Census data confirms Hawaii population still in decline

Will the Supreme Court stop Hawaii’s stealth gun ban?

Legislature, Courts, Schools, UH to be Closed Monday Due to Severe Weather Warning

Bill 60: After Wasting $10B, Council Set to TRIPLE the Length of Rail

SA: … A Honolulu City Council measure, which calls for plans and feasibility studies toward construction of future city rail routes to the University of Hawaii at Manoa or to West Oahu locations near Ko Olina resort, is rolling toward its final approval.

(TRANSLATION: This would double the size of rail and double the size of fail.)

The Council’s Infrastructure, Transportation and Technology Committee voted Wednesday to pass an amended committee draft of Bill 60, for the full Council’s third and final reading of the measure.

The full Council is scheduled to next meet Feb. 18…

(TRANSLATION:  Knowing the failure, they are voting to double its length.)

Co-sponsored by Council members Tyler Dos Santos-Tam and Radiant Cordero, Bill 60, if adopted, would authorize the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation to conduct planning and preliminary engineering for the rail line to possibly branch for another 3.2 miles beyond its current terminus in Kakaako, to a spot near UH’s 2500 Campus Road address, as well as to possible locations in West Oahu.

Under Bill 60, that planning work includes an extension of the Skyline’s fixed guideway system that adheres to the “locally preferred alternative” or LPA — rail’s previously planned route that roughly ran between West Kapolei and UH, with an extension to Waikiki….

Council member Matt Weyer asked whether HART planned to build rail extensions to Central Oahu, including to Mililani or Wahiawa.

O’Keefe said HART is working with the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization, which coordinates transportation planning for the entire island of Oahu, “on looking at possible extensions westward.”

“The exact route and mode of that transportation option is what’s being studied, so that’s still being determined,” O’Keefe added.

As far as rail extensions to Central Oahu, O’Keefe said, “We’re working real closely with our sister agency, DTS at the city; they’re developing park-and-ride options up towards Mililani and Wahiawa.”

But O’Keefe said HART rail extensions to those spots are not “concrete in the plans yet.” …

Bill 60: Text, Status

read … HART rail planning to UH Manoa rolls toward approval | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

“RFK Jr is a liar. He lied to me about his anti-vax Samoa trip”

G: … Three members of Congress say the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lied during his Senate confirmation hearings in response to newly revealed emails that undermine his testimony that a trip he took to Samoa ahead of a deadly measles outbreak had “nothing to do with vaccines”.

The governor of Hawaii, a medical doctor who responded to the crisis, also spoke out – saying that the disclosure of the emails by the Guardian and the Associated Press show Kennedy misled the Senate and that he should step down.

Kennedy, a lawyer and longtime anti-vaccine activist before his appointment as health secretary, was asked about the trip several times during two days of confirmation hearings last year. He repeatedly denied that his reason for going there in June 2019 had anything to do with vaccines. But the records show staff at the US embassy and the United Nations wrote emails shortly before Kennedy’s visit saying he was visiting because of his concerns about vaccine safety.

Samoan officials later said Kennedy’s trip bolstered the credibility of anti-vaccine activists ahead of the measles outbreak that sickened thousands and killed 83 people, mostly children under age five.

The new reporting comes after a year in which Kennedy has used his power as health secretary to remake federal vaccine recommendations and policies to align with his anti-vaccine views and to sow doubts about vaccine safety. Meanwhile, measles has gained a foothold in communities around the United States.

“RFK Jr is a liar. He lied to me about his anti-vax Samoa trip,” Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts said in a social media post over the weekend. Markey was one of the senators who asked Kennedy about the visit during the hearings. “The CDC’s vaccine advisory panel is now stacked with conspiracists and the US is positioned to lose its measles elimination status. RFK Jr. must be removed now.”…

read … RFK Jr misled Senate during confirmation, Congress members and Hawaii governor say | Robert F Kennedy Jr | The Guardian

Hawaii County considers new tax tier for $4M+ homes

PBN: … The proposed tax tier would affect properties in exclusive communities like Kukio Golf and Beach Club and Kohanaiki, where some owners already pay several hundred thousands of dollars a year in property taxes….

read … Hawaii County considers new tax tier for $4M+ homes - Pacific Business News

Make Believe Clean Government Bills introduced (again)

SA: … More bills aimed at “clean government” have been introduced again this legislative session ahead of the November general elections that will determine the future of all 51 House seats and 13 of the 25 Senate seats amid an ongoing Attorney General’s investigation into the identity of a mystery legislator who allegedly accepted $35,000 “in funds.”

