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CEO Headshot Suzanne Young2022

Suzanne Young

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Hau‘oli Lorenzo-Elarco and Kenika Lorenzo-Elarco

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Christina O'Connor

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Daniel Dinell & Carol Kwan

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Alika Peleholani Garcia

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

Crime & Courts

A civil complaint alleging that Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke violating campaign spending laws will go to the state Attorney General for potential prosecution.

Last week, the Hawai‘i Campaign Spending Commission published a 

 accusing Luke and her campaign team of 12 different violations of campaign finance laws during the 2022 election.

On Wednesday, the Commission moved to refer their complaint to the state office of the Attorney General, which is already conducting a separate investigation into financial impropriety by Luke, tied to the infamous 

 that was the subject of an FBI investigation.

The commission’s complaint accuses Luke, her husband Michael Luke, campaign treasurers Emmanuel Zibakalam, Leodoloff Asuncion Jr., and Matthew Sasaki, deputy treasurer Kalowena Komeiji, and the Friends of Sylvia Luke of mishandling campaign funds.

The complaint includes allegations that Luke signed checks for her candidate committee instead of a treasurer, that her treasurers signed checks for the committee despite no longer being listed as treasurers — some of which were to the former treasurers themselves — and that the group failed to accurately report campaign expenditures to the commission.

The complaint concluded with two options: either the Commission concludes that a violation of law likely took place and refer the matter to the Attorney General; or the Commission makes its own preliminary determination, fines Luke and her associates $28,300 and orders them to correct their campaign spending reports within 20 days. 

On Wednesday, the Commission voted for the former option. The vote was unanimous, although Commission Vice Chair Danton Wong recused himself from proceedings Wednesday, citing a conflict of interest based on prior donations he made to Luke.

Eunice Park, general counsel for the Commission, said the extent of the alleged impropriety cannot be attributed to technical errors, particularly given Luke’s extensive political career. She said Luke had “ample opportunity” to correct the violations in the four years since her election, but did not.

Attorney David Louie, who represents Luke and the Friends of Sylvia Luke, spoke briefly before the Commission, but only to decline comment.

Fellow Attorney Randall Hironaka, representing Michael Luke, Komeiji and Sasaki, asked the Commission if his clients could be left off the complaint because, he said, the complaint does not allege any criminal activity by his clients, merely that untoward activity was made without their authorization.

Nonetheless, Park told Hironaka that it will be up to the Attorney General to determine the criminality of anyone named in the complaint.

Luke’s campaign finances from 2022 have come under heavy scrutiny this year as fallout continues from an FBI corruption investigation.

That investigation had previously alleged that former Hawai‘i Rep. Ty Cullen — who had turned informant for the agency — oversaw a transaction between an unknown man and “an influential state legislator” involving the $35,000 in 2022. In February, Luke denied any involvement in that transaction, but admitted that she had accepted two $5,000 checks during a 2022 dinner with former Cullen.

That admission — Luke claimed she never cashed the checks, but never reported the contributions — led to further investigations of Luke’s 2022 campaign finances. In the midst of the furor, Luke 

 in April she will not run for reelection this year, and days later 

 she would take an indefinite leave of absence, which has continued to this day.

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DavidLouie

<title>State AG to investigate alleged Sylvia Luke campaign finance violations</title>

A complaint by the Campaign Spending Commission alleging 12 campaign finance violations has been referred to the state Attorney General for possible prosecution.

State AG to investigate alleged Sylvia Luke campaign finance violations

Kam Napier Headshot

A. Kam Napier

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.

Pipikaula Corner: Hawai‘i's fraudulent vape ban

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

On Monday morning, the trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs spent 

 accusing one another of retaliation, secrecy, and filing court documents nobody approved.

One of the agency’s lawyers said a court filing by four dissenting trustees had hurt his ability to defend the agency. One of those trustees asked, twice, that the four’s own lawyer be heard as well, but the chair said no. The chair asked, more than once, who authorized the filing. The answers satisfied no one.

