Maui News

In Kīhei, the Maui Meadows Pavement Preservation Project with slurry seal treatment will continue Tuesday through Thursday (March 30 thru April 1) on Kaapuni Place, Kupulau Drive, Kumulani Drive and Launa Drive.

As part of its Tech for Teachers program, the Honolulu Board of REALTORS® delivered technology kits last week to 10 educators at Moloka‘i middle and high schools.

On Maui, Great Whale Count site leaders collected data from 12 sites during 15-minute intervals between 8:30 a.m. and 11:50 a.m. A total of 35 whale sightings were seen during the 9:30 to 9:45 a.m. time period, the most of any time period throughout the day’s count.

The state was awarded $430,600 through a federal block grant program to help strengthen the state’s specialty crop industry. The Hawai`i Department of Agriculture has approved 10 project proposals under the US Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, which aims to enhance the competitiveness of Hawai`i-grown specialty crops in local, domestic and international markets.

A Waiʻanae man pled guilty in federal court on Friday to embezzling more than $500,000 from the nonprofit AmeriCorps, and agreeing to accept a bribe for the administration of CARES Act funds.

Unemployment on the Island of Maui was 12.7 percent in February, down from 14.1 percent the previous month, but still well above the 1.7 percent rate reported in February of last year, prior to the pandemic.

A team of researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s College of Social Sciences led a study on food insecurity for Hawaiʻi families with children. The report showed that 48% of families with children in the state are experiencing food insecurity, with 76% of families reporting that they had lost employment income due to COVID-19.

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands will receive $5,000,000 in new federal funding to help provide affordable housing options for Native Hawaiians living on and off the Home Lands during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Hawaiʻi Colorectal Cancer Family Registry Cohort recruited 2,266 participants to donate blood and tumor samples to better predict the risk for cancers of the colon and rectum. Information from the samples will be used to guide research on colorectal cancer risk, treatment and prevention for racial and ethnic minorities worldwide.

Nine year old Jayda Hansen of Kīhei, Maui was named one of 155 semifinalists in Future Engineer’s Artemis Moon Pod Essay Contest, a national competition held in collaboration with NASA, that asked K-12 students to imagine leading a one-week expedition at the Moon’s South Pole.

The state Department of Health reports that there were 102 additional COVID-19 cases reported in Hawai‘i on Sunday, including 61 on O‘ahu, 26 on Maui, and 15 on Hawai‘i Island. There were a total of 1,104 cases logged over the past two weeks, 343 of them in Maui County.

More than 1,000 eligible individuals, both Kaiser Permanente members and non-members, were vaccinated at a mass vaccination event held on Saturday, March 27, at the Kaiser Permanente Wailuku Medical Office.

After months of developing rigorous safety guidelines and a television broadcast plan that will allow for a virtual audience experience, the Merrie Monarch Festival announced that the hula competition will be held this summer.

A Montana man was arrested on Maui on Friday, March 26, for alleged violation of rules and orders related to travel quarantine.

Maui Obituaries for the Week ending March 27, 2021. May they rest in peace.

The County of Maui Department of Housing and Human Concerns is presenting a series of free online training seminars on fair housing in April. Seminar participants are limited to 1,000 attendees per session and prospective participants must register by March 29, 2021.

The Department of Housing and Human Concerns’ Kaunoa Senior Services division is offering online fitness classes via Zoom for seniors 55 years old and older in April.

The state Department of Health reports that there were 113 additional COVID-19 cases reported in Hawai‘i on Saturday, including 60 on O‘ahu, 30 on Maui, 14 on Hawai‘i Island, one on Kaua‘i, and eight in Hawai‘i residents diagnosed outside of the state. There were a total of 1,052 cases logged over the past two weeks, 335 of them in Maui County.

The nonprofit Hawaiʻi Education Association is offering a slate of scholarships for public school teachers, student teachers, college students and graduating high school seniors. Over the past 20 years, HEA has awarded more than $300,000 to hundreds of scholarship recipients in the teaching profession.

A Navy MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter aircrew located the boater at 1:30 a.m. holding a bundle of life jackets. The aircrew hoisted the boater and transported him to Queens Medical Center due to having symptoms of hypothermia.