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[{"type":"text","text":"It really doesn't get more terrifying than this..."}]

Smile 26 3 14

<title>Daily Smile: Saturday, March 14, 2026</title>

It really doesn't get more terrifying than this...

Daily Smile: Saturday, March 14, 2026

 It really doesn&#039;t get more terrifying than this...

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

Crime & Courts

Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke has been indicted for bribery by a O‘ahu grand jury.

Luke’s bail was set at $80,000 Friday after being charged with bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery and falsifying her campaign spending report.

Four others were also indicted Friday in connection with the State Attorney General’s investigation into a purported paper bag full of $35,000 paid to an unknown, but “influential,” lawmaker referenced during a 2022 federal bribery investigation.

Those others included former State Rep. Ryan Yamane, lobbyist Tobi Solidum, former chair of the state Public Utilities Commission Leodoloff Asuncion Jr., and Ford Fuchigami, airports administrator for the state Department of Transportation.

According to the indictment, during Luke’s 2022 campaign for lieutenant governor, Solidum was seeking additional state money for Covid community testing centers. The indictment cites a conversation between Solidum and Ty Cullen — the former Hawai‘i Rep. who, at the time, had turned informant for the FBI — where Solidum was worried that the state DOH would cut funding for Covid testing centers soon.

During the conversation, Solidum reportedly told Cullen Luke was running for the lieutenant governor position, adding: “All I gotta do is give her more money.”

Solidum, Cullen and Luke all reportedly met on Jan. 20, 2022 at Morton’s The Steakhouse in Ala Moana, where Solidum’s stepdaughter Kristen Pae placed an envelope on the table containing two $5,000 checks, one from Solidum and one from Pae. Luke reportedly took the envelope.

Solidum then told Luke, “By next week we’ll have 35, so it will be halfway to our 70.”

Later during that meeting, Solidum asked Luke about the possibility of drawing upon federal funds to continue Covid testing, to which Luke agreed to follow up.

The two $5,000 checks were subsequently deposited into the Friends of Sylvia Luke bank account, the same day Luke arranged for a meeting to discuss emergency appropriations for additional Covid community testing. In February, Luke’s Finance Committee, which she chaired, passed 

, a bill approving more than $170 million in state funds for Covid mitigation measures for the next two fiscal years.

The indictment does not specifically mention an exact $35,000 transaction, let alone a paper bag, although the the transaction in Morton’s strongly resembles an event Luke described in February: she admitted accepting two $5,000 checks in a dinner involving Cullen, although she also claimed she never cashed the checks.

Asuncion’s presence in the indictment entirely stems from his role as Luke’s campaign treasurer, wherein he allegedly knowingly failed to disclose the donations by Solidum and Pae, and also his subsequent claims in March that the checks had been returned to those donors unspent. Asuncion reportedly claimed that those checks had never been deposited into the Friends of Sylvia Luke bank account, and therefore believed he didn’t need to report them.

Despite this, Deputy Attorney General David Van Acker said Friday that he believes Yamane to be the “most culpable” of the five named in the indictment.

According to the indictment, Solidum had sent money to Yamane in 2020 and 2021, and later asked about the status of health care measure 

, which failed to move forward through conference committees that year. Yamane texted Solidum “Sorry couldn’t deliver it.”

Solidum and Yamane continued to meet throughout 2021 and 2022, with Solidum repeatedly giving Yamane money. Solidum reportedly “texted Yamane in an effort to get a rival Covid testing company fined,” which Yamane assisted by forwarding Solidum’s claims about said company to the state Department of Health.

In early 2022, Yamane, Solidum and Fuchigami met frequently to discuss HB 2392. At one point, the text conversation between Yamane and Solidum turned to the federal charges against Cullen, leading Yamane to text Solidum “Might not be good to been [sic] seen with me.”

At the end of the 2022 legislative session, Yamane spoke effusively in support of HB 2392, and specifically named Luke in his thanks for getting the measure passed.

Fuchigami, for his part, received a $7,000 check from Solidum in Jan. 2022. Fuchigami, who worked for the Senate Ways and Means Committee at the time, was party to subsequent conversations with Solidum and Yamane regarding HB 2392.

