Two more tropical cyclones are spinning in the East Pacific, while former Tropical Storm Estelle weakened to a post-tropical cyclone.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center expect Georgette, the seventh named storm of the season, to become a hurricane today or tonight. It strenghtened this morning and now has sustained winds of 70 mph.

Oahu residents are familiar with the impact the President has when he visits, so many are wondering what would happen if he has a home here.

“He’s going to be protected by the Secret Service all the time, there will be all kinds of traffic woes,” said Nawai.

“People are wondering what the security situation will be like, and will they be stopped every time they come home. I’m thrilled about it. I’m a fan. I think it is great, not just for Waimanalo and me, but for the state,” said Siegel.

In another blow to Monsanto Co’s already tarnished public image, a former Kona coffee grower will be allowed to sue the biotechnology giant for possibly contributing to her cancer diagnosis. Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide has been subject to heavy scrutiny following studies linking the herbicide to non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“A federal judge this week refused Monsanto’s request to dismiss a lawsuit by a former Kona coffee grower who claims she got cancer from the company’s weed-killer Roundup. Christine and Kenneth Sheppard, former owners of Dragons Lair Kona Coffee Farm in Captain Cook on the Big Island, accuse the agribusiness giant of concealing risks associated with glyphosate…

“From 1996 through 2004, the Sheppards sprayed their farm with Roundup. In 2003, Christine Sheppard was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma… The Sheppards had never lived near any industry and were “turning organic,” living in Kona… Then Christine saw a report from Sweden that linked Roundup with non-Hodgkin lymphoma… She bookmarked the report to read later, but found it had been removed from the web, “rumor says under pressure from chemical giants,”…

The bad news is that the Navy’s Rim of the Pacific exercises are bringing crowds, added aircraft noise, and some faulty garage door activity thorough the end of July, the Navy said.

The Hawaii Point-In-Time Count, an annual survey of the state’s homeless population, was released Wednesday, and the results were a mixed bag of both encouraging and disconcerting numbers.

The homeless tally statewide increased from 7,620 to 7,921, a jump of 301 homeless individuals, or a total increase of 4 percent. That movement is moderate, however, when compared to leaps made in the previous two years. The homeless population rose by 583 individuals (9.2 percent) between 2013-14 and by 702 individuals (10.1 percent) between 2014-15.

Whether the inflated numbers can or should be spun as a positive simply because they’re expanding more gradually than before is open to discussion.

The Coalition of Hawaiian Nationals (CHN) (formerly Committee of Hawaiian Nationals) was formed a few years ago by the late Pomaika?iokalani Kinney, Pilipo Souza, Leon Siu and other patriots.

The purpose of the coalition is to encourage people to reclaim their Hawaiian nationality and to get involved in peaceful, practical, creative actions to speed up the return of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a sovereign, independent nation.

Welcome to the website of the Hawaiian Kingdom Government presently operating within the occupied State of the Hawaiian Islands. Since the Spanish-American War, 1898, our Nation has been under prolonged occupation by the United States of America. Our web pages tell you about the range of activities carried out by the Hawaiian Government in developing our relations with the community of Nations in regards to the occupation and the profound economic benefits that arise from its exposure. Click here to download the Strategic Plan of the acting Council of Regency and its Supplement Remedial Plan of Compliance to International Humanitarian Law.

After having been suppressed and kept in the dark for over 100 years under the unlawful U.S. occupation of our homelands, We the People — the surviving remnants of the Hawaiian Kingdom — began the process to peacefully restore our country’s rightful standing as a lawful, sovereign, independent, neutral nation.

It is an exciting time as we press forward with applying laws, implementing strategies and gathering our people to stand our nation up for the world to see once again... a free Hawaii.

We invite you to browse through this site to learn more about our re-emerging nation... E Komo Mai, Welcome... Welcome Home...