If you read the coverage, you learned a great deal. There was a budget fight last June between the board’s chair and its chief executive. The chief executive was placed on leave in September. By November she was suing the agency and its trustees, claiming her removal was retaliation.

A judge let four trustees hire their own lawyer in April. A unanimous board voted in May to seek mediation. This was upended weeks later when the dissenting trustees filed a court document siding largely with the woman suing them. Civil Beat’s 

Now try to answer one simple question: why did those four trustees hire their own lawyer? The news offers a paraphrase — they felt their views were not being represented. Represented by whom? Against what risk? Were they defending themselves, or the ousted executive, or some idea of what the agency owes its beneficiaries?

The article cannot say. Not because the reporter failed, but because 1,800 words cannot hold one year of drama, seven months of litigation, nine trustees, and a stack of dueling filings.

The four trustees’ account is available in writing. The disputed filing runs 42 pages and cost $4.31 to download from the state courts. The record is public, yet almost nobody will read it — not from laziness, but because a person who paid that toll on every public dispute would have time for nothing else. So everything most of us will ever know about this issue must pass through a narrow opening.

This is how we meet nearly every public matter. We come to Red Hill this way, and to the rail, and to the zoning fight down the road. We arrive in chapter twelve of a novel that began before we started paying attention, and someone hands us a synopsis — written, usually, by a person who also arrived late.

The first to plead his case seems right, the proverb says, until another comes and examines him. A news article is somebody’s opening statement, or several opening statements stitched together. The cross-examination comes later, if it comes at all. It comes in follow-up stories, in depositions, and in records requests nobody reads. The news article is not lying to you. It is simply the latest voice in an ongoing proceeding.

The tempting response is to fire the narrator. Many conservatives have concluded that the mainstream press cannot be trusted, so they switched to friendlier news outlets, taking the new synopsis on the same faith they once gave the old one. But that is not skepticism. The man who trades one narrator for another has not become harder to fool. His progressive neighbor, who treats a single outlet’s account as the complete record, is making the same mistake. Different congregations, same habit.

Consider the people we might expect to be immune. New members of major public boards routinely inherit contested case files that run hundreds of pages, covering litigation that began years before their terms. They read every document, consult with counsel, and then the law obliges them to decide. But they are always entering halfway through.

And yet we still have to judge. The voter votes for OHA trustees this fall whether or not he has read the court filings. The juror must return a verdict. The board member makes a decision with the case file still heavy in her lap. “It’s complicated” is not a verdict any court will accept, and the ballot has no box for it.

So the question is not whether to judge with partial knowledge — we have to. The question is how to judge well.

Hear the other side before you settle anything, even when the first side sounded complete. Hear at least two witnesses. Keep what is alleged and what is proven in separate drawers, and check which drawer you are pulling from before you repeat the news at dinner. Where the record lets you wait, wait.

These are old disciplines, older than newspapers. Courts adopted them for a humbling reason: our law assumes that the judge cannot see everything. Our whole system of trials is built on that admission. No single narrator, however honest, tells the whole story.

There is one Judge who has read every file to the last page, who sat in every executive session, and who requires no cross-examination. His position is filled, and none of us should aspire to it. Our verdicts are drafts at best. Knowing this is not a reason to stop judging. It is the only way to do it well.

Lawsuit i Stock 2259375275

<title>What 1,800 words can’t tell you about the OHA lawsuit</title>

The disputed court filing at the center of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ board war runs 42 pages and costs $4.31 to download. Almost no one will ever read it. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on why we meet every public story halfway through — and why we have to judge anyway.

What 1,800 words can’t tell you about the OHA lawsuit

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

, located on Liliha Street, started during a trip to Japan, according to Erin Yonamine, who owns the business with her husband, Jaron Hanus.

“We were sitting at a cat café, having coffee together, and started talking about creating a cozy, Tokyo-meets-Hawaii café,” she says. “We got home from that trip and mapped out a concept, having both a Japanese kei truck and a storefront. Even though we aren’t a cat café, we wanted to keep the ‘cat’ in the name to remember that trip.”

