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Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

[{"text":"Itʻs so hard to stay on top of things!","type":"text"}]

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<title>Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Curses, foiled again!</title>

Todayʻs social media find comes from jasonpolakaw, a collection of foil board fails.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Curses, foiled again!

Daily Smile

This is George. He just tried freshly grated pecorino romano for the first time. Will not be accepting anything less from here on out...

Smile 26 7 10

<title>Daily Smile: Friday, July 10, 2026</title>

Daily Smile: Friday, July 10, 2026

Christian Shimabuku Headshot

Christian Shimabuku

Sports

LAS VEGAS — Clad in another fancy suit and a pair of UFC belts on both shoulders, Conor McGregor showed up on time. 

McGregor, the star Irish mixed martial artist, was over an hour and a half late to his scheduled time slot at UFC 329 media day on Wednesday. For Thursday's UFC 329 press conference at T-Mobile Arena, free and open to fans, McGregor's rare promptness allowed the show to start as scheduled at 7 p.m. PDT. 

Thousands of supporters filled both sides of T-Mobile Arena, eager to get a free glimpse of McGrgeor as he returns to the octagon after a five-year hiatus. Spotted in the crowd were about a dozen Hawaiian flags in support of the man he's set to fight against on Saturday night, Max Holloway. 

Though the UFC 329 presser also featured lightweights Paddy Pimblett and Benoit Saint Denis, the co-main event of the card, McGregor and his undeniable gift of gab controlled the crowd like none other on Thursday. 

Both Holloway and McGregor spoke with complete confidence in predicting what will happen when the cage gets locked on Saturday night. 

“I’m going to destroy Max. I am going to eliminate Max," McGregor said. "The final opponent of mine still within the UFC ranks. All of my other opponents are gone. Max is the last one left, and Saturday night, he gets eliminated for good.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Said Holloway: \"I hope he knows how to swim. I’m drowning his a**.\" "}]

McGregor's influence on the UFC was one of the motivating factors in the organization landing a seven-year, $7.7 billion broadcasting rights deal with Paramount+ that runs from 2026 to 2033. While his return is welcomed by many die-hard fight fans, 

 have becoming a polarizing issue for others. 

Love him or hate him, the UFC is confident the world will be watching on Saturday, and McGregor's return has already served as an economic boon to the organization. Per TickPick, the average price of a ticket on Saturday will cost $1,537, surpassing the previous UFC record of $1,250 set by UFC 306 in September 2024, a special one-off event that took place at the Las Vegas Sphere. 

McGregor's popularity and pull in the sport has allowed him to confidently speak down on his opponents.  

“The entire game, along with Max (has tried to replicate McGregor)," he said on Thursday. "Max has added some shots of mine, even the carrying of his nation’s flag. I didn’t see that one before. He went on to do some good things. That’s why we’re here again. Saturday night, I’m gonna show the evolution of McGregor. Get out your notebook, the entire fight game. The Mac is back.”

When it was time for Holloway and McGregor to face off for the first time all week, Holloway took off his shirt to put on a life jacket, doubling down on his belief that he's going to drown McGregor. McGregor then flicked Holloway's sunglasses off, and the two men had to be separated. 

“It’s gonna be a long night for Conor McGregor come Saturday night," Holloway said. "Taking him to deep waters.”

Said McGregor: “The Mac goes all night long, baby. All night we’re here. ... If we go into these deep waters, Max is going to be in a lot of trouble."

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Max Holloway Conor McGregor 070926

<title>Wai‘anae's Max Holloway and Conor McGregor exchange barbs during contentious UFC 329…</title>

Fight week continued to heat up as Holloway and McGregor faced off for the first time at the UFC 329 press conference on Thursday evening.

