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Stephanie Salmons

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Michael Brestovansky

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Kady Pascual

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Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros

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Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

ako in late December. Since then, the biz relocated and now is popping up several times a week within Kaimukī’s Aloha Bakehouse & Café.

KoLab business owners Jake Co and Helen Lee met Doug Choi from Aloha Bakehouse & Café through mutual connections.

“Doug had a vacancy and was like, ‘Come work out of here,’” Co says.

The biz is still sticking to its Korean-inspired breakfast concept, but altered its menu before soft opening on Mother’s Day.

“We had to amend our menu based on the availability of the kitchen equipment that we have here,” Co says.

The menu currently features three dishes — fresh poke served with crispy waffle rice ($16.95), egg salad sando ($11.95) and joomuk bap ($14.95).

“We get our fresh poke from Diamond Head Seafood,” Co says. “We thought this would be an interesting and unique concept — the crunchy texture from the rice with the poke.”

The fresh poke comes in the business’s “crack sauce,” according to Co.

“There’s a lot of shallots, garlic and chives, with a little bit of fish sauce and lime juice,” he explains. “It's more like a ceviche.”

Meanwhile, the egg salad sando ($11.95) features a sourdough bread, eggs from Waialua Egg Farm and dill from MA

“Everything is organic,” says Helen Lee. “It’s dusted with a fine bit of Gochugaru (Korean chili flakes), not the big, bulky flakes.” 

The business’s Joomuk bap ($14.95) was inspired by a dish Co and Lee enjoyed during a trip to South Korea.

“That was our first meal off the plane in Korea,” Co remembers. “We ordered this and it was such a simple dish, but it was so filling and umami. We said, ‘We gotta bring this back to Hawaiʻi’ because we couldn’t find anything in Hawaiʻi like it.”

Joomuk bap features rice from Kubota Rice Industry — which features rice from Japan that’s freshly milled in Hawaiʻi — topped with chopped takuan, tobiko and a mountain of shredded nori. Customers are given a glove to mix everything together to form their own rice balls.

“In Korea, the plate was overflowing with nori,” Co says. 

KoLab’s Kaimukī pop-up is currently open from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursdays to Sundays.

Open 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursdays to Sundays

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

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<title>New Korean fusion pop-up in Kaimukī</title>

KoLab, formerly located in Kakaʻako, now offers a Korean-inspired breakfast within Kaimukī’s Aloha Bakehouse & Café. The biz offers fresh poke with crispy waffle rice, egg salad sandos and joomuk bap, or savory Korean rice balls.

New Korean fusion pop-up in Kaimukī

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A. Kam Napier

Columnists

Government & Politics

 was 32 years old on July 1, 2015, as she walked along San Francisco’s Pier 14 with her father and a friend.

Somewhere behind her on the Embarcadero at that moment was José Inez García Zárate, handling a pistol he found under a bench. He fired one shot. That shot hit Steinle in the back. Her father and friend performed CPR, paramedics arrived, but her aorta had been pierced and she died in a hospital two hours later.

In 2017, García Zárate was acquitted on charges of murder and manslaughter, but no one denied he fired the shot, and no one denied some other facts about him.

“A little bit of common sense and discretion might have prevented the killing this month in San Francisco of Kathryn Steinle — a victim not only of random gunfire but of the mindless handling of the city's immigration policy,” 

García Zárate, USA Today noted, “had a felony drug record going back 20 years, had been deported five times and had repeatedly sneaked back into the USA …  [he] was in the San Francisco County jail in April and should have been deported yet again. Federal immigration authorities had lodged a ‘detainer,’ seeking to get custody and do just that. All they needed was a call or other contact from the sheriff's office.

“The contact was never made, not because of some ghastly mistake or miscommunication but because of a city ordinance that prohibits police from honoring detainers except in rare cases. And, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, because of a policy by the local sheriff that bars contact with immigration authorities. After a local charge against Lopez-Sanchez [as his name appeared in early reporting] was dropped, he was held for three weeks, then put on the street.”

