the nonprofit Parents And Children Together. The Trump administration has previously threatened to cut funding entirely for Head Start, although the most recent version of the federal budget keeps program funding intact. Some Hawaiʻi Head Start programs are still waiting to receive confirmation for next year's funding, and the recent closure of some regional offices could create backlogs in awarding this money, said Ben Naki, president of the Head Start Association of Hawaiʻi. 'There's no existing infrastructure that can pick up those 2,800 kids,' Kusumoto said. 'And we're talking about kids who don't have any other resources.' Since September, Christine Russo said paying for meals has become a greater challenge for her family as her twins joined her 10-year-old in attending school every day. She sets aside roughly $180 each month so her kids can purchase breakfast and lunch at school — a challenge for the public school teacher, whose husband is a retail store manager. Russo's kids don't qualify for free or reduced-price school meals, but she said her family could still benefit from the ongoing push to bring back a pandemic-era program that made meals free for all students. Lawmakers stopped short of funding a universal free meals program this year but took incremental steps by passing Senate Bill 1300. Starting next year, the state will provide free school meals to students who currently qualify for reduced-price lunch. The following year, eligibility for free school meals would be expanded to families making up to 300% of the federal poverty level, or roughly $110,000 for a family of four. The bill appropriates $565,000 to provide more free school meals next year and an additional $3.4 million for the program's expansion the following year. More than 68,000 students in the Department of Education qualified for free meals this year, and 10,000 qualified for reduced-price meals. The bill also requires schools feed students who don't have enough money to purchase lunch or already have meal debt. Students have accrued more than $105,000 in meal debt this school year, DOE communications director Nanea Ching said. At Castle High School, junior Tayli Kahoopii said she receives free meals, but some of her friends don't qualify. When someone doesn't have enough money in their account to purchase lunch, the register makes a buzzing sound — loud enough to embarrass students and, in one instance, deter Kahoopii's friend from trying to purchase meals for a week. 'On a daily basis, you see kids getting their food taken away, and there's really nothing that they can do about it,' Kahoopii said, adding that it's difficult for students to learn and focus when they don't have access to food during the school day. Rep. Scot Matayoshi, who has introduced bills for the past three years proposing free school meals, said SB1300 is an important step. But he still plans on advocating for universal free school meals in the coming years, especially since it would reduce the administrative barriers schools and families face in determining who qualifies for free meals. Daniela Spoto, director of food equity at Hawaiʻi Appleseed, said providing all students with free school meals could also become more important with federal funding on the line. Proposed federal cuts to a program allowing schools in low-income areas to provide free meals to all children could impact 52 schools and more than 27,000 kids in Hawaiʻi, according to estimates from the Food Research and Action Center. 'It should be a staple for our schools to have free school lunch,' said Castle junior Haliʻa Tom-Jardine, who will begin qualifying for free school meals next year. 'It should be a right.' During the pandemic, people saw lawmakers step up and meet the needs of working families through federal initiatives like the child tax credit and free school meals, said Kayla Keehu-Alexander, vice president of community impact at Aloha United Way. Now, she said, state lawmakers need to do the same during times of uncertainty. 'If we don't start making some big policy changes around the cost of living, around housing, we could potentially be looking at a larger out-migration than we've had in the past,' she said. Hawaiʻi is already starting to see the possible impacts of out-migration on its schools and economy. While some people are coming back to Hawaiʻi to raise families, Keehu-Alexander said, it's unclear if they're joining the workforce in areas with the worst staffing shortages, like education or healthcare. Looking ahead to next year, Zysman said she would like to see a successful bill establishing paid family leave in Hawaiʻi, which would provide caregivers paid time off to care for their loved ones. Lawmakers have failed to pass a bill for several years, although they did approve a resolution last month establishing a working group that will study how to implement paid family leave over the next year. Zysman added that she's concerned about the long-term impacts of the historic tax cut lawmakers passed last year. While she supports cuts that can make it more affordable for people to stay in Hawaiʻi, she said, she's worried that tax breaks for the wealthiest will make it harder for the state to fund programs that can keep working families afloat. 'In my gut, I feel like bad things are coming,' Zysman said, 'and we should have acted more preemptively.' This story was originally published on Honolulu Civil Beat. Civil Beat's education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hawaiʻi Is Failing Special Education Students. Federal Cuts Could Make It Worse