Wai‘anae's Max Holloway and Conor McGregor exchange barbs during contentious UFC 329 presser

The 2026 MLB Draft is set to begin on Saturday, July 11, with rounds 1-4 taking place in Philadelphia as part of All-Star week festivities. The draft then wraps up with rounds 5-20 on Day 2 on Sunday. 

 with Aiva Arquette and Wehiwa Aloy earning first-round selections, the 2026 draft is viewed as a potential down year for prospects in the state, according to multiple MLB scouts who spoke with Aloha State Daily in the days leading up to the draft. 

Though not lacking for talent, the vast majority of the top draft prospects with Hawai‘i ties are expected to play college baseball in 2027 rather than turn pro, including Pac-Five shortstop Alika Ahu. 

Ahu, a 6-foot-4 shortstop, was a basketball standout for University Lab School while shining on the diamond for Pac-Five as both a pitcher and shortstop. His combination of size and athleticism has drawn the intrigue of scouts. However, with a 

 on the horizon, the 2026 Hawai‘i Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year is not expected to forgo the opportunity in order to turn pro early. 

University of Hawai‘i ace pitcher Isaiah Magdaleno is another prospect that has caught the attention of multiple MLB clubs. A pair of 

 continued to boost his profile, even though he was working with a fastball predominantly under 90 miles per hour. His changeup is considered an elite pitch, and it caused the bulk of his 116 strikeouts in 95.1 innings. Magdaleno is currently in the 

. Although he completed his junior year, new rules allow five years of eligibility, meaning Magdaleno has two years of leverage to work with this weekend. 

 is a draft-eligible sophomore and recently signed with Oklahoma State after transferring from Nevada. Yamaguchi has three seasons of college eligibility remaining. 

 was the lone Hawai‘i representative at the MLB Draft Combine and impressed with his power at the plate. However, he remains committed to playing for the University of Arkansas in the fall. 

After his sophomore season was cut short due to injury, Arizona State infielder and Saint Louis alumnus Nu‘u Contrades put together consecutive strong seasons in 2025 and 2026 and is squarely on the radar of scouts. 

University of Hawai‘i shortstop Elijah Ickes was drafted as a high schooler at Kamehameha but decided to go to college instead. He has been productive and one of UH's best players when he has been on the field, but both his sophomore and junior seasons were shortened due to injury. Ickes will be again be considered a solid prospect in 2027 if he does not go pro this summer. 

Ben Zeigler-Namoa has been on the radar of scouts for multiple years and is considered a potential senior sign in 2026. His left-handed bat and defensive versatility at first base and all three outfield positions are traits scouts believe will translate smoothly to the pros. 

Saint Louis standouts Kahanu Martinez and Aycen Fernandez, Mililani's Zayne Hookala, Pac-Five pitcher Colten Amai-Nakagawa and Waiakea's Jerrell Alston were all seniors that were observed by scouts during the spring. Martinez is committed to Oregon, while Alston will head to Sacramento State in the fall. Meanwhile, Hookala, Fernandez and Amai-Nakagawa are all committed to the University of Hawai‘i. 

Alika Ahu 070926

<title>Top Hawai‘i prospects prepare for MLB Draft decisions</title>

Scouts view the 2026 draft as a potential down year in the Islands due to the lack of players expected to sign.

Top Hawai‘i prospects prepare for MLB Draft decisions

Katie Helland Headshot

Katie Helland

Arts & Entertainment

Business & Tourism

t has announced its next director and CEO, David Odo, who will start on Sept. 1.

Odo, who grew up in Kailua, is currently the director and chief curator at the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia. There he oversees institutional vision and strategy, as well as fundraising, collections, educational direction, and more. 

Under Odo’s leadership, the Georgia Museum of Art had paid membership increase 67%, donors grow 8% and overall museum revenue increase 141%, according to numbers shared by HoMA.

“David brings the experience, vision and leadership that HoMA needs as we prepare to enter our second century,” said Amber Strong Makaiau, chair of HoMA’s board of trustees, in a written statement. “His record of strengthening museums through thoughtful strategic growth, sound institutional stewardship, and meaningful community engagement gives us every confidence that he is the right leader for HoMA at this important moment in our history. His understanding of Hawai‘i and international experience uniquely position him to lead the museum forward.”

