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Hawai'i Skies

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Doug Cochran at Makani Kai Marina, Kāneʻohe. "Preparing for an early morning sail from the Makani Kai Marina."

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<title>Hawaiʻi Skies: Morning sail</title>

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Doug Cochran at Makani Kai Marina, Kāneʻohe.

Hawaiʻi Skies: Morning sail

Today&#039;s Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Doug Cochran at Makani Kai Marina, Kāneʻohe. &quot;Preparing for an early morning sail from the Makani Kai Marina.&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.

Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"When the mailman is your best friend..."}]

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<title>Daily Smile: Saturday, June 27, 2026</title>

When the mailman is your best friend...

Daily Smile: Saturday, June 27, 2026

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Sterling Higa

Columnists

For five weeks this summer, the largest naval exercise in the world is anchored off our islands. Thirty-one nations sent forty gray hulls, five submarines, and aircraft that cross our sky from June into July. The drill has a storyline, and the storyline involves an enemy fleet. The Navy is too polite to say whose, but everyone watching knows it is China.

It is a strange thing to watch a wargame from your own lānai, stranger still to do it while the shelves are full and the children have soccer practice. But RIMPAC poses a question that has nothing to do with the Navy. What do you trust to keep you safe?

A generation ago, a clever man thought he had the answer. The Soviet Union was folding and the Cold War was ending. Francis Fukuyama wrote that liberal democracy had become the final form of human government. The argument was over. The West had won, and the rest was paperwork.

The headlines have not cooperated since then. Iran is run by clerics who believe history bends their way. After American and Israeli bombs fell this spring, they closed the Strait of Hormuz.

In Venezuela, a long experiment in socialism had already emptied the shelves. Two earthquakes forty seconds apart killed close to a thousand people, and the digging is not done.

China keeps spending, patient and sure of itself, buying ports and roads from Africa to the South China Sea. And in Washington, the government that supposedly won the argument at the end of history can barely pass a budget.

Each of these countries has made a wager. Tehran trusts its missiles, Caracas trusted its strongman, Beijing trusts its ships, and we trust ours. Every government asks for a single arrangement of power to last forever.

From the middle of the Pacific, all the news can feel like someone else’s weather. Prices have climbed here too — gas, eggs, the usual. But the stations still pump and the warehouse stores still stack the pallets high. Ours is a rich country, with land and oil to spare. We are heirs to ordered liberty and markets freer than most, though never quite as free as their champions liked to claim.

A man may enjoy fine weather, but he gets into trouble when he begins to believe he arranged it.

This December marks 85 years since the bombing of Pearl Harbor. One morning, a great many certainties vanished, and Hawaiʻi was plunged into a World War. We are not the quiet edge of the map. We are the middle of it — the center of somebody else’s plan.

The families on base do not need a columnist to tell them this. They read it in the deployment calendar. They know something the rest of us can easily forget at Costco: Our safety has always leaned on somebody’s fleet.

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lᴏʀᴅ our God. The fleet in our harbor is a great strength, but a poor god. We shouldn’t ask it to be one because it cannot do the job.

This is bad news for two kinds of people. It is bad news for the man who reads the headlines, buys a bunker, and decides that because nothing lasts, nothing is worth building. And it is bad news for his cheerful cousin. He mistakes American power for the kingdom of God and salutes the flag as though it were an altar. The God who rules the Strait of Hormuz and controls the fault lines under Caracas also governs the loading dock at Costco.

So build the things that survive war. Not the bunker, but the congregation, the friendship with a neighbor across the fence, the school for your children’s children. Build the small, local groups that can catch a falling family before the federal government has heard them fall. That is not retreat. It is a readiness that does not depend on chariots.

The ships will be at sea tomorrow, training in the same water that smoked in 1941. The clever man was wrong, though not in the way the frightened expect. History is not finished, and it is not finished because it is going somewhere — toward an end already chosen, by Someone who is not nervous. So we watch the gray hulls with thanks and without fear.

Destroyers in Pearl Harbor i Stock 2022

<title>RIMPAC 2026: Hawaiʻi, China, and the Question Underneath</title>

The children have soccer practice while, a few miles offshore, 31 nations rehearse a war. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on what Hawaiʻi trusts to keep it safe.

RIMPAC 2026: Hawaiʻi, China, and the Question Underneath

Stephanie Salmons Headshot

Stephanie Salmons

Business & Tourism

Several new retailers and restaurants have recently opened at Ala Moana Center in Honolulu and more are set to open soon, the center announced Thursday. Here’s what you should know.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What's New:"}]

, a Montreal-born fashion brand, can be found on Level 3 of the ‘Ewa Wing

, a fast-casual brand serving up Hawaiian-style plate lunches, has opened in the Makai Market Food Court on Street Level 1.

, know for its handcrafted xiao long bao, is open on Mall Level 2 of the ‘Ewa Wing.

(ICYMI: Read more about Supreme Dumplings from ASD's Food and Dining reporter Kelli Shiroma Braiotta 

The Cookie Corner, a local brand offering freshly baked cookies, bars, brownies and other treats, has expanded at Ala Moana Center with a second location on Mall Level 2 of the Diamond Head Wing.

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

, a luxury wellness and recovery destination created by the team behind Body Balance Hawai‘i, is set to open on Street Level 1 of the Diamond Head Wing in August. The new studio will offer infrared and traditional saunas with red light therapy, cold plunges, private Pilates and personal training, body treatments and other wellness services.

, offering a selection of toys, plushies, collectables, stationery, beauty products, home goods, fragrances, electronics, snacks and accessories, is set to open on Level 3 of the ‘Ewa Wing in August.