This article was originally published in Honolulu Civil Beat. Mai Hall expected that her oldest child would automatically receive special education services for her autism, dyslexia and ADHD when she enrolled in a Kaimukī elementary school 10 years ago. But the school said Hall's daughter didn't need any additional support, insisting that she earned good grades and got along with her friends. It was only after Hall received training from a federally funded parent information center that she was able to successfully advocate for her daughter — and later, her son — to get the support services they needed. Parents of students with disabilities have long struggled to ensure their kids have the resources and support they need in public schools in Hawaiʻi, which ranks among the worst states in the nation when it comes to academic outcomes for special education students. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Today, Hall's daughter is attending college and her son is receiving the accommodations he needs to feel supported and happy at school. But Hall and other families are worried that potential cuts to federal funding and efforts to shutter the U.S. Department of Education will result in fewer services and learning opportunities for special education students. 'We really don't need to worry about our children's education any more than we already are,' Hall said. Education advocates and families say federal funding and regulation have played a key role in strengthening protections for special education students in Hawaiʻi, but it's unclear what oversight will look like moving forward. President Donald Trump cut the U.S. DOE's staff by nearly half last month, resulting in the closure of seven civil rights offices dedicated to processing student discrimination claims, including those related to disabilities. A recent executive order from the administration also aims to dismantle the U.S. DOE, and the administration has proposed shifting special education programs to the Department of Health and Human Services. But the health department doesn't have the staff or expertise to hold states accountable for following federal special education laws, said Meghan Burke, a professor at Vanderbilt University. A reduction in federal oversight may make it harder for Hawaiʻi families to receive support and resources for their children, said attorney Keith Peck, who leads the Advocacy Project providing legal representation to families seeking special education services. Federal funding is currently tied to Hawaiʻi's compliance with special education laws, Peck said, but he's worried the new administration may provide states with more flexibility and less accountability on how the money can be spent. 'If the funding is no longer linked to allowing the parents to assert their rights and dispute against the Department of Education, if the (Hawaiʻi) DOE no longer has to comply with those protections, then nobody will have any protections,' Peck said. Hawaiʻi's education department enrolls over 18,000 special education students and receives $50 million from the federal government each year to educate those children. To access the money, Hawaiʻi must submit annual data reports and comply with federal laws requiring schools provide special education students with necessary services, from physical therapy to one-on-one aids. Teachers, families and educational specialists work together to determine the specific services students with disabilities should receive in schools. But Hawaiʻi has fallen short of meeting federal benchmarks for the quality of special education services for the last decade, according to annual evaluations from the U.S. DOE. Hawaiʻi's special education students rank among the lowest in the nation in reading and math proficiency and learn in traditional classroom settings at lower rates than their peers on the mainland. Researchers and families say including students with disabilities in general education classrooms provides them with important opportunities to interact with their peers and raise their academic achievement. Leah Yim said she's lost count of the hundreds of meetings she's attended over the years to advocate for her two children with special needs. Yim's 6-year-old daughter currently receives speech therapy for her autism spectrum disorder, while her 15-year-old son has a nurse and aid accompanying him in class. He also receives services like physical and occupational therapy as part of his treatment after having a stroke in utero. Yim said she hasn't heard of any changes to her children's services so far, but worries that federal funding cuts could reduce the number of educators and specialists in schools, which already face a shortage of special education teachers. 'My worry would just be the amount of caseloads that they're carrying, and then how that would affect their quality of services one-on-one with our child,' said Yim, whose family also filed a lawsuit against the state education department in 2023 accusing a teacher at Kaiser High School of sexually abusing their son. While the U.S. DOE plays a key role in protecting the rights of special education students, the agency has limited enforcement powers. In the most extreme cases, the U.S. DOE can take away special education funding if states aren't complying with federal law, said Nathan Stevenson, an associate professor at Kent State University. In most cases, he said, the federal government steps in with grants or training to support states in areas where they're struggling. In Hawaiʻi, the federal government has provided a variety of aid, such as training sessions teaching staff how to resolve disputes with parents over special education services and collaborations with national centers to expand access to preschool for students with disabilities, said department spokesperson Krislyn Yano. The department declined an interview for this story. The U.S. DOE also has a regulatory branch, the Office of Civil Rights, dedicated to processing complaints from students who file claims of discrimination based on gender, race, age or disability against their schools. As of January 2025, Hawaiʻi had 32 pending cases in both public schools and universities, 17 of which had to do with students' disabilities. JD Hsin, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama, said recent staffing cuts to OCR and the closure of seven regional offices will make it much harder for the remaining employees to handle families' complaints and ensure states are providing special education students with the services they need. As of January 2025, OCR had over 12,000 pending cases that could take years to close and required in-depth investigations involving families, schools and federal attorneys. Now, with fewer staff on board, Hsin said, he's worried that many cases will be left unresolved, leaving families with no answers about the support their children should receive in school. 