This week, Native Hawaiians initiated an historical election that may grant them sovereignty from the United States and the state of Hawaii, itself, after well over a century of colonial rule. More than 95,000 indigenous people will elect delegates to a constitutional convention, scheduled for this winter, when they will work to create a government that serves and represents Native Hawaiians — the only group of indigenous people in the United States currently restricted from forming their own government.

In the 19th century, European and American missionaries and traders began settling in Hawaii. They quickly formed a political movement and succeeded in transferring power from the king to his cabinet and the legislature. Though they drafted a new constitution limiting the king’s control, they also limited the voting rights of Asians and Native Hawaiians while granting that right to wealthy non-citizens.

Hawaii is an odd place. Smack dab in the middle of the world’s largest ocean it has been said that Hawaii is as close to the developing world as one can come (in some respects) and still be in the 50 United States. It has weird politics. (From which our current president politically sprouted it should be noted.) It has a strong Leftward tilt in many ways. The Communist Party of Hawaii of the 1940s and 1950s was arguably the strongest of the communist parties in the USA. The flag has the Union Jack on it with American stripes. It’s the home of surfing. (My first love.) It’s the only state which is wholly tropical. It has active volcanoes. Hawaii is an outlier in practically everything. I guess putting perfectly law abiding gun owners on an FBI list is just another one of these weird things. Let’s hope this sort of over the top statism just stays out in the deep blue of the North Pacific.

The retired frigate USS Thach will be sunk during Rim of the Pacific war games in July from fire including the first Harpoon missile shot from a littoral combat ship, a type of U.S. warship being deployed regularly to Singapore and the volatile South China Sea.

The Navy originally wanted 52 of the now controversial littoral combat ships, which were touted for their speed and shallow draft for operations in near-shore environments against pirates, mines and diesel submarines.

With the rise of China, however, concerns were raised about the ships’ armor and lethality, and the Pentagon reduced the total and is seeking a more robust frigate as a replacement.

While in Hawaii, the littoral combat ship USS Coronado will test the greater lethality of a Harpoon missile, which has the capability of destroying enemy ships 100 miles away, the Navy said. The Navy is seeking to arm all of its LCSs with over-the-horizon missiles.

Most folks have heard that Hawaii is a state, one of the United States of America. Most people, including those who live in Hawaii, accept that statement as a fact.

But the reality is that in a world in which nations are as bound by the rule of laws as are the citizens of nations (if not more so), the truth is quite different!

The truth is that each and every step along Hawaii's path from sovereign and independent nation, to annexed territory, to state, was done in violation of laws and treaties then in effect, without regard to the wishes of the Hawaiian people. Many people, including President Grover Cleveland, opposed the annexation of Hawaii.

The Honolulu rail project may cost as much as $7.967 billion to build and likely won’t be completed until April 2024, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation acknowledged Wednesday.

The new cost estimate came two days after the Federal Transit Administration sent a letter to HART and Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell criticizing the lack of cost containment on the project, which was originally priced at about $5.2 billion.

Hawaii has the 10th-worst economy of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to a new WalletHub report.

WalletHub’s analysts compared the economic performance of various metrics in each state and Washington, D.C., across three key dimensions: economic activity, economic health and innovation potential.

Brazil, Denmark, Germany and Italy will take part for the first time in the biennial RIMPAC, which is slated to begin June 30 and end Aug. 4, the Navy said Tuesday. China, which joined the exercise in 2014, will also participate.

This year's U.S. Pacific Fleet-hosted drills -- which will focus on disaster relief, maritime security, sea control and complex warfighting -- will include 45 ships, five submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel.

Participating nations include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Tonga and the United Kingdom.

Honolulu responded to what the governor called a state of emergency, passing tough criminal laws aimed at ridding sidewalks, streets and parks of homeless people.

At $2.9 billion this extra cost is nearly $3,000 for every man, woman and child in Honolulu. It is more than $8,500 per household.