Yamane was indicted for bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery; Solidum for three counts of bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery; Fuchigami with use of false statements, conspiracy to commit bribery and obstruction of justice; and Asuncion with falsifying candidate committee reports, use of false statements and obstruction of justice.

“For years, people in Hawai‘i have wondered: ‘why can’t we investigate and prosecute our own public officials for corruption?’” Attorney General Anne Lopez said at a briefing Friday. “This is the reason why the Legislature created the Special Investigation and Prosecution Division [within the AG’s office] … We have a commitment to following the facts to where they lead, no matter how long it takes to get there.”

Nonetheless, Van Acker emphasized that Luke and the others in the indictment are still presumed innocent, and that the statements in the indictment remain only allegations. Van Acker and Lopez did not take questions Friday.

Luke took an indefinite leave of absence from the lieutenant governor position in April, which has continued to this day.

 For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

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<title>Luke indicted for bribery</title>

Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke and four others have been charged in Attorney General corruption investigation

Luke indicted for bribery

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Sterling Higa

Columnists

Hawaiʻi now has more residents 65 and older than children under 18.

At statehood, the Islands were young. They are not anymore.

This did not simply happen. Some of it was planned. The man who led the planning died in April at the age of 100, after a long life of honorable service. He counted the slowing of Hawaiʻi’s growth among his proudest achievements.

Gov. George Ariyoshi led the state of Hawaiʻi for 13 years, from 1973 to 1986 — longer than anyone before or since. He belonged to the last generation that believed, without irony, that government could improve the condition of man. He dressed for the office he held: pressed suits, perfect hair, a bearing that reminded people of Kennedy. He and his wife Jean matched the dignity of the role. Today’s politicians often carry the detachment of people who half-suspect the whole thing is theater. Ariyoshi never did.

Ariyoshi was not a cynic or a schemer. He was a capable, earnest man who believed the most respected experts of his age. And the experts were wrong.

In 1968, a Stanford biologist named Paul Ehrlich published 

. It opened by declaring the battle to feed humanity already lost. Hundreds of millions would starve in the coming decade, he warned, no matter what anyone did. Four years later, the Club of Rome released a report built on a computer model. Factor in population growth, food, resource depletion, industry, and pollution, and the machine predicted total collapse. The model was treated less like a guess and more like an oracle.

The books sold millions. But beneath the charts sat one assumption: that a human being is a mouth and nothing more. The models saw people as problems, never as problem solvers. Every child arrived on the ledger with a minus sign.

Scripture starts from the opposite premise. “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him,” says Psalm 127. A blessing, not a burden.

The blessings came. The same humans the models had written off went on to breed drought-resistant crops and feed them manmade fertilizer. Famine retreated to the margins of the earth. A trucker named Malcom McLean packed cargo into standard steel boxes, and over the next 50 years the shipping container rewired world trade. Moving goods became so cheap that distance nearly stopped mattering. A farmer in Iowa could feed a family in Osaka, and a factory anywhere could serve customers everywhere.

None of this was in the model. A computer could extend a curve. But it could not foresee the impact of a steel box.

Where the prophets were believed most completely, the results were darkest. China’s One Child Policy enforced the arithmetic with forced abortions and sterilizations.

Hawaiʻi’s response was gentler, and the worry behind it was not lunacy. The Islands grew fast after the war — new subdivisions, new hotels climbing out of the sand at Waikīkī. A reasonable person standing in the governor’s office in 1975, watching the curves climb, could honestly ask how much the Islands could carry.

Ariyoshi’s answer was “managed growth.” He used no coercion. Instead, he built a State Plan that set targets for slowing population growth. And he wielded a Land Use Commission that kept most land closed to building. What land remained was wrapped in red tape that slowed development to a tree snail’s pace.

The plan worked the way a tourniquet works. Growth slowed, as did homebuilding. The supply of houses fell behind the number of families who needed them. Prices did what prices always do when many people chase few homes. Working families were priced out, then pushed out — to Las Vegas, to Texas, to anywhere the math still worked. The state that set out to slow the growth of its population ended by exporting its children.

Ariyoshi never disowned the project. In 2009 he published a short book looking back on 50 years of statehood. In it he wrote with evident satisfaction that annual population growth had “slowed to about 1.5 percent, at least partly due to managed growth policies.” In the same pages he looked ahead: by 2035, he projected, our state’s population would be 1.6 million people.