'Those are kids' lives,' Hsin said. 'These are just kids who want an education.' At the Hawaiʻi Disability Rights Center, Executive Director Louis Erteschik said he's most concerned about what accountability will remain if the U.S. DOE is dismantled and special education is moved to the Department of Health and Human Services. Already, he said, many students with disabilities aren't receiving the education they deserve under law. In 2019, Erteschik filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights arguing that students with disabilities weren't receiving adequate services because they were suspended at three times the rate of the rest of their peers. While Trump has proposed shifting special education oversight from the U.S. DOE to the Department of Health and Human Services, the move would require an act of Congress, said Jennifer Coco, interim executive director at The Center for Learner Equity. But there are ongoing worries that the federal government could reduce funding for students with disabilities, she said, adding that the U.S. DOE is already underfunding special education in schools and has consistently fallen short of its promise of covering 40% of the costs of providing services. Currently, the funding Hawaiʻi receives from the U.S. DOE makes up roughly 10% of what the state spends on special education. U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda said the state would have to fill in the funding gaps if the federal government reduces its support for special education. But, she said, the uncertainty around the future of federal funding makes it hard for state lawmakers to plan on how they'll meet special education students' needs. 'I have great fears that we will go backwards in terms of actually providing the appropriate and adequate education to our special needs students,' Tokuda said. Federal funding for Hawaiʻi schools should remain roughly the same from this year to next year, according to a presentation Superintendent Keith Hayashi is slated to give to the Board of Education on Thursday. Peck at the Advocacy Project said he's most concerned that the federal government won't enforce the mandates that have historically accompanied its special education funding to states. With the administration's efforts to dismantle the U.S. DOE, the federal government will lack the staff and expertise needed to oversee states' compliance with special education law, he said. Hawaiʻi has a state equivalent of the federal special education law that also requires schools to meet the needs of students with disabilities, providing families with an extra layer of protection if the federal government stops enforcing its laws. But the state still needs an external source of enforcement to keep schools accountable, Peck said. It's unlikely the Hawaiʻi education department will take on the added responsibility of strengthening oversight over its schools, Erteschik said, adding that states don't have the same familiarity with special education law and requirements compared to the federal level. 'The state can't oversee itself by definition,' he said. This story was originally posted on Honolulu Civil Beat.
The Guardian
20-03-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Hawaii observatory to be evicted amid federal cuts as volcano shoots 700ft lava
As Hawaii's most active volcano shot out fountains of lava on Thursday, some of them reaching as high as 700ft, scientists from the US Geological Survey have been posting regular updates on the scale and pace of the eruptions. But those same scientists, along with their volcano-monitoring equipment, may soon be evicted from their office because of Elon Musk's federal government cost-cutting, the Honolulu Civil Beat reported. The Geological Survey office in Hilo, Hawaii, has appeared on an internal list of federal offices whose leases are due to be cancelled on 30 September, as part of an effort by Musk's so-called 'department of government efficiency' to terminate leases for hundreds of federal offices this year, the Associated Press reported. 'It remains unclear exactly how that lease cancellation will affect the observatory's research and public services,' the Honolulu Civil Beat reported. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and the US Geological Survey did not immediately respond to requests for comment. For the past hundred years, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory has been tasked with monitoring the islands' geologic activity, for the purposes of both scientific research and public safety warnings. Today, according to the observatory's website, a team of more than 30 people monitors data collected 24 hours a day in order to provide local residents updates on what's currently happening, and what might be coming next. As Kilauea began continuously releasing lava from its summit caldera inside Hawaii Volcanoes national park on Wednesday morning after a weeklong pause, the observatory's scientists posted frequent updates, noting health hazards and that the molten rock was contained within the park and wasn't threatening residential areas. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory is one of five volcano observatories run by the US Geological Survey across the western US. The American Institute of Physicists, a non-profit that advocates for science and scientists, posted on its website that 'one of the sites of the Alaska Volcano Observatory, which houses equipment to monitor possible eruptions', was also slated for possible closure. The Associated Press contributed reporting