We the residents of Maui and the state of Hawai'i, ask Maui County and the State of Hawaii to stop the use of Round Up and Neonicotinoids immediately and permanently.

The long term and often excessive use of the herbicide Roundup Pro, and other glyphosate based herbicides to control weeds in our city parks and roadways unnecessarily expose children, adults, and wildlife to a toxic stew of chemicals.

This poison is being sprayed all over our roadways, city parks, and next to schools. And with no warning, signs, or mandated limitations around application? This must stop. There are better ways to keep up our parks, roadways and playgrounds without spraying toxins that harm our children!

A mega-tsunami in Hawaii generated by an Aleutian Islands earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 or higher would affect more than 300,000 people, the state estimates, and cause some $40 billion in damage.

But how probable is an event like that?

A team of University of Hawaii at Manoa researchers spent five years trying to answer that question, and here's what they concluded: There's a 9 percent chance of Hawaii suffering a direct hit from such a mega-tsunami in the next 50 years.

In other words, rare but possible.

Hawaii lawmakers set aside more money to tackle the highest rate of homelessness in the nation — a crisis that has left families with children living on sidewalks alongside the beaches of paradise.

The Legislature allocated $12 million in new funding during the session ending Thursday. It will go toward social services and clearing out homeless encampments.

The amount surpassed Gov. David Ige's funding request and added to the more than $15 million the state already spends annually to address the problem.

In declaring martial law, all forms of civilian law were suspended. An entire new system of justice and order was instituted and controlled at the absolute discretion of Lt. Gen. Short — the newly declared “Military Governor” of the islands.

The transfer of power meant that all civilian courts would be closed, and all government functions — federal, territorial, and municipal — would be placed under military control. The U.S. Constitution was suspended and civilians no longer guaranteed any individual rights or protections from the government. Civilians had no freedom of speech, self-defense, assembly, or protections from from unreasonable search and seizures, inter alia.

Though overshadowed by unrest in the Middle East, the pivot remains very much underway. Already the US has expanded and established new military exercises and agreements with Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other parts of Southeast Asia – as well as Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Mongolia, and even China.

The linchpin of this military realignment is my home state of Hawaii, which has hosted the headquarters of the US Pacific Command, or USPACOM, for almost 70 years.

Beyond Scrutiny

Based on the island of Oahu, USPACOM claims the Asia-Pacific as its “area of responsibility.” Home to 36 nations – and more than half the world’s population – the region stretches, in the words of top military brass, “from Bollywood to Hollywood and penguins to polar bears.”

Hillary supporter tries to throw away Bernie ballots, gets kicked out.

Workers left without a job when the state's last sugar plantation closes this year will be able to get financial help.

Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Co. employees who lose their jobs will be able to get money through a federal program to help replace lost wages, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, announced Monday.

About 675 Maui residents work for Hawaii's last sugar plantation, which plans to end sugar operations by the end of 2016. Under the federal program, workers could receive up to $2,000 a month for a year while they're retrained for a new job. That's in addition to state benefits and job training.

Residents of the Hawaiian Islands just breathed a sigh of relief – literally, as the deadline passed for Hawaii’s House Judiciary Committee to hear House Bill 849, relating to Right to Farm, that would force residents to succumb to pesticide spraying without any say. All the while, companies like Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, and BASF use Hawaii land as a testing ground for GM crops.

On Tuesday, March 8, a partial solar eclipse will be visible in Hawaii. It starts at 4:33 p.m. and ends at 6:33 p.m.

At the peak of the eclipse, at 5:37 p.m. Hawai`i Standard Time, 70 percent of the sun will be blocked by the moon.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii warned this week that bills being pushed by Hawaii’s Maui County Mayor Alan Arakawa (R) would punish homeless people for “the basic life functions of sleeping and going to the bathroom.”

In an email on Friday, ACLU of Hawaii legal director Daniel Gluck told The Maui News that his group “strongly opposed” several bills being offered to prevent homeless people from sleeping on sidewalks or going to the bathroom in public areas.

