Veterans Affairs audit exposes Hawaii’s ‘infuritating’ wait list
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU — Veterans seeking care at the VA Medical Center here in Hawaii wait an average of 145 days. Maybe more striking, some 64,000 veterans enrolled in the system for at least...
View ArticleObama administration hearings in Hawaii incite racial disputes
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU – A proposal by the Obama administration to create a new relationship with ethnic Hawaiians backfired on the administration Monday as native Hawaiians rallied in force...
View ArticleExperts fear Hawaii’s new voter registration law heightens fraud risk
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU — Hawaii has the lowest voter turnout in the nation, with just 44 percent of eligible Hawaii voters taking part in the 2012 election. Lawmakers hope a new law signed by...
View ArticleUnfunded liabilities leave HI taxpayers ‘drowning in debt,’ fiscal watchdog says
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU — Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s administration is touting fiscal prudence, announcing the state deposited $100 million to the Hawaii Employer-Union Health Benefits Trust Fund in...
View ArticleRise in human trafficking impacts Hawaii
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU — Americans celebrated independence, liberty and freedom on Fourth of July, but a new report from the U.S. State Department shows there are plenty of people in this...
View ArticleAloha! Hawaii legislator wants taxpayers to fund airline tickets for homeless
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU – Homeless from Hawaii, Micronesia, American Samoa, Thailand and the U.S. mainland are finding nooks in parks, on beaches, aside drainage ditches, in front of small...
View ArticleHawaii’s highest-in-the-nation energy costs stay intact by politics, monopoly
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU — If residents of Hawaii are going to have affordable electricity, the state needs to break up Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc., the parent of the Hawaiian Electric Co.,...
View ArticleQuarter of Hawaii’s population now on Medicaid
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU — New statistics released by the state Department of Human Services show about a quarter of Hawaii’s population relies on Medicaid. Of Hawaii’s 1.3 million people, some...
View ArticleHawaii’s dominant shipping carrier to pay $9 million to settle federal...
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU — Matson Navigation Co. Inc., Hawaii’s largest cargo container shipping company, will pay $9.95 million as part of a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of...
View ArticleAbsentee ballot fraud incident has Kauai police, elections officials on alert
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – KAUAI — Kauai resident Brent Woods ordered an absentee ballot for Hawaii’s Aug. 9 primary election, but never received the ballot. So when he got a call from the Kauai County...
View ArticleFeds fly immigrant minors to Hawaii on taxpayer dime
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU — Although 2,500 miles from the continental United States, Hawaii has joined the list of states temporarily housing unaccompanied minors from Central America who have...
View ArticleHas Hawaii’s governor lost his mojo?
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU — Just months after becoming governor in 2010, Neil Abercrombie was ranked by Public Policy Polling as the nation’s most unpopular governor. In the past three years, his...
View ArticleIs Abercrombie using human misery to gain political favor?
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – When Superstorm Sandy slammed into the East Coast just says before the 2012 Presidential election, President Barack Obama, was a major part of the news cycle and it was much more...
View ArticleAlleged Honolulu Teen Bank Robbers Picture Themselves with Cash on Facebook
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU – Probably the first rule of committing armed robbery, don’t post yourself with the cash you stole on your social media account. But that’s exactly what Marcus Kalani...
View ArticleHawaii’s remote Puna area will play big role in picking next U.S. senator
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU — Puna, a district on the island Big Island of Hawaii, is described by the Lonely Planet travel blog as “a new, eclectic population of mainland retirees, nouveau hippies,...
View ArticleFirst of trio of credit union thieves sentenced in Honolulu U.S. District Court
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU – The financial safeguards at the OTS Employees Federal Credit Union were so weak, three of its four employees, including the chief executive officer, were stealing from...
View ArticleMolokai ex con who used investors’ money for virtual games, girls, sentenced...
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU – David “Kawika” Buchanan lived a life of fantasy. That is until his virtual house of cards came crashing down in U.S. District Court Monday, Aug. 25, when he was...
View Article9-11 Victims, We Must Never Forget, Including Those With Hawaii Ties
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – September 11, 2014 marks the 13th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and the sacrifice and bravery of those aboard United Airlines Flight...
View ArticleFormer Portlock madam wants drug charges against her dismissed
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU – The attorney for 33-year-old Malia Arciero, a madam who operated her business out of the elite Oahu neighborhood Portlock for about a decade, has filed a motion to drug...
View ArticleFired chief procurement officer blows whistle on Hawaii DOE procurement troubles
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN – HONOLULU— The former chief procurement officer for the Hawaii Department of Education has filed a whistleblower lawsuit in Oahu’s 1st Circuit Court. Andrell Aoki is an experienced...
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