The business’s name derives from the Japanese words for cat (neko) and kitten (koneko). It officially opened in October 2021, and is influenced by the Japanese kissaten, or coffee and tea shop.

“It’s inspired by our love for travel, coffee and Japanese heritage, specifically the nostalgic feel and intentional design of Japanese kissa-culture,” Yonamine says. “Our vision was to create a space that feels like a warm, cozy living room; a place where people can connect, feel taken care of, and want to hang out and stay a little longer.”

The café’s décor and design were intentionally created by the husband-and-wife team. Customers’ experiences when visiting the café were vital, according to Yonamine.

“We wanted a perfect blend of retro and modern Japanese influences,” she says. “We were intentional about everything, from the lighting to the curated music playlists, books, plants, textures and art by local artists. We have a lot of trinkets in the shop, and nothing in the shop is random. Everything is purposefully chosen to evoke a specific feeling; a lot of the things in the shop are things we’ve collected from all of our trips.” 

The cold brew coffee shop is known for its 16-ounce bottled drinks, which customers often pre-order for pick-up.

“We make all of the bottled drinks in-house daily and restock throughout the day, as we sell out,” Yonamine says. “We also have Japanese teas and kid-friendly selections.”

Signature bottled cold brews include Kuro ($8) — a black, unsweetened cold brew — Chairo ($9), a brown lightly sweetened cold berw, and Shiro ($9), a white chocolate cold brew.

“The Chairo is a bolder coffee profile; people like it because they feel like it’s a little stronger,” Yonamine says. “It’s just lightly sweetened and not overpowering. Our Shiro is going to be one of the sweeter cold brews on the menu.”

Other bottled options range from kinako, or roasted soybean ($9.50) and mocha ($9) to lychee rose ($9.50) and caramel macnut ($9.50). The latter is made with cold brew, macadamia milk, caramel, Ghirardelli chocolate and macnut syrup.

Other beverages include matcha or hojicha lattes ($9.50 each), ume iced tea ($9), s’mores iced hot chocolate ($9.50) and strawberry milk “Ichigo” ($9).

“Everyone has their favorites,” Yonamine says. “Now, during summer, the ume iced tea is really popular.”

The café also has a traditional menu with in-store drinks that come in 12- or 16-ounce cups. Some of the most popular beverages include the blueberry matcha latte (12 ounces $6.50, 16 ounces $7.50) and kinako milk (12 ounces $6.25, 16 ounces $7.50). The latter is a nutty blend of oat milk, kinako (roasted soybean flour), cane sugar and honey. The blueberry matcha latte features a blueberry lemon cream top.

Matcha and hojicha lattes are made with Uji matcha and hojicha from Kyoto, according to Yonamine.

“For the matchas, my favorite is going to be either the blueberry matcha or yuzu sparkling matcha,” she says. “Our kinako milk also has the option to add cold brew (for 25 cents). It’s super popular; we also have it as a bottle. Because it sells out often, we can do it in-store.”

As the business’s five-year anniversary comes up this fall, Yonamine says their biggest focus is how to grow and build their team.

“Because of our backgrounds, I’ve spent 15 years teaching, and Jaron has years of experience mentoring through his other businesses,” Yonamine says. “Personal development is a huge part of our culture. We enjoy training our team on things that go beyond just making coffee, focusing more on how we can challenge ourselves to be better humans every day.”

Yonamine explains that she and Hanus have been intentional about bringing on people who share their vision for the business.

“For us, it’s not just about teaching them how to make our drinks; it’s about mentoring them and growing together,” she says. “Neko Koneko’s mission is to craft thoughtful drinks and experiences that bring people together, and it starts with a team that makes you feel supported and gives you that sense of belonging.”

While the café doesn’t have a designated parking lot, metered street parking is available.

Open 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays to Thursdays, closed on Fridays

Neko Koneko owner 061026

<title>Neko Koneko is a Tokyo-meets-Hawaiʻi café</title>

The café — whose name derives from the Japanese word for “cat” — opened in October 2021, and is inspired by its owners’ love for coffee, travel and Japanese heritage. While the business is known for its 16-ounce bottled cold brews, it also offers a traditional menu with in-store drinks.

