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Editorial

Apologies, then action

We are sorry. We take full accountability. We need to do better to regain the public’s trust. This past week brought a pair of mea culpas from high-ranking officials on Maui. Both were as sorely needed as they were refreshing in their unconditionality. The first came Monday during a news conference held near the summit of Haleakala when Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir, commander of the U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific, apologized for an estimated 700-gallon diesel fuel spill. And then, Thursday in Kihei, faced with scorching comments from state Land Use Commission members and ...

Conflict stalls earthquake aid

Though the full scale of the catastrophe is still emerging, the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria in the early hours of Monday morning is already known to have been one of the most deadly in decades, claiming thousands of lives. A 7.8-magnitude temblor is extremely powerful, and all the more damaging when it strikes at a relatively shallow depth and is followed by a second major shock. But even when disasters are natural in origin, their impact is shaped as much by human actions before and in the aftermath as they are by their inherent force. Poor and otherwise vulnerable people ...

Value workers by their skills

In one of the richest nations on Earth, the path to prosperity has narrowed significantly in recent decades — especially for those without a college education. More than 62 percent of Americans ages 25 and up do not hold bachelor’s degrees, and the earnings gap between those with a college education and those without one has never been wider. In 2021, the difference between the median earnings of younger workers with bachelor’s degrees and workers of the same age with high-school diplomas only was $22,000 — the largest since the Federal Reserve Bank of New York began tracking ...

Environmental defenders at risk

The murders of the British journalist Dom Phillips and the Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were not only a shocking and incalculable loss for their families and all those who loved them and admired their work. They were also a chilling reminder of the perils faced both by journalists and environmental defenders — particularly Indigenous peoples and those working with them — in Latin America. Seven months have passed since the men were killed in the Javari valley region of the Amazon. On Monday, Brazilian police announced that they had arrested the alleged mastermind. ...

Refuge for Hong Kong citizens

Bravo to the Biden Administration, which on Thursday extended temporary safe haven status for another two years to Hong Kong citizens currently in the U.S. The decision will protect thousands of residents of the once autonomous city where dissent and support for democracy have been criminalized. The U.S. first offered safety to Hong Kongers in August 2021, with some 5,600 who were already here eligible. President Biden said on Thursday that Beijing “has continued its assault on Hong Kong’s autonomy, undermining its remaining democratic processes and institutions, imposing limits on ...

Violent policing

No decent citizen could fail to be appalled by the video, released Friday, showing Memphis police officers beating a 29-year-old Black man, Tyre Nichols, so badly on Jan. 7 that he died three days later. No feeling citizen could fail to be moved by the anguish of his mother, RowVaughn Wells, as she eloquently described her grief at losing a young man, himself the father of a 4-year-old, who cried out for “mom” as he absorbed the assault. And no concerned citizen can fail to be impressed by, and appreciative of, the way in which those who justifiably protested Mr. Nichols’s death ...