One of the top three candidates to be the next chief of the Honolulu Police Department is San Francisco’s David Lazar, whom Aloha State Daily 

Near as I can piece together from Lazar’s 

, he was a captain in the San Francisco Police Department at the time of Steinle’s shooting, then rising to commander in 2017 and then assistant chief before retiring in 2025. We can safely assume he alone did not set the policies that had made San Francisco a “sanctuary city” in 2015, where immigration law would be selectively ignored.

But Lazar has already told us where he wants to take Honolulu. Here’s the relevant quote from our interview with him:

“I come from a department where we don’t cooperate at all with ICE,” Lazar said. “That’s what I’m used to, that’s the right thing to do. If I’m selected as chief, we will not cooperate whatsoever with ICE. We will not participate in anything they have going on.

“We’re not going to transport for them, we’re not going to support them, we’re not going to respond to any of their calls, we’re not going to set up perimeters,” Lazar went on. “Those are the policy decisions that will be made on my watch.”

 is scheduled to make a decision today between Lazar, 

 and Scott Ebner. We profiled Lazar and Lambert, Ebner did not respond to us.

The commission is comprised of Chair Laurie Foster, Vice Chair Jeannine A. Souki, Vice Chair Chris Magnus, and members Kenneth Silva, Elizabeth Char, Blake Parsons and Gary A. Yabuta.

The commission can be reached at 808-723-7580, or by email at 

, if you have thoughts to share on their selection.

The Honolulu Police Commission selected Lazar, more 

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.

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<title>Pipikaula Corner: David Lazar, Kate Steinle and Honolulu’s future</title>

One of the top three candidates for Honolulu Police Chief, David Lazar of San Francisco, has stated his intention to never let HPD cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. These are the kinds of policies widely believed to have been the reason why Kathryn "Kate" Steinle was killed in 2015 by a five-time deportee, out on the streets of San Francisco because local authorities refused to work with federal agencies on immigration cases.

Pipikaula Corner: David Lazar, Kate Steinle and Honolulu’s future

A controversial music festival on Hawai‘i Island has been given the go-ahead despite complaints from neighbors.

The Windward Planning Commission on the Big Island voted 

 to approve a request by landowner Andrew Tepper to hold a multi-day music festival on a portion of his 1,400-acre parcel of land in Pāpa‘ikou.

, called “Falls On Fire,” is described in the request as a four-day event “centered on principles of inclusion, gifting, self-reliance, self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility and respect for the environment.” The event is repeatedly compared to the annual “Burning Man” festival in Nevada; similarly, Falls On Fire would also feature the burning of an effigy.

Tepper had previously held Falls On Fire annually since 2023, but had not received proper permits from the county for the event, leading the county Planning Department to fine Tepper’s company, Teppy Mountain LLC, more than $34,000. The Planning Department later stated that Tepper claimed he was unfamiliar with county and state regulations that required a special permit.

At the Planning Commission’s May 14 meeting on the subject, dozens of residents argued the merits and flaws of the festival, echoing the arguments made during a contested case hearing about the subject in November.

“I’ve heard his festivals,” said Pāpa‘ikou resident Eliza Folkman. “It’s been wildly disruptive already. And I believe this raises questions about accountability and commitment to stewardship. When we start turning these lands into venues for big parties or festivals, especially ones that have already ignored the rules and caused problems before, we risk losing something we can’t get back.”

People opposed to the festival complained about the noise from previous events and worried about the potential impact that 500 festivalgoers will have on the single private road that accesses the festival grounds. Others worried that not all attendees will heed rules on the Falls On Fire 

 urging attendees to not use soap while bathing in streams, leading to pollutants and human waste accumulating downstream.

On the other hand, previous festivalgoers argued that the festival has improved over the years to accommodate neighbor’s complaints.

