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Hawai'i Skies

Kristin Richards

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Kristin Richards at Kapi’olani Park. "

These were taken at Kapi’olani Park right before sunset."

To submit your Hawai'i Skies photo, visit us 

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

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<title>Hawaiʻi Skies: O’ahu Skies</title>

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Kristin Richards at Kapi’olani Park.

Hawaiʻi Skies: O’ahu Skies

 Today&#039;s Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Kristin Richards at Kapi’olani Park. &quot;These were taken at Kapi’olani Park right before sunset.&quot; To submit your Hawai&#039;i Skies photo, visit us online or email: general@alohastatedaily.com For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

, known for its authentic, Sicilian-style pastas and seafood, is launching a limited-time summer happy hour.

Its happy hour menu will be available daily from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the eatery’s patio section. The menu features discounts on some of the eatery’s most popular appetizers, along with drink specials.

The special caviar bites ($42) featured that day included bite-sized blinis with housemade, chilled white wine cream sauce and caviar. Other happy hour-exclusive dishes include the prosciutto plate ($18) and prosciutto and cheese plate ($18). The latter comes with thinly sliced prosciutto, aged Parmesan cheese and honey.

During happy hour, customers can also get half-sized portions of popular appetizers. Choose from beef carpaccio ($18), eggplant caponata ($14) and seafood bruschetta ($16). The beef carpaccio features thinly sliced beef tenderloin topped with parmesan, arugula, extra-virgin olive oil and the eatery’s housemade caper vinaigrette.

Meanwhile, the seafood bruschetta features bruschetta topped with mascarpone cream, sauteed shrimp, scallops, sundried tomatoes and spinach.

The eatery’s truffle carbonara (market price), is a customer favorite. It features fresh spaghetti with pancetta, and is finished with a poached egg and truffles, which are shaved tableside. The pasta is usually $68, so it’s $34 after the discount. This happy hour discount is only available from 5 to 5:30 p.m.

(Note: The 50% discount is currently also available during lunch as a featured special.)

Drink discounts include $8 beers, $10 wines by the glass, $16 specialty cocktails and red or white sangria decanters ($30 each). The sangria decanters are designed to serve approximately four glasses.

Validated customer parking is available at the Embassy Suites Waikīkī and Wyndham Hotel

Taormina happy hour chef Hiro 061826

<title>Taormina Sicilian Cuisine launches its summer happy hour</title>

The eatery, known for its authentic Sicilian cuisine, is launching its limited-time summer happy hour on June 19. Happy hour is from 4 to 5:30 p.m. daily, and features discounted drinks and pūpū — including 50% off the restaurant’s popular truffle carbonara.

Taormina Sicilian Cuisine launches its summer happy hour

To kick off the summer, The Kāhala Hotel & Resort is offering a 20% 

 and Seaside Grill. The discount can be applied to Plumeria Beach House’s a la carte or buffet menus (the discount doesn’t apply to alcoholic drinks). The restaurant is known for its open-air, casual atmosphere with ocean views.

Plumeria Beach House’s seafood dinner buffet is on Friday and Saturdays only from 5 to 8:30 p.m. It normally costs $97 per adult and $49 for children ages 6 to 12. With the kamaʻāina discount, it’s around $78. Buffet seating is limited to two hours per table.

Buffet highlights include seafood on ice — including oysters, snow crab and shrimp cocktail — and a carving station with the eatery’s signature garlic and rosemary-rubbed prime rib of beef.

The seafood station features ‘ahi sashimi, spicy ‘ahi poke, limu ‘ahi poke and mixed ginger scallion poke, along with assorted sushi. Diners can choose from ‘ahi nigiri, inari, dynamite California rolls and more.

Hot entrees include the fresh catch of the day, Thai-style fried chicken, scallop fried rice, salt and pepper shrimp, stuffed salmon and more. Meanwhile, the salad bar features Caesar salad, Nalo greens, Chinese chicken salad, summer watermelon feta salad, seasonal fresh fruits and more.

