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Editorial

American Dream dies by our hands

Perhaps this is how it all ends — self-government, self-defense, self-control, liberty, unity, family. Perhaps the fate of the nation is to watch its soul die along with the at least 19 students and two adults shot to death May 24 at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. This is us, the American people, on both sides of that gun — and countless other guns on countless playgrounds, shopping centers, streets and homes, killing our children, ourselves and each other. Killing our future. This is who we are. This is what we have become. We can no longer send our children to school ...

DGB doomed from inception

The Disinformation Governance Board has been put on pause —î leaving skeptics of the new body within the Department of Homeland Security sighing with relief. The board was from the start too mired in controversy to perform its intended function. But its collapse is no cause for celebration. The rollout of the DGB was rife with mistakes. Its name was eerie enough (and its infelicitous initials close enough to “KGB”) to conjure the specter of an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth,” and details on the board’s function were scarce enough to lead even those who might have otherwise ...

Never turn your back on a wave

Health experts are calling it a “hidden wave.” They know COVID-19 is surging, but due to the burgeoning use of home test kits and changes in the way data is collected and reported, nobody is certain how many infections there are on in America, let alone Wailuku. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb recently estimated that only “one in seven or one in eight” COVID-19 infections are officially logged. So when the New York Times reports Hawaii leads the country in infection rates, with cases rising 56 percent over the last two weeks, it begs the question: What are the real ...

True immigration reform needed

Those who support maintaining Title 42 point to an overtaxed immigration system on the brink, one that would have been pushed beyond its limits with the repeal of this Trump-era policy. The Biden administration had sought to end Title 42 on May 16, but the repeal, as expected, was blocked May 20 by District Judge Robert R. Summerhays. Like many, we had concerns about the Biden administration’s preparedness to handle any influx of migrants, estimated to grow to as many as 18,000 a day, had Title 42 been repealed. But we don’t support Title 42, which is neither a policy solution ...

Fed vacancies need to be filled

President Biden likes to tout his role as “Sheriff Joe” in the Obama administration, where he helped distribute and monitor billions in recovery aid in response to the Great Recession. But another key part of the cleanup from the 2008 financial crisis was tighter regulation of Wall Street banks. In that area, Mr. Biden is in danger of not getting his own sheriffs in place. At the top of the list is the need to fill the role of the Federal Reserve vice chair of supervision. This post has been vacant since Oct. 13, 2021. If midterm elections go the way polling currently predicts, Mr. ...

Rounding the gentle right-hand curve, we were startled to find a speeding car in our lane closing fast. Hitting the brakes, we steered our truck into the bike lane and as close to the guardrail as we could without smashing into it. The oncoming car jerked the same way. Don’t become part of the story. It is a rule all credible journalists ascribe to. Yet here we were, about to become a headline: “Maui News staffer killed by wrong-way driver.” Through the years, within a radius of five miles from this very spot, we had covered more than a dozen traffic fatalities, many of them ...