Ariyoshi was optimistic. Hawaiʻi’s population has declined now in five of the past six years and is below its peak of 1.45 million. The model missed again, this time in the other direction.

The planners who could not foresee abundance also could not foresee the empty cradle. Today, Hawaiʻi has nearly twice the population it had in 1972, yet has 

The old ideas did not die when the famines failed to arrive on schedule. They split. One branch grew more radical. There are people today who describe humanity as a cancer on the planet, who greet falling birth rates as good news, who tally each new child chiefly as a carbon cost. That is the same arithmetic with the mask off: People as problems, all the way down.

The other branch grew respectable, and it lives closer to home. The staunchest defenders of Ariyoshi’s machinery today are not socialists. They are homeowners whose home values owe much to the scarcity his policies built. Many are conservatives who distrust government in every arena except land use. They praise the free market on Tuesday and testify against the apartment project next door on Wednesday. Managed growth survives because scarcity has shareholders.

Ariyoshi deserves better than blame and worse than a shrine. He placed too much faith in academics to predict the future and too much faith in the state to control it. In this he was a man of his time.

Every generation believes some prophecy. Ours may be the conviction that decline is destiny — that the young will leave, that the schools will empty, that the best a government can do is manage the shrinking.

There is another way to plan. Build as if children are a blessing. Open land for the families we hope to welcome rather than ration it to keep out the ones we fear. Build the houses, the classrooms, and the roads for a Hawaiʻi that grows, and let families, churches, and builders do the work the models never accounted for.

A state that plans for decline will get it. A state that receives the next generation as a gift may be surprised by what that gift brings with it.

The Islands were young once. They could be young again.

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Empty playground

<title>Hawaiʻi population decline: How George Ariyoshi’s managed growth policies shaped today’s…</title>

George Ariyoshi dressed for the office he held and trusted the most respected experts of his age — and the experts were wrong. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on the population prophecy that failed twice.

Hawaiʻi population decline: How George Ariyoshi’s managed growth policies shaped today’s crisis

Stephanie Salmons Headshot

Stephanie Salmons

Business & Tourism

The best of Hawai‘i — the best family attraction, cruise, lū‘au, resort, restaurant and tour company — has been decided by voters in USA Today's 10Best Readers' Choice Awards.

Nominees in each category were chosen with the help of a panel of experts but the winners were determined by votes and announced July 22.

[{"type":"text","text":"Here's who made the cut in 2026:"}]

Oahu aerial unsplash 051525

<title>Here's the best of Hawai‘i, according to the people</title>

The best family attraction, cruise, lū‘au, resort, restaurant and tour company in Hawai‘i have been decided by voters in USA Today's 10Best Readers' Choice Awards. Read on to see who made the lists.

Here's the best of Hawai‘i, according to the people

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

There’s a new Okinawan soba spot in Honolulu.

 is located in Eaton Square. The business opened earlier this year, and focuses on Okinawan soba.

The signature Okinawan soba dish features chewy wheat noodles in a pork-bonito broth. It’s topped with braised pork belly, a marinated egg, bonito flakes, red ginger and scallions.

The noodles have a nice chewy consistency. Okinawan soba is different from Japanese soba in that it features a thicker wheat-based noodle (instead of buckwheat). The broth is flavorful and comforting.

The soba itself is $9.50, but you can get the combo with a traditional seasoned rice bowl for $12.95.

Other menu options include tan tan Okinawan soba (rich sesame broth with spicy ground pork, chashu and bok choy), rice with savory Nikumiso (steamed white rice with a savory minced pork topping).

Customers can choose to dine in or takeout; the shop has limited counter seating. There are several tables in the courtyard outside the noodle shop.

Mahalo Noodle Waikīkī is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Mondays to Saturdays (closed Sundays). Street parking or public parking in the Eaton Square lot are available.

Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays (closed Sundays)

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Mahalo Noodle soba bowl 061126

<title>Mahalo Noodle Waikīkī offers Okinawan soba</title>

The eatery focuses on Okinawan soba, which includes a wheat-based noodle instead of buckwheat. Other menu items include tan tan Okinawan soba and traditional seasoned rice bowls.