Neko Koneko is a Tokyo-meets-Hawaiʻi café

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros Headshot

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros

Aloha Spirit

A sprinkling of rain Monday morning in Honolulu added to the blessing and official opening of the University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center’s Hoʻōla Early Phase Clinical Research Center (EPCRC) 

 the state’s first dedicated center for early phase cancer clinical trials.

Plans for the Hoʻōla EPCRC, which means “to heal or give live” in ʻ

after it received millions in federal funding to help expand access to innovative cancer treatments for Hawaiʻi patients who would otherwise have to travel to the Mainland to receive specialized care. Also funded by the state, donors and philanthropic organizations such as 

The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust

, the project cost for construction and equipment totaled approximately $19.5 million, according to UH Cancer Center Director Dr. Naoto Ueno.

“This is truly a historical day,” said Ueno, who is also a two-time cancer survivor, in his opening remarks during Monday’s ceremonial lei untying before an audience of state lawmakers and health care leaders, community partners and more.

More than 10 years ago, I myself participated in a Phase 1 clinical trial. The trial gave me hope and it’s the reason I’m standing. … Today, we make a major step for bringing the same hope to more patients here in Hawaiʻi. [It] marks a new chapter for cancer care in Hawaiʻi and across the Pacific.”

 we have spent $230 million from 2021 through 2023 on outside-of-the-state cancer care. We know that many people cannot simply make that journey because of the time commitment and financial impact. … But that

’s about to change [so that] more patients can participate in clinical trials closer to home, closer to their communities and closer to the ʻāina that gives strength.”

Now that the infrastructure is built and some pilot testing has been completed, Ueno told Aloha State Daily that they can attract more pharmaceutical companies, while building credibility. (Note: A clinical trial is a research study patients volunteer to take part in. Most new ways of finding, preventing and treating cancer were discovered in clinical trials.) 

He expects the first patient will be seen within the next month or so. The vision five years from now, Ueno says, is that the Hoʻōla EPCRC will support at least 30 different clinical trials at one time.

“Our geographic location is both negative and positive for that,” he explained. “Yes, we are geographically isolated from the rest of the country but one positive is the unique demographics of our patient population.”

Providing patients across the Islands with access “to safe, compassionate, high-quality cancer care” is the overall goal, which will also help shape cancer care models for future generations, he notes.

Tyler Workman is the interim clinical director at Hoʻōla EPCRC responsible for the the day-to-day operations of the clinic, including managing a staff of about eight employees, and getting all the equipment and supplies ready.

“Iʻm currently working on researcher and nursing workflows, setting up the clinical lab and infusion stations,” he told ASD, adding that he anticipates the team will grow as they secure more trials and treat more patients. Employment opportunities can be found 

Remarks at the opening ceremony were also given by Sen. Mazie Hirono, a kidney cancer survivor; UH President Wendy Hensel; Dr. Jack Lewin, Administrator of

 the Hawaiʻi State Health Planning and Development Agency

; Jason Chang, president and CEO of the The Queenʻs Health Systems and member of the The Hawaiʻi Cancer Consortium; and Dr. Leslie Chun, CEO of the Hawaiʻi Pacific Health Medical Group a

nd member of the The Hawaiʻi Cancer Consortium.

"Today, we are not just opening doors to a new facility. Weʻre opening the doors to innovation, access and hope," Chun stated.

Peter Hirano closed with final remarks reflecting on the life and legacy of his late wife Susan Hirano, who was a patient advocate with Stage 4 breast cancer at the UH Cancer Center.

“I've been told by several team members at the cancer center that Sue consistently reminded the team here that their work isnʻt just about research. Itʻs about the patient. Itʻs about the person that the research can ultimately help and itʻs about creating hope for patients and their families.”