, who led the museum for about a year, and former director 

, who led it for five years, from 2020 to 2025, before becoming director at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.   

He is the son of Franklin Odo, who helped found the 

 at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Previously, he held leadership positions at Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Art Gallery

“I am honored to work alongside the Honolulu Museum of Art’s talented team, trustees, members, supporters, educators, and community partners at this important moment in its history,” said Odo, in a written statement. “HoMA holds a world-class collection, deep civic roots, and a community that has claimed it as its own for nearly a hundred years. What excites me is honoring that legacy while boldly positioning the museum for its next century.”

Founded in 1927, HoMA has more than 55,000 works for art from around the world. As a middle school student, Oda remembers being drawn to the sculptures in the Buddhism gallery.

“They sparked my curiosity about world religions,” he said, in a written statement. “That’s one of the things I love about art museums — they hold so much possibility to encourage one’s interest in a limitless number of subjects, and I’m excited to continue that legacy for others in our community.”

HoMA is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, with extended hours until 9 p.m. on Fridays. Admission is $15 for kamaʻāina. It is free for youth 18 years old or younger, as well as college students attending Hawaiʻi state universities or colleges, and SNAP beneficiaries. 

David Odo

<title>HoMA announces new director and CEO</title>

The Honolulu Museum of Art has announced its next director and CEO, who will assume the role on Sept. 1. Learn more about the executive, who grew up in Kailua.

HoMA announces new director and CEO

Alika Garcia

Alika Peleholani Garcia

Viewpoints

Aloha Spirit

As a first responder during the recent Kona Low storms, I know that addressing the impact of natural disasters on human beings comes first: getting people to safety, protecting their homes when possible, and helping them begin the long road to recovery.

But when the rains stop and the flood waters settle, I wear another hat as the executive director of 

. In this role, I can see the otherwise unseen impact of such storms below the ocean’s surface and the way that extreme weather is affecting our nearshore reefs — and the long-term cost of this damage to our communities.

After the Kona Lows were over, I went underwater and saw it clearly: a thousand corals torn loose, flipped, or shattered by storm surge waves and flood debris. And that was just a tiny portion of the reef that encircles our entire island.

Across Oʻahu and throughout our pae ʻāina, the damage is real and widespread.

When corals are ripped out, we lose more than coral — we lose shelter for reef life, habitat for fish, and part of the reef’s natural ability to take the punch out of waves before they reach our shoreline. That loss affects our food systems, livelihoods and community health.

While repairing portions of the reef after the Kona Low damage, Kuleana Coral Restoration recently reached a milestone: 10,000 corals planted and repaired. The number is worth celebrating, but only if we understand what it represents.

A reef is not just coral. A reef is a community: fish moving through structure, crabs sheltering in crevices, shrimp flashing in and out of shade. When coral survives, it becomes structure and structure invites life back. That’s the neighborhood returning.

But we hold a firm truth alongside the celebration: planting corals is not enough by itself. Corals live within a system shaped by what happens above them. In Hawaiʻi, our reefs sit at the ma kai end of the water cycle where everything collects.

Mauka to makai water carries life. It also carries consequences. Our corals live downstream of our choices; what we allow to happen upstream affects the lived conditions for our reefs downstream. A Kona Low is an acute example of that connection, with damage to the land and stress underwater arriving together.

That connection can feel like a mirror of community health, especially for Kānaka communities trying to persist in a modern world that wasn’t built with our best interests in mind. Reefs get smothered, stressed, and pushed by forces bigger than any single organism can solve alone — not unlike the way that our people experience the socio-economic pressures that keep us from thriving in our homeland or that drive us away.

Coral restoration matters because coral is living architecture. It is housing underwater. When reef structure collapses, the smallest relatives lose shelter first. Planting and repairing corals helps rebuild that structure so life can return.

But just like housing on land, simply building more homes doesn’t solve the housing crisis. If the systemic forces that push families out remain unchanged, the crisis continues. Reefs face the same reality. If upstream pressures don’t change, coral planting becomes temporary.