The Legislature has made little progress in passing significant ethical, fundraising or campaign election laws since the 2022 federal guilty pleas of former Senate majority leader J. Kalani English and Rep. Ty J.K. Cullen — the then- vice chair of the House Finance Committee — on bribery charges in the early weeks of the 2022 legislative session.

A new round of bribery allegations are focused around an unnamed ‘”influential state legislator,” as described by Attorney General Anne E. Lopez’ office last month….

SA: Editorial: Anti-nepotism bills lift up government | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

read … Tighter laws, tougher penalties sought by lawmakers | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Teacher Harassment Bills on the Move

SA: …  House Bill 1888 and Senate Bill 3179 hope to address those concerns and provide better protections for educational workers.

Teachers, lawmakers and union officials say incidents now range from late-night harassing messages and online targeting to in-person confrontations after school hours. They argue the trend underscores the need for clearer state Department of Education procedures and direct support for educators seeking legal protection. …

Milianta-Laffin said teachers are seeing more aggressive behavior from some parents and extended family members, including demands for grade changes, confrontations over online coursework platforms and repeated late-night emails. In some cases, she said, parents have approached teachers in parking lots after hours.

“We’ve kind of seen it all,” she said. “Stories of people coming up to your car at night — that’s just a very scary thing when you don’t know what’s going to be addressed.”

She added that the issue disproportionately affects women in education, which remains a female-dominated profession.

“There’s a thought that we can be intimidated into changing a grade or doing something differently because we’re women,” she said. …

read … Teacher harassment prompts push for protections | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

HB2198: Hawaii Just Took A Major Step Toward Banning Prediction Markets

GA: … Prediction markets just ran into a wall in Hawaii. A House committee moved House Bill 2198 forward after a hearing where critics framed these platforms as gambling dressed up as financial trading. If HB 2198 keeps moving, Hawaii could become the first state to push a straight-up prediction markets ban through the legislature.

The basic idea is simple: Hawaii already bans gambling, and lawmakers want the law to say, clearly, that buying and selling event contracts tied to real-world outcomes counts as gambling too. The bill targets contracts linked to sports, politics, disasters, and even death-related outcomes….

HB2198: Text, Status

IGT: Hawaii iGaming Market Research Report - iGamingToday.com - News, insights and Slots review

IO: Hawaii advances bill to ban broad variety of prediction markets - NEXT.io

read … Hawaii Just Took A Major Step Toward Banning Prediction Markets

Miske’s half-brother awaits court decision on long shot appeal

ILind: … John Blaine Stancil, the younger half-brother of the late Michael J. Miske, Jr., is being held at Terminal Island, a low security federal prison in downtown Los Angeles, while awaiting a decision from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on a long shot challenge to his 20-year sentence for racketeering conspiracy.

Stancil was sentenced a year ago, February 11, 2025, to the maximum prison term allowed by law for his role in Miske’s racketeering organization over a period from at last 2012 through mid-2018. He is currently scheduled to be released on June 10, 2037….

But Idaho-based attorney, W. Miles Pope, who took over the case after trial and sentencing, filed the appeal on Stancil’s behalf on December 24, 2025, hopes it will lead to resentencing that will prove to be a “get out of jail early” card that gets his client out several years early….

read … Miske’s half-brother awaits court decision on long shot appeal | i L i n d

Waiting for DPP: ‘Affordable’ Oʻahu Rentals Sit Empty For 10 Months

CB: … PenseMetro, at the corner of Pensacola Street and Lunalilo Street, was among the first to start construction under Honolulu’s Bill 7 program, which offers developers incentives to build a new generation of low-rise rental apartments. … Almost 10 months after the mayor’s speech, nobody has moved into the building as it awaits final permitting sign-off. Some nights, homeless people sleep in its ground-floor parking area….

the monthly rent for a studio at PenseMetro was projected to be around $1,400 as of late 2022, Huang told Hawaii News Now at the time. Now, taking into account inflation and construction challenges, the projected rent has gone up to $1,900….

(TRANSLATION: Affordable = $1900/mo for small unit next to freeway without parking.)

the reasons behind PenseMetro’s delays. 

It began with construction, which started in 2021 and took about four years to finish — much longer than the nine months it took to construct a similarly sized Bill 7 project around the corner on Ernest Street.