Desserts include Oreo cheesecakes, caramel walnut sable, fruit tarts, lilikoʻi crunch macnut cakes, cobbler of the day — apple was featured during our visit — and the Kāhala signature bread pudding with creme anglaise. The dessert station also features a self-serve soft serve ice cream machine with a toppings bar.

Diners will receive four hours of complimentary parking with a $50 minimum purchase.

https://www.kahalaresort.com/dining/plumeria-beach-house-menus-seafood/

Seafood buffet from 5 to 8:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays

Plumeria Beach House seafood station 061626

<title>Kamaʻāina can enjoy a 20% dining discount at The Kāhala Hotel & Resort</title>

To kick off the summer, The Kāhala Hotel & Resort is offering a 20% kamaʻāina discount at Plumeria Beach House and Seaside Grill. The discount can be applied to Plumeria Beach House’s a la carte and buffet menus.

Kamaʻāina can enjoy a 20% dining discount at The Kāhala Hotel & Resort

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

Columnists

Small waves lap at the sand. A 15-year-old boy lies face down, unconscious, and a group of young men take turns kicking him in the head. Then a shirtless man runs into the frame and punches one of the assailants in the side of the head.

The shirtless man is Kekoa Tamale, a 23-year-old lifeguard. By his account, he was 

 when he saw the beatdown, and he intervened to save the 15-year-old’s life, giving the boy a chance to escape. Then the group turned on him.

One clip shows Tamale seated, one hand pressed to his eye, while someone wrenches his head back by the hair. In another he is lifted off his feet and slammed into the shorebreak. A third, poorly lit, seems to show two men soccer-kicking him in the surf.

This all happened on the night of May 30 at Waialeʻe Beach on the North Shore of Oʻahu, at a spot locals call Dead Man’s Curve. By now, hundreds of thousands of people have viewed clips of the affair on social media.

Some facts are settled. Honolulu police have arrested five juveniles, and prosecutors have 

 each with attempted assault in the first degree. A 

 for the two victims has passed $100,000. But the kicks at the shoreline were not the night’s only footage.

 shows a different scene: a moonlit stretch of sand, Tamale and a young man trading blows with five other young men, one of them in a gray balaclava, the fight ending with no clear winner. Tamale himself 

 he had a run-in with this group earlier in the evening.

Look at the edges of the clips and you see a larger crowd. More than a dozen people follow the fight with their phones raised. Girls shriek obscenities in shock. One tells the boys to stop, but nobody moves to stop them.

Afterward, Tamale and his companion flex for the camera. A bystander celebrates their triumph against lopsided odds in language I won’t print. During that celebration, a girl holds out a sphere of alcohol, cap off — by appearance, the berry cherry limeade flavor of BuzzBallz Biggies, 15 percent alcohol by volume.

A photo said to be from that night has made the rounds since: a dozen girls posing on the sand. One sticks out her tongue and raises both middle fingers, with what appears to be a champagne bottle in one hand. Three more raise their middle fingers, each using a hand to shield their face from the lens. When the violent clips went viral, one of the girls took to Instagram to explain that they had only come to the beach for a birthday party, and that they were not present for the beating.

A second photo circulated, this one of the alleged suspects. Pages like 

crowdsourced their names. Sleuths posted their home addresses, then the names of their parents. The watching crowd at the beach never went home. It got bigger.

The comment sections offer two cures. Many say the boys need more lickins at home. Others say lock them up and lose the key. They’re right, up to a point.

Parents should parent. A 15-year-old has no business drinking on a beach after curfew. And punishing assault is the first and plainest duty of government — even those who want a small state would like it to enforce justice. In this case, prosecutions should be vigorous and penalties real.

The sword of the state is a terror to bad conduct, and the belt corrects behavior at home. But neither can supply what was missing on that beach. A young man who joins a mob to kick an unconscious boy in the head does not need adjustment. He needs regeneration.