However, “upstream” doesn’t mean “out of our control.” It means that changes must be made earlier in the system; what we choose, what we tolerate, what we prioritize, and what we build together. Durable reef recovery comes when we align coral restoration work in the ocean with actionable mālama ʻāina, from working to ensure that our freshwater streams are cleaner to making smarter shoreline decisions and everything in between.

And the urgency is growing. With oceans trending warmer and the possibility of a strong El Niño pattern this year, coral bleaching and more damaging storms become more likely.

When reefs are already weakened they can’t slow waves as well, and storms can hit our coastline harder. That’s why preparation matters: ready crews, ready communities, and a shared plan to respond both above and below sea level.

Planting 10,000 corals is not a finish line. It’s a beginning: repairing the reef neighborhood while strengthening the human community that protects it.

[{"type":"text","text":"By restoring reefs, our eldest kūpuna, we restore ourselves."}]

This article is reprinted with permission from 

OHA's Ka Wai Ola newspaper: "By Restoring Our Reefs We Restore Ourselves" by Alika Peleholani Garcia, in its June 2026 issue, Vol. 43 No. 6. Read more at 

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Reef Repair Project2

Hau‘oli Lorenzo-Elarco and Kenika Lorenzo-Elarco

Hawai‘i History

Rather than framing ocean protection as a burden, we should instead ask why Pacific Island peoples, and our protected and sacred oceans, are forced to bear the unfair burden of industrial fishing, write two members of the Papahānaumokuākea Native Hawaiian Cultural Working Group.

Fishing Nets

Community Voices: Commercial fishing is not a cultural practice

Philamer Felicitas

Marine debris from lost or discarded commercial fishing nets to plastic and other waste carried to the ocean by streams, rivers and lakes, does not simply disappear at sea. Much of the debris collected in the massive Great Pacific Garbage Patch north of Hawaiʻi eventually converges on our shores — especially in Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary. Despite relatively little of this waste originating in Hawaiʻi, our local community continues bearing the responsibility of ongoing cleanup efforts to protect one of the most sacred and ecologically significant places on Earth.

Marine Debris KWO Cover

Community Voices: What preserving Papahānaumokuākea means below the surface

<title>Community Voices: By Restoring Our Reefs We Restore Ourselves</title>

When corals are ripped out, we lose more than coral — we lose shelter for reef life, habitat for fish, and part of the reef’s natural ability to take the punch out of waves before they reach our shoreline. That loss affects our food systems, livelihoods and community health, says Alika Peleholani Garcia, executive director of Kuleana Coral Restoration.

Community Voices: By Restoring Our Reefs We Restore Ourselves

Kam Napier Headshot

A. Kam Napier

Columnists

Government & Politics

If you’re a street junkie, shooting up heroin in Chinatown, the State of Hawai‘i has your back. It’ll take our tax dollars and turn them into clean needles, so you can keep on shooting safely.

Fentanyl addict? Go for it! Chances are you’ll never get busted for public intoxication (though it’s a crime), or possession (a crime), and if you overdose, the state will once again turn tax dollars into Narcan to save your life. All your emergency rooms visits? Not to worry! “The people” have you covered with their tax dollars and inflated insurance premiums.

If you’re an alcoholic, the State of Hawai‘i just doesn’t care. Legislators drink, after all, they’re not going to go after their own Heineken and Merlot. Just don’t drink and drive, that’s the only area where we see public policy put any time and money. Everyone seems perfectly confident that ID checks at the liquor store are keeping booze out of the hands of children.

Love pot? Lucky you live Hawai‘i! Hawai‘i loves pot and Hawai‘i loves you! It’s de facto legal, based on how often you can smell pot in the open. And it’s trivially easy to go the law-abiding medical marijuana route. Tell a doctor you’re anxious, get a prescription and it’s off the pot pharmacy you go. Enjoy! After all, we’ve hashed this issue out for years now and all sensible people agree that drug prohibitions never work. You have to respect people’s choices and just legalize and tax their habit.