Many tourists from the US and around the world visit Hawaii for its beautiful islands and its beaches covered with white sand. It is known for its food and traditional luau celebrations, its native people and its culture. When you vacation in Hawaii it offers surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, fishing, hiking and many other activities. It has been the 50th State of the United States since August 21st, 1959. Since statehood, tourism has been the main industry followed by Education, Government and the Military. However, Hawaii was a country whose government of Queen Lili’uokalani was overthrown more than 120 years ago on January 17th, 1893, when Hawaii was actually known as the Kingdom of Hawaii. It is a part of history that needs to be told.

There is still time to organize and invite supporters to attend the Sunday events!

Our Honolulu poll observers will be having a meeting this Saturday, March 5th, at the Honolulu Coffee house on Oahu. We will be sending more information to our poll observers via email.

We are continuing to call supporters. However, we still need poll observers at all locations on the big island and more on Maui in town.

If you’re interested in making calls, let us know by responding to this email! You can also sign up to volunteer for Hawaii on the Donald J. Trump website.

You can make a huge difference by putting out a little effort. Vote Tuesday and help us call others and encourage them to vote in the days before Election Day. We will call those who have been identified as Trump supporters and remind them to go to the polls! To find your voting location, click here.

Despite not being in the headlines, Mauna Loa continues to be in a state of unrest based on seismic and deformation monitoring data.

The USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory’s improved seismic network began to detect increasingly frequent, small earthquakes on Mauna Loa as early as 2013. Renewed inflation of the volcano was detected by HVO’s GPS network and also with Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) in 2014. Based on the elevated rates of earthquakes and persistent inflation, the Volcano Alert Level for Mauna Loa was elevated from Normal to Advisory on September 15, 2015.

According to the USGS Alert-Notification System for Volcanic Activity, an Advisory level indicates that the volcano is showing signs of unrest above known background levels, but does not mean that an eruption certain. Another period of Mauna Loa unrest in 2004–2005 included inflation and anomalous seismicity, but did not result in an eruption.

In Hawaii, that force has been on display all week, thanks to a pair of gigantic, back-to-back swells, which generated waves large enough to overtake beach parks, wash across roadways and damage oceanfront properties.

When 2016 began with North Korea declaring it had detonated a hydrogen bomb, its fourth nuclear test, the U.S. military had already tested a land-based Aegis Ashore missile defense system in Hawaii — Lockheed Martin’s version of the short-to-intermediate-range ballistic missile defense (BMD) system used on Aegis Navy destroyers.

Now, as tension mounts after Pyongyang’s satellite launch on Feb. 7, media reports suggest the Pentagon is mulling making the Aegis Ashore test facility operational at the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) at the Barking Sands naval base on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

A Navy spokesman said, “There are no plans for an operational site of Aegis Ashore at PMRF. It was constructed as a test and training site only.” But Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, has publicly stated that he believes the Aegis Ashore test facility should be considered as an operational site.

Let the voters decide. Pledge to support the candidate who gets the most pledged delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention.

From 1995 to 2004, Christine Sheppard used Roundup on her commercial coffee farm in Hawaii. In 2003 she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and was forced to sell her farm to pay for expensive cancer treatments.

Still alive, Christine and her husband Kenneth are now going after Monsanto Co., accusing the agribusiness of falsely concealing the risks of glyphosate that ultimately led to her cancer. The civil suit states that Monsanto "knew or had reason to know that its Roundup products were defective and were inherently dangerous and unsafe when used in the manner instructed and provided by defendant. ...

"Monsanto assured the public that Roundup was harmless. In order to prove this, Monsanto championed falsified data and attacked legitimate studies that revealed its dangers. Monsanto led a prolonged campaign of misinformation to convince government agencies, farmers and the general public that Roundup was safe."