“Unfortunately, none of us at the camps realized how the sound was carrying,” said Casey Jedynak. “By year two, we organized listening tests and lowered our levels. Looking back, the sound was definitely too loud at times … Going forward, I believe we, the Falls On Fire community, can be more curious about all of it, how loud the music is, where the speakers are directed, what hours the music is playing.”

An attorney for Teppy Mountain, Jake Honigman, said Tepper has agreed to follow most of the recommendations made by the Planning Department, including a commitment to repair any damages caused to the road within a month of the festival, a prohibition on all parking on the road, directing all amplified sounds inland toward the uninhabited portion of Tepper’s land, having at least 5,000 gallons of water onsite for fire suppression, having a sufficient number of portable toilets, and more.

“[Tepper] would explain that he loses money because he provides all of these things for the event like the portable toilets,” Honigman said. “There’s a suggested donation [for attendees], but it doesn’t remotely cover his costs and if people can’t make it, he doesn’t turn them away. This really is about him sharing and giving and bringing people … to the land to experience this festival.”

Ultimately, the commission voted 4-1 in favor of Tepper’s application, albeit with a few additional requirements such as the construction of sound dampening barriers and a 25-foot height limit on whatever effigy is burned.

 For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Fallsonfire 16x9

<title>Hawai‘i Island 'Burning Man' festival given green light</title>

Windward Planning Commission approves application for "Falls On Fire" festival, despite trepidation from neighbors.

Hawai‘i Island 'Burning Man' festival given green light

Real Estate

A new affordable housing project in Makiki is set to welcome its first residents.

A crowd gathered Saturday for the grand opening of the Makiki Banyan, located at 1568 Pensacola St.

It brings 80 one-bedroom and 10 two-bedroom units to the neighborhood, available to households earning up to 80% of the area median income. While income limits depend on household sizes, 80% AMI for a one-person household is $86,240 and for a family of two is $98,560, according to 

[{"type":"text","text":"Construction began in March 2025 and was completed in 13.5 months."}]

, itself led by Paul Lam, and co-developers Geena Thielen and Evan Amakata, under the City and County of Honolulu's 

Bill 7 was adopted by the Honolulu City Council in 2019; these projects are also referred to as ROH Chapter 32 projects. According to the city's 

, ROH Chapter 32 relaxes development standards and offers financial incentives for affordable rental projects in certain zoning districts and on lots no larger than 20,000 square feet as long as 80% of the units are rented to those earning no more than 100% of Honolulu's AMI for at least 15 years.

Makiki Banyan is the fifth affordable and workforce housing project that Lam Capital has so far developed under Bill 7. According to

 a recent announcement from the developer, previous projects include developments on Ernest, Kīna‘u and Algaroba streets and University Avenue.

The company has another 750 units in the pipeline across 12 projects in various stages of development, the announcement noted.

"We acquired the first parcel four years ago and we acquired the second parcel three years ago, so it's been a four-year project. We're just absolutely thrilled," Lam told Aloha State Daily on Saturday, when asked how it felt to see the project finished. "Rental housing is what we need as a community. So many people can't afford to buy."

Lam says he would "absolutely not" be able to do this kind of development without Bill 7.

"This is the piece of legislation that ... can help to solve infill urban housing needs."

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi told ASD Saturday that Makiki Banyan was the "execution of a concept done very, very well."

"The thing about a Bill 7 project like this is not only does it allow 90 families eventually to move in here at really good rates, it's where it's located and all the things that come with it," he says. "... The compounded value beyond the low rent is this location. [To] be able to live in an urban area with bus stops, walking distance to schools, to shopping centers, all those conveniences that just add to the quality of life. Not the least of which is they built a beautiful building where people could feel proud about living in a place that has great street appeal."

Davis Pitner, spokesperson for the city's Department of Planning and Permitting, told ASD in an email that eight Bill 7 projects have so far been completed, with certificates of occupancy issued. These projects have added 250 affordable housing units to O‘ahu's housing stock.

Meanwhile another 52 Bill 7 projects are in the pipeline, which Pitner says could create about 1,540 affordable housing units.