She also established the Susan C. Hirano Cancer CARE Community (Community, Awareness, Research and Emotional Well-Being), which offers free quarterly events for the public, particularly those touched by cancer. The next event, “Healing Through Art,” is set for Saturday, July 18, from 9 to 11 a.m. at the cancer center. 

Peter Hirano shared how he found a sticky note on her desk 

shortly after her death that read: “Legacy is not what you leave behind. It's what you awaken within others.”

“The center is going to leave a legacy. It will awaken a sense of hope for many in this community."

At a glance: Hoʻōla Early Phase Clinical Research Center

Layout: 7,500 square feet, on 1st and 2nd floors of the UH Cancer Center
 
Key features: Six infusion bays, five patient rooms, two nurses’ stations, pharmacy, two exam rooms, clinical research laboratory, patient lobby and reception area
 
Construction: Started in October 2022; completed in December 2025
 
Total design and construction funding (federal and state): ~$19.5 million
($6.5 million Federal NIH C06 – Research Facilities Construction Grant; $6.5 million State of Hawaiʻi via Act 20 in 2019; $6.5 million – Federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Community Project Funding / Congressionally Directed Spending [2022 Omnibus Appropriations Act])

Courtesy UH Cancer Center

For more information about the UH Cancer Center's Ho‘ola EPCRC, 

. Learn about the University of Hawai‘i Cancer Center at

Hoola Clinic hero

<title>New cancer clinical research center unveiled in Honolulu</title>

The state’s first dedicated center for early phase cancer clinical trials — dubbed the Hoʻōla Early Phase Clinical Research Center — officially opened Monday at the University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center in Kakaʻako. The new facility, which cost a total of about $19.5 million for construction and equipment, will allow local patients to receive specialized treatments closer to home.

New cancer clinical research center unveiled in Honolulu

 party over three years ago and declined to show, according to the Office of the Governor.

 from the 2022 legislative session, Gov. Josh Green was asked “to establish a Hawaiʻi Commission on the United State Semiquincentennial.”  

The commission formed by the governor did not receive any government funding

 “to coordinate a statewide effort commemorating and celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America,” per the executive order.

Leading the 19-member Hawai‘i America250 Commission is Peter Young, a member of the Hawaiʻi Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, along with lawmakers and other representatives.

The commission is responsible for soliciting donations to bring local events and activities to “communities across the Islands [that] will reflect on our shared past, celebrate our diverse heritage, and honor our veterans and ancestors through events grounded in local culture and the Spirit of Aloha,” its website notes.

To donate, volunteer and learn more, go to: 

Hawaiʻi opts out of Great American State Fair

Hawaiʻi has no official government representation at 

, a block party on the National Mall in Washington D.C., running now through July 10.

It features attractions like rodeos and a 110-foot Ferris wheel, with more than 150 exhibits for all 50 states plus U.S. territories, as well as "businesses, innovators and civic organizations," according to 

, the organizer of the fair and other semiquincentennial events.

The decision for the Hawai‘i America250 Commission, which includes Green as an honorary chair, to say, “No can” to participating in the fair appears to have grown more apparent as the travel commitment grew “from a few days to two weeks with 12-hour days,” 

Green told Aloha State Daily in a statement Friday, “The Hawai‘i America250 Commission is not operating a pavilion at the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., which is 5,000 miles away. No funds were earmarked by the state, or by Congress.”

One Mililani resident wrote in to ASD after hearing Hawaiʻi would not be at the fair.

“Especially with what's been happening in Hawaiʻi, participation in this national event would have been a great opportunity to formally and informally educate and share the history and Aloha of our people; to garner support/supporters from outside our state for the causes of the Hawaiian people and the legacy of its past monarchs,” the reader wrote.

Another ASD reader from Honolulu wrote, "

Hawaiʻi government officials will not be present at the Great American State Fair, put on by Freedom 250 now through July 10, along with at least 10 mostly Democratic-led states citing cost, staffing and for some, political reasons. Gov. Josh Green says no funds were earmarked for the fair by the state or Congress and instead, has thrown support behind local celebrations.

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