In Case You Missed It

More than 100 coral fragments were rescued from the bay over a year ago and coaxed back to life in the Maui Ocean Center Marine Institute’s saltwater tanks.

A Maui man who was on trial for the second degree attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend’s infant, was found guilty instead of a lesser first degree attempted assault charge. The verdict in the trail of Christian Rosete was reached on Monday afternoon (Sept. 23). The jury found Rosete guilty as charged of separate first and second degree assault charges, and a charge of felony abuse against a family or household member. Another second degree assault charge for Count 3 was reduced to a third degree assault conviction.

The middle East Rift Zone eruption of Kīlauea that began on Sunday, Sept. 15 has ended and is unlikely to restart, according to the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

Lahainaluna, Kamehameha Maui and Maui High win in football, while Baldwin and Seabury stay undefeated in volleyball.

A team of fishers and marine resource advocates are working to overhaul reef fishing rules — but they say it needs to come with tougher penalties.

Maui’s economy will only gradually recover from its post-wildfire downturn while visitor industries in other counties across the state will continue to operate at high levels, according to the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization’s (UHERO) third quarter forecast for 2024.

Work on the parcel originally started to clear a firebreak following concerned neighbor complaints, but a conservation group says it’s gone far beyond that and put wildlife habitat at risk.

Maui police have launched a shooting investigation after the death of a motorist in Waikapū early Monday morning. Police have since identified the victim as Shawn Lewis, 42, of Lahaina. Lewis was reportedly driving along the Honoapiʻilani Highway in Waikapū early Monday morning when he crashed shortly after midnight on Sept. 16, 2024, near Waiolu Place, forcing the closure of the highway for five hours while police conducted an investigation. The cause of death is pending autopsy.

More than 20 years after he moved onto his homestead land on Moloka‘i, Woodrow Poepoe has a home to live in, complete with electric lights and running water. Born and raised on Moloka‘i, “Uncle Blue” got a lease from the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) at Nāʻiwa Homestead in 1986 and immediately moved onto his five rural acres. Now in his seventies, he has made do camping and getting along without access to infrastructure.

The Lahaina wildfire that killed at least 102 people and destroyed more than 2,000 buildings did not stem from a single cause, according to the phase-two Lahaina Fire Incident Analysis Report released Friday and prepared by the independent Fire Safety Research Institute for the state of Hawaiʻi.

August 2024 saw Maui’s housing market exhibit contrasting trends, with single-family homes experiencing both a rise in sales and an increase in median prices, according to the latest data from the Realtors Association of Maui. The median sales price for single-family homes increased by 10.4% compared to August 2023, reaching $1,325,000, indicating continued demand at higher price points. Meanwhile, condominium sales dropped by 34.7%, though the median price for condos surged to $1,000,000, a 33.3% increase.

Four people were injured when a commercial catamaran ran aground on Kāʻanapali Beach in West Maui on Tuesday evening. The incident was reported at 7:15 p.m. on Sept. 10, 2024. DLNR reports that the vessel was removed this morning with no release of any hazardous materials reported.

Whaler’s Fine Jewelry owner Tien Doan is no stranger to adversity. A survivor of Pol Pot’s “Killing Fields” in Cambodia, Doan lost his Front Street family home to last year’s wildfire, along with two vacation rental properties — reduced to ashes.

AES Hawaiʻi held a blessing ceremony on Friday to launch Kūihelani solar-plus-storage, Hawai‘i’s largest solar facility, which is producing electricity for Maui at 8-cents per kilowatt hour, the lowest renewable energy cost in the state. The facility produces 60 MW of renewable energy, enough to power 27,000 Maui homes.

A field crew with the Maui Invasive Species Committee detected a small population of little fire ants (Wasmannia auropunctata) along Hāna Highway near the entrance of the Kīpahulu District of Haleakalā National Park on Aug. 26, 2024. This finding follows the late May detection of little fire ants or LFA at a county storage area on Waikaloa Road in Hāna. Officials say the ants likely spread via contaminated road fill to Kīpahulu within the last year. The infestation appears to be confined to approximately two-thirds of an acre, less than half a soccer field. 

Members of the US House Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce, including Hawaiʻi US Reps. Jill Tokuda and Ed Case, heard an update Wednesday on last year’s deadly wildfires during a hearing at the Lahaina Civic Center.

Elected officials will hear from federal and local witnesses as it looks into whether the government followed the lessons it learned from other disasters.

The Hawai‘i Community Foundation announced a $2.128 million grant to the Daniel R. Sayre Memorial Foundation. The total award amount comprises $1 million from HCF’s Maui Strong Fund and $1.128 million donated by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. The new trucks will have the ability to drive off-pavement, allowing crews to better reach wildfires early and prevent them from spreading.

The two teams joined in the potluck tradition after Lahainaluna beat Moloka‘i in the Famers’ MIL 11-player football debut on Saturday night.

The land trust says listings of burned properties in Lahaina with prices well above their assessed land values pre-fire will draw outside investors and put properties out of the reach of local buyers. But sellers say it’s a tough call to put their properties on the market and that they’re just trying to recoup their losses and move on with their lives.