Currently, 31 of those projects are under review with the applicant; five are under review with the city and DPP, one project has been approved; and 15 are under construction with building permits issued, he told ASD.

For rental information or questions about leasing, contact 

Makiki banyan 051626

<title>Affordable housing development opens in Makiki</title>

Makiki Banyan is the fifth project from Lam Capital developed under the City and County of Honolulu's Bill 7 program.

Affordable housing development opens in Makiki

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Sterling Higa

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Ben Sasse is bleeding from the face."}]

He’s seated across from New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, 

, and he pauses to note it. He’s dying of stage 4 pancreatic cancer. One side effect of the treatment is that his body can’t grow skin.

“Yeah, you look terrible,” says Douthat.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“Thank you,” says Sasse with a smile."}]

Since his diagnosis, Sasse has appeared on 

 stage, and a parade of podcasts. He uses the time to say what most politicians never dare to.

He talks about faith. He quotes R.C. Sproul. He discusses Tocqueville with the ease of someone who has actually read him.

Sasse is a two-term Republican Senator from Nebraska, a Harvard graduate, a Yale PhD in History. He voted to impeach Donald Trump and took the consequences. Though popular with voters in his home state, he left the Senate to serve as President of the University of Florida.

Now he spends his last days making one argument: American political life has gone badly wrong. Not because the wrong party is winning. Because the whole enterprise has lost its bearings.

Sasse starts with something most politicians would rather ignore: the pace of technological change. Previous economic transformations — industrialization, electrification — unfolded across generations. This one won’t. Robotics and automation will wipe out whole careers within a single working life.

Sasse sees a second shift: disembodied consciousness, the way screens let people leave their world. Families are breaking apart. Communities are dissolving. The local ties — churches, civic groups, the small-scale institutions Edmund Burke called “little platoons” — that help people absorb hard times are being stripped away. The formation of souls and citizens is at risk, and government is mostly ignoring it in favor of clickbait and rage.

He thinks our loves should be ordered, first to God, then to those nearest us, rippling outward from family to neighborhood to state to nation. Caring about a national political party more than your own community isn’t just confused. It’s a disorder of affection.

What’s true of the nation is true in Hawai'i. The legislature introduces three thousand bills a year. How many of those take the large challenges seriously? The demographic shifts, the cost pressures squeezing local families, the slow hemorrhage of young people off the Islands? The floor speeches and press releases gesture toward these problems, but the lawmaking doesn’t match the problem.

Sasse’s example suggests why. He can sit for an hour-long interview on dense political and theological matters because he has a clear philosophy — a disciplined way of working through problems. It also gives him the power to persuade, which is the precondition for coordinated action.

The founders studied rhetoric and philosophy with the same care they gave the law, because republican government runs on argument and clear speech. Most of Hawai‘i’s lawmakers couldn’t sustain an interview like Sasse’s, and the laws show it. There’s no clear direction. No will to rally the public. Few signs that anyone has thought hard about what government is for. What fills the vacuum is performance: press releases, floor speeches written for social media, outrage timed to the news cycle.

Sasse has a simple framework for what a coherent politics looks like. He describes four ways of valuing government, measured in cheers. No-cheer people — hardcore libertarians — don’t understand that government exists to secure liberty. Three-cheer people believe in a state that controls everything. Republicans, he says, are the one-cheer party. Democrats are the two-cheer party. Each has an extreme wing. Hawai‘i’s loudest voices are at the extremes.

What we lack are the one-cheer leaders: those who see government as necessary but flawed, able to secure order but not to deliver salvation.

Government should do a small number of important things well. It should get out of the way of the little platoons. It should never present itself as the path to utopia. Hawai‘i’s government casting itself as humanity’s last best hope has always been faintly comic.

Sasse’s sharpest line comes when he describes what voters already sense about the way their leaders talk.

They know it’s bullshit, he says — and they don’t want to be lied to. Why can’t politics do a small number of important, long-term things?