, an ear piercing and jewelry brand, is also set to open on Level 3 of the ‘Ewa Wing in August.

 will make its debut in the Islands on July 1.

, which is renovating and expanding its permanent location at Street Level 1 near Center Court, can temporarily be found on Street Level 1 of the Diamond Head Wing (makai). The refreshed space is expected to reopen this summer.

Luxury brand Dolce & Gabbana has relocated to a newly designed boutique on Mall Level 2 of the Diamond Head Wing.

Gap will unveil its newly renovated store, found on Level 3 of the ‘Ewa Wing, on July 3.

UA Hawai‘i, formerly known as Ua Body, has relocated to a new space on Level 3, Center Court.

Ala Moana Center opened in 1959 and is the world's largest open-air shopping center with more than 2.4 million square feet of retail space. It offers more than 350 stores and restaurants, including more than 160 dining options.

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Ala Moana Center 052526

<title>What's new at Ala Moana Center</title>

The shopping center has welcomed a number of new tenants with more coming soon.

What's new at Ala Moana Center

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Michael Brestovansky

Crime & Courts

A debate over whether elephants are “people,” legally speaking, will go to the Hawai‘i Supreme Court.

In 2023, the Nonhuman Rights Project — a Florida-based nonprofit dedicated to challenging the legal status of animals — filed a petition in the First Circuit Court in Honolulu on behalf of two elephants at the Honolulu Zoo, Mari and Vaigai.

That petition was a writ of habeas corpus, a legal mechanism calling for a court to review and overturn a person’s potentially unlawful imprisonment. Even non-human animals like elephants, the petition argued, have a right by common law to bodily liberty, and the petition requested that the court order that Mari and Vaigai be released to an elephant sanctuary.

Whether Mari and Vaigai can legally be considered people became the central issue in the ensuing court case, which has been appealed up to the state’s highest court: the state Supreme Court accepted a petition to hear the case last week.

This wasn’t the first time the Nonhuman Rights Project has argued that habeas corpus applies to non-human animals in general or elephants in particular: the New York Court of Appeals heard a habeas corpus petition by the Nonhuman Rights Project on behalf of an elephant, Happy, who was kept at the Bronx Zoo.

While the New York court ultimately ruled against the Nonhuman Rights Project, that they heard the case at all “refuted the irrational and arbitrary notion that only members of the species Homo sapiens may invoke the protections of the Great Writ,” the Honolulu petition read.

“As societal norms and knowledge about nonhuman animals evolve, so too must common law,” the petition went on.

That additional knowledge about elephants made up a substantial portion of the Honolulu petition, going into detail about the animals’ sophisticated cognitive abilities and potential for self-awareness.

Mari, 50, and Vaigai, 40, were born in the wild, but were respectively gifted to the Honolulu Zoo 44 and 34 years ago as gifts by the prime ministers of India at the time. Since then, they have lived apart from any other animals of their species, something the petition called “undeniably cruel,” given elephants’ highly social nature.

The petition also claimed that the conditions of the Honolulu Zoo are detrimental to the elephants’ health. Both animals are obese, the petition claims, and only have access to an “impoverished environment” for stimulation.

”When the elephants are not simply standing and feeding, they can be seen walking between the front and back yards on the same path every time,” the petition read. “Mari and Vaigai’s lives are nothing but a succession of boring and frustrating days, damaging to their bodies and minds, and punctuated only by interaction with their keepers.”

While the First Circuit dismissed the petition in 2024 — arguing that habeas corpus under the common law are only available to humans — the Nonhuman Rights Project appealed the case to the state Intermediate Court of Appeals.

That court ruled in January in support of the First Circuit’s decision. By that point, the legal argument revolved around the legal definition of “person” and whether it specifically means “human” in all instances. Writing for the majority opinion, Judge Keith Hiraoka wrote that “person” and “animal” are considered separate legal categories throughout common law, for example as relating to theft of property including animals or anti-bestiality laws.

Nonetheless, the debate will continue in the Supreme Court, although future court dates have not yet been scheduled.

[{"type":"text","text":"Aloha State Daily reached out to the Honolulu Zoo for comment."}]

Honolulu zoo elephants

<title>Are elephants people? State Supreme Court to weigh in</title>

Two Honolulu Zoo elephants, Mari and Vaigai, are at the center of a Supreme Court case about the rights of non-human animals.

Are elephants people? State Supreme Court to weigh in

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured in October 2025 by Julie Hammond at the ʻAlekoko Menehune Fishpond near Līhuʻe. "I live in Lake Village, Arkansas. One of my best friends manages radio stations on Kauaʻi (Star 94.3) and Maui (Akamai Broadcasting), and I love visiting him for weeks at a time since I'm a photographer. 

"I loved the way the shadows against the mountain changed by the minute."

Alekoko Menehune Fishpond near Lihue Kauai by Julie Hammond

<title>Hawaiʻi Skies: Shadows changing by the minute</title>

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Julie Hammond at the ʻAlekoko Menehune Fishpond near Līhuʻe.

Hawaiʻi Skies: Shadows changing by the minute

Several new retailers and restaurants have recently opened at Ala Moana Center in Honolulu and more are set to open soon, the center announced Tuesday. Here’s what you should know.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Coming Soon:"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Relocations and renovations:"}]

Ala Moana Center opened in 1959 and is the world's largest open-air shopping center with more than 2.4 million square feet of retail space. It offers more than 350 stores and restaurants, including 160 dining options.

(ICYMI: Last month it was announced that longtime anchor tenant Neiman Marcus 

Hawaiʻi Skies: Morning sail

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Authors

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