A private helicopter carrying five people crashed into Pearl Harbor in Hawaii's Oahu on Thursday. One of the passengers, a 16-year-old boy, was rushed to hospital in a critical condition.

The huge waves that hit Hawaii during the weather phenomena known as El Niño (El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)) excite surfers and, on the odd occasion, rock art enthusiasts too. They know that when the waves are tall enough, there is a chance to catch a glimpse of some centuries-old petroglyphs. The window of opportunity is often short, this time it was only a day, but the appeal is all the greater for the intermittent peeps at the past.

The mayor of Hawaii's Big Island declared a state of emergency on Monday amid the state's largest outbreak of dengue fever since the 1940s.

The mosquito-borne Zika virus could hit Hawaii especially hard if it arrives in the Aloha State, according to an expert from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While a widespread outbreak of Zika in the Hawaiian islands remains unlikely at the moment, the state is at higher risk because of its tropical climate and large number of foreign travelers. And many experts are voicing serious concerns about the state's ability to handle such an event, should it occur.

Hawaii is already battling its largest outbreak of dengue fever since the 1940s, a disease that is carried by the same species of mosquito that carries Zika.

In a December assessment of Hawaii's response to the current dengue outbreak, Lyle Petersen, director of the CDC’s Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, said there are "critical deficiencies" within the Hawaii Department of Health that should be "urgently addressed."

Five vaccine bills with mandates have been introduced this year in the Hawaiian House Senate. Three are already being heard in Senate Committees this coming week.

Whether you agree with vaccinations or not, it should be our right as parents to choose what we think is right for the health of our children.”Our religious and spiritual practices are a human right. HI entered legislation today to require immunization with no religious exemption for public school students.” Dr. Patricia McLean.

The indigenous peoples of Alaska and Hawaii appealed to the international community through the United Nations with a request to ensure their right to self-determination. The letter was circulated in Geneva.

Well folks, it turns out that Michelle Obama is showing her true narcissistic tendencies just as her husband does. As she continues her lavish Hawaiian vacation on the tax payer’s dime, Hawaii natives are ready for the mooch to return to D.C.

As she carelessly contributes to the, already abysmal, nation’s debt, it looks like she has been taking some time to spend with her celebrity friends. The entitled FLOTUS has been making frequent visits to Oprah Winfrey’s, “palatial 12-bedroom Maui estate.”

During that time, Secret Service has been shutting down almost all access around her making day-to-day- life for residents, literally impossible. Beyond this, as she thoughtlessly carries about her leisurely activities, she seems oblivious that her time there is hindering others from their own recreational activities—Secret Service has been shutting down local hiking trails.

A new report ranking all 50 states based on residents' sense of well-being puts Hawaii at No. 1, followed by Alaska, which held the top spot last year.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-hawaii-alaska.html#jCp

During their six-month deployment at Wheeler, 16th CAB aircrews will not only take part in several exercises, including Lightning Force and RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific), but will also fill the void of attack/reconnaissance coverage for the 25th Infantry Division after the retirement of the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior.

It took Kumar seven months to collect honey samples from around the island. She had help from beekeepers Jimmy Trujillo and Doug Gates, who helped her network with other beekeepers to gather samples. She gathered a total of 36 samples.

After getting samples, she sent them to a lab in Honolulu and a lab in Germany.

“We wanted to compare the results that were gathered from two different methods to see if they were similar,” Kumar said.

Both lab tests yielded the same results — the area around Kupua and Kapena had the highest levels of glyphosate.

“It’s concerning because pesticides shouldn’t be in honey, and now beekeepers have to question whether or not their honey is safe to sell,” Trujillo said.

High dosages of glyphosate can cause cancer and miscarriages, according to motherearthnews.com.

The new finding may explain why some bee colonies are dying, Trujillo added.

The US is talking about transforming the Aegis missile defense test site in Hawaii into a combat-ready facility to defend against ballistic missile attacks, after North Korea conducted their fourth nuclear test earlier this month.