News

Governments around the world are still reacting to China's latest move in Hong Kong. Last week's announcement of a new security law has led to some new policies from other national capitals — including Australia's.

Some boat tours to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii's Pearl Harbor will resume this week, the National Park Service said.

The Pearl Harbor National Memorial will open for limited boat tours to the USS Arizona on Friday, the park service said in a statement Wednesday. The USS Arizona sank during the 1941 Japanese attack on Hawaii.

The site has been closed for months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

National parks across the U.S. are reopening on as case-by-case basis and in a phased approach, the statement said.

Diagnostic Laboratory Services Inc., the largest local lab in the state, warned that the number of tests it can run has been sharply reduced because it cannot obtain the supplies needed to process COVID-19 tests.

Where we stand

The state Department of Health today reported 36 new COVID-19 cases following 23 new cases yesterday and a record 41 cases on Monday. The 34 cases are on Oahu, 1 on Kauai and 1 on Hawaii Island.

Updated: 7/9/2020, 12:05 p.m.

The state Department of Health today reported 36 new COVID-19 cases following 23 new cases yesterday and a record 41 cases on Tuesday. The 34 cases are on Oahu, 1 on Kauai and 1 on Hawaii Island.

The state's total coronavirus case count now stands at 1,130 with 19 deaths. Oahu has 842 cases, Maui County has 130, Hawaii County has 97 and Kauai County has 43. Eighteen residents have been diagnosed outside of the state. One hundred twenty-three people have required hospitalization and 840 people have been released from isolation.

Updated: 7/7/2020, 1:26 p.m.

The Hawaii Department of Health today reported 41 new cases of COVID-19, a state record for daily cases since the pandemic began. Thirty-eight cases are on Oahu, 2 on Kauai and 1 on Hawaii Island.

HONOLULU — An auction of a 94-year-old Native Hawaiian heiress' belongings can't go forward until a conservator is named to handle her finances, a judge ruled Monday.

It's not clear how much the state could end up paying in damages to people who have spent years on the waitlist for Hawaiian homesteads following last week's Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruling concluding that the state failed to properly manage the century-old land trust.

Seventy-six-year-old Liberta Hussey Albao, one of the original plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit filed more than 20 years ago, was harvesting bananas in her backyard in Wailua when her phone began ringing off the hook. 

Where we stand

The Hawaii Department of Health reports seven new cases of COVID-19 in the state. Six cases are on Oahu and one case is on the Hawaii Island. The low case count comes after the weekend and several days of double-digit increases in daily cases.

CHICAGO — At least 13 people, including a 7-year-old girl at a family party and a teenage boy, were killed in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend, police said. At least 59 others were shot and wounded.

Reef ecosystems in different regions will not react the same way to pressures from fishing. That’s according to a study led by a University of Hawaii at Manoa researcher.

There have been 18 monk seal pups born in Hawaii so far this year, federal environmental officials said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported 11 on Molokai, five on Oahu and one each on Kauai and Hawaii Island, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

The agency said the number falls short of the record 48 pups born in the main Hawaiian islands last year.

Updated: 7/5/2020, 1:35 p.m.

State health officials today reported 25 new COVID-19 cases. With 1,023 total cases, Hawaii has now marked a milestone.

DALLAS — American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and three smaller carriers have reached agreement with the government for billions more in federal loans, a sign of the industry’s desperate fight to survive a downturn in air travel caused by the virus pandemic.

Ownership of a stairway that snakes along a mountainside in Hawaii has been transferred to the city of Honolulu in hopes of transforming the currently off-limits hike into a public attraction.

A U.S. judge will not stop Hawaii from enforcing a quarantine on arriving travelers, saying in a ruling that the emergency mandate is reasonable during the public health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

More workers in Hawaiʻi’s hotel industry are facing layoffs and extended furloughs despite state plans to reopen to out-of-state travel in August. Labor advocates are calling on state legislators to put an end to job cuts that have left thousands of residents out of work.

Updated: 7/3/2020, 2:43 p.m. State health officials today reported another COVID-19 death and 29 new cases in the sharpest increase Hawaii has seen in months. The numbers bring the total death count to 19 and coronavirus cases to 975.