Breaking News

Editorial

Preventing election fraud

A group of senators met last week to try to prevent anyone from stealing the 2024 presidential election or from once again inciting an armed mob to attack the Capitol. The bipartisan band, led by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), aims to update the 1887 Electoral Count Act, the archaic law that governs how Congress counts electoral votes that became a focus of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. The fate of the nation’s democracy might rest on whether these senators strike a deal, and soon: If Republicans take the House after ...

Book-banning resurgence

As if there were not enough challenges facing the United States right now, Americans have to be on alert for a resurgence of book-banning campaigns at their local libraries. Across the nation, groups of mostly White conservatives are demanding that books be locked up or taken off the shelves entirely. Their main targets? Books about Black and LGBTQ people. The numbers are staggering. The American Library Association recorded 729 challenges to library, school and university materials in 2021 that targeted more than 1,500 different book titles. That’s a record for attempted book bans ...

Drawing the line

How much is too much on this island? How many roosters per parking lot are acceptable? What about rental cars on the road, battery-powered thrill craft on the water or illegal fireworks exploding overhead during a drought? These are the sorts of back burner questions we hope to hear candidates address this election season. Of course we need to know their stances on big-ticket issues such as housing, water and overtourism, but wouldn’t it be fascinating to hear where they draw the line on roosters? Would their limit be 20 feral birds per half acre? One hundred? A thousand? Or, ...

Student debt forgiveness

The Biden Administration this week announced another installment in its student-loan forgiveness plan to “fix longstanding failures” in the program. Translation: Taxpayers will pay again for the mistakes of Congress and the Obama Administration. Congress created income-based repayment plans in 2007 to help borrowers manage mountains of debt they can’t repay. Initially borrowers could cap monthly payments at 15 percent of their discretionary income and discharge their remaining balance after 25 years. Those who went to work in “public service” had to pay 10 percent for 10 ...

IRS in need of money, staff

This is not a normal tax year for the Internal Revenue Service. As millions of American households scrambled to meet the April 18 filing deadline, it’s easy to view this as just another tax season that causes temporary annoyance and then fades in the headlines and minds of most people. But there’s a lot more at stake. The IRS is currently limping along without enough staff or funding. Congress, especially Republicans, needs to face up to reality. The IRS still manually enters the information on paper tax returns into its computing system because its technology is so outdated. ...

Volunteering can do a body good

The runner’s heart gave out as he neared the finish line of the 2016 Maui Half Marathon. For all intents and purposes, the Haiku doctor was dead as a trio of fellow runners knelt beside him on Kaanapali Parkway and performed CPR. Within minutes, the event’s volunteer medical staff was on the scene with a defibrillator. The device and the staff’s expert care proved the difference between Barry Sultanoff dying and living. “The medics saved my life,” Sultanoff said after completing the next year’s 5K. “Imagine how grateful I feel to the team that was here and saved my ...