That is the old Christian word for it. Scripture says we were dead in our “trespasses and sins,” following the course of this world, “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” It is by God’s grace that we are saved through faith.

How does God change a heart? Not by handing down better rules. Through the prophet Ezekiel, He promises to take out “the heart of stone” and put in “a heart of flesh.” That is a transplant, not a tune-up. And His ordinary instrument for it is almost embarrassingly humble: people carrying His Word to other people, until the Spirit makes them live.

The boys who threw the kicks need Christ. So do the ones who filmed, laughed, or ran. So do the ones who shared, and sleuthed, and scrolled. Stricter parents and longer sentences can change what a man does, for a time. But they have never once changed what he loves.

Hawaiʻi has been here before. In the early 1820s the islands were ravaged by disease, drunkenness and dissolution. Out of that disorder, the Christian chiefess Kaʻahumanu, governing as kuhina nui, and the young king Kauikeaouli — Kamehameha III — advanced laws against drunkenness, gambling and violence.

Meanwhile, an awakening of Christian faith moved through the Islands. The laws did not produce the awakening. The awakening produced the laws.

I do not know how the courts will sort out the night of May 30, and neither does anyone posting about it. I do know what the beach is called. And apart from Christ, man is dead.

My prayer is that everyone on that sand — the beaten, the beaters and the watchers — would come to know Christ, and that His ambassadors on the North Shore would do what ambassadors do, and beg them to be reconciled to God.

Cross over beach Firefly Gemini Flash 843996

<title>No law can raise the dead</title>

Maybe police crackdowns or stricter parental discipline might've prevented the now infamous North Shore beatdowns, writes ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa, but at heart, the cruelties of that night are evidence of a deeper spiritual crisis in Hawai‘i.

No law can raise the dead

Stephanie Salmons Headshot

Stephanie Salmons

Government & Politics

Tuesday marked the filing deadline for prospective political candidates to submit their nomination papers to run for office in the 2026 elections. 

, city and county council seats are up for grabs across the Islands this year, along with mayoral races in Maui and Kaua‘i counties. These races are nonpartisan. Here's who filed as of June 2, according to information from the state 

The 2026 primary election is set for Aug. 8 with the general election following on Nov. 3. Here's who filed:

Waikele, Kunia, Wahiawā, and North Shore to Kahaluʻu)

[{"type":"listItem","content":[{"type":"text","text":"Matt Weyer (incumbent)"}],"text":""}]

Hawai‘i Kai, Kuli‘ou‘ou, Niu Valley, ‘Āina Haina, Wailupe, Wai‘alae Iki, Kalani Valley, Kāhala, Wilhelmina Rise, Kaimukī, Kapahulu, Diamond Head and Waikīkī)

(Portions of Kakaʻako, Downtown Honolulu, Chinatown, Punchbowl, Papakōlea, Pauoa Valley, Nuʻuanu, Iwilei, Liliha, ʻĀlewa Heights, Kalihi and Kalihi Valley)

Aiea, Waimalu, Newtown, Pearl City, Seaview, Crestview, Waipi‘o Gentry, Koa Ridge, Mililani Town and Mililani Mauka

[{"type":"listItem","content":[{"type":"text","text":"Val Aquino Okimoto (incumbent)"}],"text":""}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"underline"}],"text":"Hawaii County Council"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"District 1 (Hilo, Hāmākua, portion of Waimea)"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"District 2 (Hilo, portions of South Hilo)"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"District 4 (Lower Puna, Pāhoa)"}]

(Kā‘u, portions of South Kona, Volcano)

[{"type":"text","text":"Holeka Goro Inaba (incumbent)"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"James Hustace (incumbent)"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"underline"}],"text":"Maui County"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mayor"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Maui County Council"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"East Maui"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"West Maui"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Wailuku-Waihe‘e-Waikapu"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Kahului"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"South Maui"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Makawao-Ha‘ikū-Pā‘ia"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Upcountry"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Lāna‘i"}]

[{"type":"listItem","content":[{"type":"text","text":"Gabe Johnson (incumbent)"}],"text":""}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Molokaʻi"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"underline"}],"text":"Kaua‘i County"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Kaua‘i County Council"}]

Honolulu Hale 020525

<title>Here's who's running for office in 2026, part 2</title>

Tuesday marked the filing deadline for prospective political candidates. Here's who's on the ballot for city and county elections this year.