Mahalo Noodle Waikīkī offers Okinawan soba

More than 200 candidates are running for elected offices in Hawai‘i and will appear on ballots this year. See the candidates for city and county races, 

Tuesday marked the filing deadline for prospective political candidates to submit their nomination papers to run for office in the upcoming 2026 elections. The 2026 primary election will be held Saturday, Aug. 8, with the general election set for Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Here are the candidates for statewide races. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Governor"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lieutenant Governor"}]

U.S. Representative candidates, District II

State Senator District 5 (Wailuku, Kahului)

State Senator District 8 (Kaua‘i, Ni‘ihau)

State Senator District 9 (Hawai‘i Kai, Diamond Head)

State Senator District 10 (Kaimukī, Kapahulu, Mō‘ili‘ili)

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"• Incumbent Les Ihara Jr., Democrat "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"• Jackson Sayama, Democrat  "}]

State Senator District 11 (Mānoa, Makiki, Punchbowl)

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"• Incumbent Carol Fukunaga, Democrat "}]

State Senator District 13 (Liliha, Iwilei, Nu‘uanu)

State Senator District 14 (Moanalua, ‘Aiea, Fort Shafter)

State Senator District 15 (Kalihi, Māpunapuna)

State Senator District 17 (Mililani Town, Wahiawā)

State Senator District 19 (Pearl City, Waipahu)

State Senator District 20 (‘Ewa Beach, Ocean Pointe)

State Senator District 21 (Kalaeloa, Kapolei)

State Senator District 25 (Kailua, Waimānalo)

State Rep. District 3 (Hilo, Keaukaha, Kea‘au)

State Rep. District 4 (Hawaiian Paradise Park, Hawaiian Beaches)

State Rep. District 5 (Kea‘au, Mountain View, Volcano, 

Pāhala, Punalu‘u, Nā‘ālehu, Hawaiian Ocean View

State Rep. District 6 (Captain Cook, Kailua-Kona)

State Rep. District 7 (Kailua-Kona, Honokōhau)

State Rep. District 8 (Hawi, Waimea, Waikōloa)

State Rep. District 12 (Pukalani, Makawao)

State Rep. District 13 ( Moloka‘i, Lāna‘i, Kaho‘olawe)

State Rep. District 15 (Hā‘ena, Hanalei)

State Rep. District 16 (Wailuā, Līhu‘e)

Kōloa, Po‘ipū, Kalāheo, Ele‘ele, Hanapēpē, Waimea

State Rep. District 18 (Portlock, Hawai‘i Kai)

State Rep. District 19 (‘Āina Haina, Niu Valley)

State Rep. District 20 (Leahi, Wai‘alae, Kaimukī)

State Rep. District 21 (Pālolo Valley, Wilhelmina Rise)

State Rep. District 23 (Mō‘ili‘ili, McCully)

State Rep. District 25 (Ala Moana, Downtown Honolulu)

State Rep. District 26 (Makiki, Punchbowl)

State Rep. District 27 (Pacific Heights, Nu‘uanu)

State Rep. District 28 (Sand Island, Chinatown)

State Rep. District 29 (Kamehameha Heights, Kalihi Valley)

State Rep. District 30 (Kalihi, Hickam Village)

State capitol 022725

<title>Here's who's running for office in 2026, part 1</title>

Tuesday marked the filing deadline for prospective political candidates. See who's running for state offices here.

Here's who's running for office in 2026, part 1

ahi fillets are popular during the holidays, but did you know you can get them all year long?

Aloha State Daily was recently invited for a tour of 

 and Pier 38 Fish Market, where we got an inside look at the business’s “boat to table” process.

Our tour began with a walk-through of the Fresh Island Fish, which included its storage and processing rooms. The tour was led by Fresh Island Fish CEO Neil Hirasuna, Ahi & Vegetable restaurant manager/lead Paul Santos and Fresh Island Fish director of operations Marcus Marrotte.

Envision a bunch of pallets on the ground. Pallets get offloaded directly from the vessels; they get passed to the scale, graded and weights get assigned. This is the first room, where everything is stored temporarily until it needs to get cut and processed.

We like to organize things by species. What you have on the racks is primarily blue marlin and striped marlin.