There is something clarifying about a man making that argument while bleeding from the face. He has no election to win, no caucus to protect, and by his own reckoning, weeks or months to live. What he’s chosen to do with his time is sit down and think hard about what government is and isn’t for, and what we’ve lost by confusing the two.

In watching Ben Sasse die, Hawai‘i might learn something about how to live.

Ben Sasse Getty Images 1231346544

<title>Ben Sasse is dying in public</title>

The former U.S. senator from Nebraska is talking about big ideas everywhere he can as pancreatic cancer takes his life. Hawai‘i's politicians could learn from what he has to say about government doing fewer things well, says ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa.

Ben Sasse is dying in public

Christian Shimabuku Headshot

Christian Shimabuku

Sports

LĀ‘IE — For the Le Jardin boys volleyball team, destiny was decided by a vote. 

With O‘ahu battered by heavy rain, flooding and lightning strikes on Friday, the possibility of postponing the HHSAA Division II championship match between Le Jardin and Pearl City at BYU-Hawai‘i's Cannon Activities Center to a later date was floated to both teams. 

Back in Kailua, Le Jardin already loaded its team bus on campus. Head coach Makana Wade told his team they didn't have to play on Friday if they didn't want to, that tournament organizers could move some things around to get the match played later in the weekend. Wade asked his players to raise their hands if they wanted to play on Friday.

"Everybody's hand went straight up," setter Brennan Nakayama said. "We just knew we were ready for this, and we knew what we needed to do."

Following a commute to the North Shore that lasted three hours due to traffic brought on by the weather, the Bulldogs arrived prepared to do something the school had never done before. With a 25-18, 25-9, 25-21 sweep over Pearl City, Le Jardin won its first HHSAA boys volleyball championship in school history. 

"Just a real surreal feeling," Wade told Aloha State Daily following the match. "When I took this job, this is the last thing I could ever dream of, was being here. I'm just so happy for Le Jardin and everybody there for believing in me and giving me this job. And so blessed to be able to coach these amazing players."

When he saw the look of determination in his team, Wade knew they were destined to take the title home. 

"I wish everybody could have seen inside our bus for three hours. You would have thought we were gonna play UH or something," Wade said. "The guys were so locked in, having fun. I kept getting calls from our AD, my dad asking, 'Sure you wanna play tonight, coach?' I'm asking the guys, 'Are you sure?' And they're yelling at me, like, yes, of course. There's no way we weren't going to play this match tonight. I think we really took what was ours tonight."

The notion of playing against UH is something Wade would have deep knowledge of. The son of Hawai‘i head coach 

, Makana Wade was a UH men's volleyball assistant coach for multiple seasons. He departed the program in January in order to take the position of Le Jardin head coach, as NCAA rules prohibit one from coaching high school and collegiate teams of the same gender and sport in the same season.

leading Hawai‘i to a national title on Monday

 since arriving back to Honolulu on Tuesday. After taking care of business on Monday, Charlie Wade made it clear where his priorities were during the program's celebration event on Wednesday. Ahead of a scheduled autograph session, Wade told the thousands of fans gathered at the Stan Sheriff Center that he'd have to leave early in order to watch his son coach. 

On Friday, Charlie Wade sat courtside across from the Le Jardin bench, locked in on the match. When the Bulldogs secured the victory, father and son shared multiple long embraces following the match, the look of pride in Charlie Wade's eyes undeniable. 

"Very cool," he told ASD. "He's been coaching with me at the club level, and obviously the last couple years at the collegiate level. He's always kind of had that analytical brain that it takes to be a good coach, and he and I have spent uncountable hours out walking the dogs at night and talking about coaching. He's asked me about a lot of different stuff over the years, and it's great to see him take on that role as a head coach and have to deal with playing time and all that other stuff that is not coaching that's a part of it, but not the X's and O's part. He's doing a great job and has a lot of passion for it, so fun to see him have some success."