Here's who's running for office in 2026, part 2

Christian Shimabuku Headshot

Christian Shimabuku

Sports

[{"text":"There’s no place like home.  ","type":"text"}]

With no major professional sports teams based in the state of Hawaii, competitions held in the 50th have a distinctly un-corporate, Island feel.

As Aloha State Daily prepares to provide daily coverage of the Hawaii sports scene, below are some examples of what sets the sports scene in Hawaii apart.

[{"text":"Hawaii Ponoi  ","type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}]}]

Before competition held locally even begins, teams will stand for The Star-Spangled Banner, customary for contests held in the United States. In Hawaii, teams will remain standing for Hawaii Ponoi, the state anthem of Hawaii. While the vast majority of visiting teams get the memo, in rare instances, some teams will head back to their bench before realizing there’s another anthem to stand for.

[{"text":"Time and travel","type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}]}]

Given the unique time zone in which it resides, home contests for Hawaii teams are more often than not the last game to take place on a given game day, particularly at the college level, where such things can be tracked.

The University of Hawaii football team has gained a faction of fans over the years as the last game during college football Saturdays in the fall. Those UH football home games have gained a cult following as “The Chase Game,” where some sports gamblers on the mainland try to continue a hot streak or get even betting on or against the Rainbow Warriors. Most of Hawaii’s home football games kick off at 6 p.m. if it is aired by Spectrum Sports, though some will begin earlier depending on which network is airing the games.

Another natural occurrence for all college teams in Hawaii given their geography is rigorous travel. The NCAA Division II teams in the state (Hawaii Pacific, Hawaii-Hilo and Chaminade) will annually face each other as members of the Pacific West Conference, mitigating travel in those instances. However, the University of Hawaii is the lone Division I team in the state, leading to long treks to the Mainland for road competition.

[{"text":"The Aloha Spirit","type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}]}]

Symbols of aloha, both literal and figurative, are ubiquitous in competitions featuring Hawaii teams.

While college coaching staffs of indoor sports teams from the rest of the United States opt for suits or quarter-zips, their counterparts in Hawaii are likely donning aloha attire.

On the gridiron, the football coach for the University of Hawaii is often seen coaching with a lei on. That tradition extends to other college coaches with Hawaii ties, including Ohio head coach Brian Smith and San Jose State head coach Ken Niumatalolo, both UH alums.

In another symbol that is uniquely Hawaii, University of Hawaii fans often wave ti leaves during games for good luck, a tradition that has made its way to the Mainland in some of the biggest games in UH history, such as the 2008 Sugar Bowl, the 2016 NCAA men’s basketball tournament and multiple NCAA tournaments for UH’s men’s and women’s volleyball teams.

While senior ceremonies at the college level oftentimes take place before the senior game itself, at the University of Hawaii, those festivities occur after the game. Fans often stick around and give lei to their favorite players and coaches, with some senior athletes receiving so much lei that their faces are covered.

At times, UH will also honor the senior athletes of the opposing team with lei before honoring its own seniors.

Hawaiʻi Skies: O’ahu Skies

ASD Staff

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Hawaiʻi Skies: O’ahu Skies

Authors

ASD Staff

Reporter

More in Hawai'i Skies

Hawaiʻi Skies: Lunar halo

Hawaiʻi Skies: Aloha Friday

Hawaiʻi Skies: Rain = rainbows

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