But if you’re a smoker who’d like to quit smoking cigarettes by going to a safer but similar alternative, this same State of Hawai‘i has just two words.

, Gov. Josh Green just signed a law that as of January 1, 2027, will ban “99.9% of disposable vapes” in Hawai‘i. Flanked by public health officials and the obligatory Child For Whom We Do This, he positively beamed with pride.

Over what, exactly? Doctor Governor Green should be aware that if harm reduction works for hard drugs, it certainly does with nicotine. The UK’s NHS (formerly known as the National Health Service), which is beloved by American Democrats as an ideal model of universal health care, has 

“In recent years, e-cigarettes have become a very popular stop smoking aid in the UK. Also known as vapes or e-cigs, they're far less harmful than cigarettes, and can help you quit smoking for good. … Many thousands of people in the UK have already stopped smoking with the help of an e-cigarette. There's evidence that they can be effective. A 2021 review found people who used e-cigarettes to quit smoking, as well as having expert face-to-face support, can be up to twice as likely to succeed as people who used other nicotine replacement products, such as patches or gum.”

Our reporter asked Green about that. He replied with skepticism, saying, “The biggest problem has been getting an entire generation … innumerable middle schoolers and high schoolers hooked,” Green said. “Society has found ways to quit traditional cigarettes through medical means, through behavioral techniques; we should lean on those.”

Does he even hear himself? He said this while signing an e-cig prohibition law. Not medical means, not behavioral techniques, no, just the ban hammer. Meanwhile, actual tobacco cigarettes, the really dangerous ones we didn’t ban, remain perfectly available.

Then Green put Lola Irvin on the spot for further comment on our question. Irvin is administrator of the state Department of Health’s Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Division. As we reported, she said adults who have concurrently used traditional cigarettes and e-cigarettes are less likely to successfully quit smoking, while young people who begin using e-cigarettes are more likely to transition to smoking traditional cigarettes.

[{"type":"text","text":"So much for harm reduction!"}]

Irvin seems unaware of the NHS findings I shared above about people successfully using e-cigs to quit tobacco cigarettes or reduce their intake. There are other studies.

Efficacy and Safety of E-Cigarette Use for Smoking Cessation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

,” for example, published in 2023 at The American Journal of Medicine. Conclusion: “Nicotine e-cigarettes were associated with increased smoking abstinence in comparison with non-nicotine e-cigarettes. Furthermore, nicotine and non-nicotine e-cigarettes increased abstinence compared with conventional smoking cessation therapies, and the absolute risk of [Serious Adverse Events] was low across all trials. Overall, these data suggest e-cigarettes appear to be more efficacious than conventional nicotine replacement or behavioral smoking cessation therapies.”

, published last November. “Nicotine e-cigarettes can help people to stop smoking for at least six months,” it concludes. “Evidence shows they work better than nicotine replacement therapy, and probably better than e-cigarettes without nicotine. They may work better than no support, or behavioral support alone, and may not be associated with serious unwanted effects.”

As for her arguments that e-cigs and vaping makes teenagers more likely to take up smoking real tobacco cigarettes, there are indeed studies that find teens given to try vices will try both vaping and smoking, sometimes in that order, sometimes the other way around. These studies find they’ll often also try pot and booze.

When you measure what youths actually do, however, the astonishing and wonderful fact is that 

peaked in 1997 at 36.4%, considerably higher than the adult rate that year of 24.7%. By 2021, the youth smoking rate dropped to just 3.8%, well below the adult rate of 11.5%.

That’s an 86% decline in just 24 years, across all ethnicities, sexes and grade levels.

And it has dropped even more since then, despite the arrival of e-cigs and vaping. As of 2024, according to the 

, just 1.4% of high school students reported any use of tobacco cigarettes.

, found that from 2022 to 2025, e-cigarette and tobacco cigarette use among youth further declined while nicotine pouch use remained low and stable.