Today’s empty building is the culmination of many surprises, said Don Huang, who developed the project as principal of Collaborative Seven Companies in partnership with ADW Hawaii.

He mentioned a few examples: power lines had to be moved because they hung too close to the outside stairwell; a transformer for the building’s electricity took a long time to order; a smoke curtain for the elevator wasn’t put in and had to be ordered and installed before the elevator inspection, which in turn took a long time to schedule because of vacancies at the state’s Boiler and Elevator Inspection Branch.  …

PenseMetro awaits the final building inspections before receiving its certificate of occupancy, which Huang expects will come in the next week or two. He said residents should be able to move in very soon after that….

read … 'Incredibly Frustrating': Affordable Oʻahu Rentals Sit Empty For 10 Months - Honolulu Civil Beat

Kauai so expensive nobody is left to drive sanitation trucks

CB: … Residential trash on Kaua‘i is only picked up four days a week, but over the last nine months there’s been a nearly 1 in 5 chance on any given service day that at least one area of the island would experience a delay.  

Keola Aki, the county’s solid waste manager, said these delays have been unusually frequent and are largely due to a shortage of drivers as people retire or leave for other reasons. Staffing issues caused delays on 22 days. 

“We have people stepping up working long hours, but we only have so many staff that can cover the routes,” he said. …

(CLUE:  The people who might have filled these jobs have all left for the mainland.)

read … Trash Pickup: 1 In 5 Chance Yours Could Run Late On Kauaʻi - Honolulu Civil Beat

Honolulu 'Hell-Hole' Building Now Without Water

CB: … Emails between DPP director Dawn Takeuchi Apuna, Waters’ and one-time Union Mall Development owner Dr. Jasim Alidina show DPP and Union Mall Development in late 2025 were indeed coordinating a city inspection of the property. Apuna told Civil Beat the inspections took place in January and that the department is putting together formal notices of violations.

But Apuna said it’s an overstatement to say that DPP was working with Waters. In fact, she said the city has had difficulty finding Waters to serve numerous violation notices it previously issued. In addition, she said, as of Friday, Union Mall Development Group had requested no permits to do the work necessary to remedy past violations….

Waters’ defense of his record managing the building, which one former tenant has called a “hellhole,” comes as a Hawaiʻi circuit court judge considers a request by the building’s mortgage lender to appoint an independent third party. That entity would manage the property while Union Mall Development Group fights the lender’s attempts to foreclose on the property. 

According to court records, the development group bought 1136 Union Mall from Tomoya Tsuruhara in 2024. At the time, the group was owned by Waters and partner Scott Bingo, who paid $6.5 million, including a $1.2 million down payment. The rest of the money was covered by a loan from Tsuruhara secured by the building and guaranteed by Waters and Bingo.

In May, Tsuruhara sued to foreclose on the mortgage, alleging that nearly a year after taking out the loan Waters and Bingo hadn’t made a single payment. Waters and Bingo argued that Tsuruhara failed to disclose an underground encroachment from a neighboring property when he sold them the building. …

read … Honolulu 'Hell-Hole' Building Now Without Water - Honolulu Civil Beat

LEGISLATIVE AGENDA:

1. The right to die is spreading in America

2. How To Bet On Super Bowl 2026 In Hawaii | Hawaii Sports Betting Apps

3. Bills seek to rein in free-roaming cat population in Hawaii | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

4. Letter: Just kill bills that would allow killing of chickens | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

5. Will Bailey: What A Homelessness Count Can — And Can't — See In East Hawaiʻi - Honolulu Civil Beat

6. Recreational cannabis in Hawaii could be big business: government-commissioned report - Mugglehead Investment Magazine

7. Hawaii Lawmakers Approve Bill To Let Patients Use Medical Marijuana At Health Facilities - Marijuana Moment

QUICK HITS:

1. 40% of the 400,000 arrested by ICE in Trump's 1st year back in office had criminal records, document shows - CBS News “2% of those arrested by ICE over the past year had homicide or sexual assault charges or convictions. Another 2% of those taken into ICE custody were accused of being gang members.” = 8,000 murderers, rapists, gangsters

2. HPU says active shooter alert sent by mistake

3. Oahu records 6th traffic fatality of 2026

4. Hiker Finds Unexploded WW2-Era Bombs In Hawaii

5. How To Build An Economy That Works For Local Communities - Honolulu Civil Beat

6. Column: Even in paradise, mental health struggles are real | Honolulu Star-Advertiser