What makes us a little bit different is that most of the source of our fish comes directly from our vessels. We own and operate 27 commercial long line vessels. We take a lot of pride in being able to directly offload our own vessels. A lot of the challenge that is presented by that is you don’t get to pick and choose the grade (of fish); you have to take it all. You don’t get to pick and choose the species you get; you have to take it all.

What that forces us to do is find alternative markets for a lot of these fish, so nothing goes to waste. For example, we sell a lot of marlin to a fish jerky maker in Kona.

Aloha State Daily (ASD): What are some of the restaurants that buy your fish?

i Kai is a huge supporter of us; Maui Brewing in Waikīkī, as well. A lot of our main support comes from the Neighbor Islands as well — Dukes, Hula Grill, the TS Restaurant Group, the Merriman’s group, they’re big supporters of Fresh Island Fish.

ASD: How long has Pier 38 Fish Market been open?

The market has been open for about 3 1/2 years. The market originated from back in the Covid-19 pandemic. About 70 to 80% of all the fish caught in our longline fishery here is consumed locally — in food service restaurants and retail. A vast majority of the market died off once dine-in died off (in March 2020).

What we did the very next week after the dine-in shut down was announced — we saw our sales and the value of fish plummeting — is we started a drive thru-sale in the parking lot. It expanded from a drive-thru sale that we held in the parking lot into a full-on online ordering process through Shopify.

Right around Mother’s Day of 2020 or 2021, we had our largest sale. Our experience showed us that there was a much larger market for consumers, and maybe our business model should be expanded.

 This is the cutting room. Within this room, we cut anywhere from 20,000 to 25,000 pounds of fish a day. We separate it by species, for food safety and cleanliness purposes, and to make sure things are more organized.

We like to say we got the freshest fish because it comes directly from our cutting room — directly from our vessels — onto the shelves. We have all the packaging materials; everything gets packed here, it doesn

’t go off site. Everything is directly loaded from the processing facility and cutting room directly to the shelves.

ASD: Tell us more about the grades of ‘ahi.

We have many grades of ‘ahi, like 1, 1+; 

2, 2+; and 3. Typically, a lot of restaurants use 2+ for sashimi. Two minus is what we call a poke grade; the reason why we call it a poke grade is because that’s what the majority of people use it for. It’s much more pink and pale. Two is for sashimi, for people a little more value-oriented and a little less picky about the fish they serve.

Our number one-grade ‘ahi is more red and vibrant. This goes to the highest-end sushi bars; it’s used for sashimi.

 Once it passes through here (being packed and wrapped), it goes out for distribution. Another thing that makes us unique is that we use oxygen-permeable bags. It’s mostly a food safety thing, but it extends the shelf life (of the fish), which is pretty key for our customers.

 (For sashimi cutting) We section of the backside of the fish to separate the higher-grade of fish we use for nigiri and sashimi. I’m going to section this off into three even blocks; I’m cutting with the grain.

[{"type":"text","text":"The technique for cutting sashimi is going against the grain."}]

ASD: Poke can feature several different grades of ‘ahi, right?

Yes, you can use the scraps of ‘ahi that you’re not going to use for nigiri. That way, you utilize the entire fish.

ASD: Tell us more about the poke kits that are available at the market.

Kira Kaneshiro (Fresh Island Fish director of internal audit):

 Our poke kits are, hands down, the most popular (item). That’s been our staple from day one. The nice thing about the poke kits is that because you mix it yourself, it stays a little bit fresher. If you come in on a Saturday morning and you’re not going to have it until Saturday night, then you can mix it right before you’re going to serve it.

You can custom-make your poke kits to your liking. You can always come (to the market) and add whatever you want — a little bit of limu, a little bit of inamona, fresh Alaea salt. Inamona is very popular; it’s that earthiness you see in most poke.

Fresh Island Fish ahi platter 123025

<title>Behind the scenes at Fresh Island Fish and Pier 38 Fish Market</title>

Aloha State Daily was recently invited for a tour at Fresh Island Fish. We learned more about the business’s “boat-to-table” process, watched whole ‘ahis being broken down, and got tips for sashimi-cutting.

Daily Smile: Saturday, March 14, 2026

ASD Staff

Reporter

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Daily Smile: Saturday, March 14, 2026

Authors

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