In other words, we won the war on youth smoking, without any prohibitions at all. When our governor says that "an entire generation … innumerable middle schoolers and high schoolers" have just been "hooked" on nicotine, he is flat out lying. The exact opposite is true. 

Rather than declare victory and keep on with existing, obviously effective policies, Hawai‘i snatched a crisis from the jaws of success and enacted this ban.

Because they did so in part to “protect our keiki,” they had a student speak at yesterday's press conference, Maya Butts. The bathrooms at her school, Kalaheo High School, she said have become just “places to vape.”

That’s surely against school rules and is certainly already illegal, so this sounds like an enforcement problem to me. Except the enforcers failed to uphold existing law. Then she said:

“I’ve watched my smart, athletic friends completely lose their motivation. They got hooked on these devices that taste like candy, move on to other substances, then lose their spark altogether.”

I hate to break it to Butts, but if vaping makes her schoolmates lethargic and lazy, they aren’t vaping nicotine. They’re vaping pot.

But the ban is about more than health and protecting kids, Green said, and the text of the legislation argues. It’s about protecting the environment. In each disposable vape is a battery and these batteries are getting into the environment, they asserted, without data.

Setting aside the fact that I’ve never seen the gutters lined with thrown-away vapes the way one used to see cigarette butts, I’ll just note that this is the same state government that is forcing us to import batteries by the tons for our carbon-free solar future. A half-ton battery in every EV. Batteries the size of a Matson cargo container for the solar farms. All with no plan for their disposal or recycling.

OK, so if you dig into facts and find that there is no youth smoking crisis, and the stated rationalizations for the ban range from transparently bogus to logically inconsistent, what’s really going on here?

[{"type":"text","text":"Class warfare, that’s what."}]

Vaping nicotine is, by and large, a lower-middle class and working-class vice. Construction laborers, single moms working two or three jobs, people who ride the bus. People who rent. They have ambitions and aspirations constantly thwarted by Hawai‘i high cost of living and ridiculously unnecessary housing shortage.

They’re tired, they’re stressed. They turned, at some point in their lives, to Kool Milds and Marlboro Lights to deal with it all. They know smoking is bad, though, but quitting is hard. Smoking is a pleasure, it’s a consolation. It both calms anxiety and sharpens concentration.

Then, miracle of miracles, technology gave them a better choice. Tobacco-free nicotine they can inhale for the same soothing, sensual pleasures they got from smoking, with none of the known carcinogens, none of the pilau smell.

On the other hand, we have the upper-middle class and those who aspire to that status. Your governors, legislators, health department careerists and high school faculty. People with social capital and clout, if not vast wealth beyond the equity in their home that they own. Few to none of these white-collar, college-educated professionals ever smoked, or quit years ago. They know better.

[{"type":"text","text":"They took one look at vaping and thought, in unison:"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“That looks stupid. That looks tacky. That looks low-class.”"}]

That’s it. That’s the whole mindset. All the people who pushed this ban won’t say it, because they know how it sounds. No one wants to be seen as a snob and a Karen, they want to hide that. So they prop up children as human shields, gin up a non-existent crisis and use health and the environment as fig leaves.

All those smiling faces at that press conference? That’s the look of people gloating in triumph.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We took something stupid away from the stupid people! Yay, us!”"}]

That’s all that happened yesterday, and Hawai‘i is a better place as a result. For them.

A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.

Vapes i Stock 2232713126 16x9

<title>Pipikaula Corner: Hawai‘i's fraudulent vape ban</title>

On Tuesday, Hawai‘i Gov. Josh Green signed into law a ban on "99.9% of disposable vapes." It's a move totally at odds with the harm reduction strategies the state uses for all other vices, argues ASD Editor in Chief A. Kam Napier. And it's in response to a non-existent crisis, in that teen smoking and vaping is the lowest it's ever been in a quarter century.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Curses, foiled again!

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Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Curses, foiled again!

Authors

ASD Staff

Reporter

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