"I don't think we have enough time to talk about what I've learned, but I think the basic is just be a guy that people can lean on and trust," Makana Wade said when asked what he learned from his father. "My dad has taught me countless things, and I'm just so happy to be able to learn from him every day, really. I wouldn't be here without him."

For the 2026 season in particular, Makana Wade worked closely with UH associate head coach Kupono Fey on analytics and strategy. He suddenly received the opportunity to run his own program at just 21 years old. 

"It was really hard to leave," Makana Wade said. "I love those guys to death. It was only gonna be a special job like this, a place like this, where there's amazing people, amazing kids. ... It was pretty crazy. I got hired, couple weeks later, we had tryouts, and then next week we're playing our tournament, then we're playing ILH. It's been a pretty hectic couple months, but it's all worth it in the end."

Makana Wade, a UH-Mānoa junior, also had a French final exam he had to take on Friday morning. "It's been a crazy day, but it's been awesome," he said. 

On Friday night, the Bulldogs were in control for the entirety of the match. Nakayama paced the offense with 39 assists, while La‘akea Kamahale had 20 kills on 31 swings. Following a commanding win in Set 2, Le Jardin took a comfortable 24-19 lead in Set 3. After consecutive Pearl City points to cut the lead to 24-21, a calm Makana Wade called timeout to make sure his team was composed. The Bulldogs finished their 2026 campaign 16-1 and state champions for the first time in school history.

"Our whole team can't thank him enough for how lucky we are to have him," Nakayama said of Makana Wade. "The knowledge and experience is super cool. The scouting reports, and how tight he keeps the team and everything, all the way to the bus rides, everything you want. I think we started a legacy."

For the Wade family, the week started with Charlie and Kainoa Wade winning an NCAA championship. On Friday, Makana Wade coached his own team to a championship, capping an unforgettable week for a family that has no plans to stop chasing greatness in the sport for the foreseeable future. 

"Monday seems like a long time ago," Charlie Wade said. "It doesn't seem like it's the same week, but obviously very cool, a lot of positive stuff."

Added Makana Wade: "I'm just so happy for my dad, and they worked really hard this season. To be able to do this too is just a surreal feeling."

Makana Wade 051626

<title>Makana Wade coaches Le Jardin to first state title in boys volleyball</title>

Makana Wade, the son of UH men's volleyball head coach Charlie Wade, led the Bulldogs to the HHSAA title in his first season at the helm.

Makana Wade coaches Le Jardin to first state title in boys volleyball

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ASD Staff

Hawai'i Skies

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Rudolph Perez at Kapaʻa.

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Hawaiʻi Skies: Reminiscing

Daily Smile

Rabbit keeps taking breaks while being chased because the dog is a fatso...

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Daily Smile: Monday, May 11, 2026

This is Cooper. He tried to politely decline the blowout, but apparently it's a nonnegotiable part of his spa package...

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Daily Smile: Sunday, May 10, 2026

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Daily Smile: Saturday, May 9, 2026

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Daily Smile: Friday, May 8, 2026

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Daily Smile: Thursday, May 7, 2026

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Ron Mabry at Kukuiolono Park on Kauaʻi.

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Hawaiʻi Skies: Unique quality

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Daily Smile: Wednesday, May 6, 2026

The bond between a child and their pet is unmatched. Happy Children's Day!

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Daily Smile: Tuesday, May 5, 2026

<title>ASD Staff</title>

Little dog having fun at doggy daycare until his dad shows up at the window...

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Daily Smile: Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Jessica Doney at Mākaha Valley.

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Hawaiʻi Skies: Sitting low

This is Spear. He is being forced to leave his grandma's house against his will. You know who would never do this to him? Grandma...

ASD Staff

Latest from ASD Staff

Daily Smile: Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Hawaiʻi Skies: Sitting low

Daily Smile: Tuesday, May 19, 2026

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Hawaiʻi Skies: An absolute

Smile: Sunday, May 17, 2026

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Hawaiʻi Skies: Morning sail

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