Hawaii
Hannah Kobayashi who vanished a month ago is found safe
Missing Hawaii woman, Hannah Kobayashi, has been found safe more than a month after she disappeared, according to the family’s attorney. Her family said in a statement they were “incredibly relieved and grateful that Hannah has been found safe.” Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell told reporters on Wednesday that Kobayashi was unharmed and there was no evidence she was the victim of trafficking. Kobayashi had been declared a “voluntary missing person” after authorities reviewed surveillance video of her appearing to miss her connecting flight from Hawaii to New York in Los Angeles on November 8. She told family members she would sleep at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) after missing the flight. The next day, however, she texted that she was sightseeing in LA, with plans to visit The Grove shopping destination and other places.On November 11, her family reported receiving “alarming” text messages from her phone. Kobayashi’s father, Ryan Kobayashi, traveled from Hawaii to Los Angeles to assist in the search. However, he was found dead on November 24, two weeks after Hannah’s disappearance. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner ruled his death as a suicide caused by multiple blunt-force injuries, leaving his family devastated.
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What happened to Hannah Kobayashi? A timeline
November 8, 2024: Hannah Kobayashi misses her connecting flight in Los Angeles, from Maui to New York. Police said they believe she tried to rebook her flight but the price was too high.
November 9, 2024: Kobayashi is seen at The Grove shopping mall in Los Angeles. She later returned to LAX and called her aunt, who she was due to visit in New York City, to tell her she was trying to book another flight.
November 10, 2024: Kobayashi returns to The Grove and is seen in footage of the LeBron XXII Trial Experience, at the Nike store.
November 11, 2024: Kobayashi returns to LAX. This is the last time her family hear from her. She spent the day with an unidentified man and was later seen leaving the airport with him and boarding the Metro. Police were able to track down the man who they ruled out as a danger. He told officers that he’d had dinner with Kobayashi and they’d discussed their lives. He described Kobayashi as a free spirit but did not appear to be in mental distress.
November 12, 2024: Kobayashi is seen in surveillance footage taking a bus to Mexico. She arrived at the border and crossed into Tijuana on foot around 12 p.m. local time. Her phone had been left in LAX.
November 24, 2024: Kobayashi’s father Ryan dies by suicide. His body was found in a parking lot near LAX after he flew to help the search for his daughter.
December 2, 2024: Kobayashi is declared a voluntary missing person after police reviewed footage of her crossing into Mexico.
December 11, 2024: Kobayashi is found. Her family confirmed in a statement that she was safe and well and asked for privacy to “take time to heal.”
GoFundMe for Kobayashi family has raised nearly $50,000
A GoFundMe, set up to assist with the search for Hannah Kobayashi, raised almost $50,000 before her family confirmed she had been found safe today.
The purpose of the GoFundMe was later extended to cover the costs of a funeral for Hannah’s father Ryan Kobayashi who died by suicide during her search.
The GoFundMe, which remains active today, raised $47,472 – 95% of it’s $50,000 goal.
In an update on December 3, after Hannah Kobayashi’s disappearance was ruled “voluntary” by police, her sister Sydni said the family were still “extremely concerned” and were hiring an attorney and a private investigator to locate her.
However, she did offer any donor who wanted a refund, to submit a claim by December 18th which “will be promptly honored.”
Father of Hannah Kobayashi died by suicide while she was missing
AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes
Hannah Kobayashi’s father died by suicide during his daughter’s disappearance.
Ryan Kobayashi, 58, was found dead in a car park near Los Angeles International Airport in the early hours of Sunday, November 24, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson told Newsweek
He had been in L.A. looking for his missing daughter after she missed her connecting flight from L.A. airport to New York on November 8.
Los Angeles County Medical Examiner listed his cause of death as multiple blunt force traumatic injuries and ruled the manner of death was suicide.
Kobayashi’s family called his death “a devastating tragedy” in a statement issued via missing persons support organization The Rad Movement.
“After tirelessly searching throughout Los Angeles for 13 days, Hannah’s father, Ryan Kobayashi, tragically took his own life,” the statement said. “This loss has compounded the family’s suffering immeasurably.”
Kobayashi family received death threats while she was missing
Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo
Missing persons support organization The Rad Movement said the Kobayashi family had made a formal report to the FBI after receiving threats and made a decision to remove a Facebook page dedicated to locating Kobayashi.
“While Sydni and her mother believe the greater majority of the individuals on this page genuinely care, and are interested in helping find Hannah, the negativity and attacks on their family have become more than they can bear,” the organization said in a post on the page.
“As recent as yesterday, there were threats against their lives and the lives of their small children,” they said in the statement on December 2.
“This has prompted them to make formal reports to the FBI and make the difficult decision to remove this page.”
Why Hannah Kobayashi’s still listed as ‘missing’ after family confirmed she’s found safe
A missing person is officially stopped being listed as missing when police confirm their safety through a welfare check – typically an in-person contact to verify they are not in danger.
The L.A. Police Department’s missing persons unit said they had not yet seen Hannah Kobayashi, after her family said today she had been found safe.
Kobayashi will still show as a missing person until that safe and well check could be performed, but in this case, the Customs and Border Protection agency may be able to perform it when Kobayashi reenters the U.S. from Mexico.
‘We don’t have her side of the story,’ say police
AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes
L.A. police have said that while Hannah Kobayashi has no legal obligation to speak to them, they are urging her to get in touch.
“Everyone else is very invested in this now, and just what her thought process through all this was and what her end game or goal was,” Detective Franco told People.
Lt. Doug Oldfield, from the department’s missing persons unit, added, “We don’t have her side of the story.”
Where was Kobayashi found?
The family of Hannah Kobayashi have not confirmed exactly where she was found, police say.
But it is believed she is still in Mexico.
During the investigation into her disappearance, police discovered that she had crossed the border into Tijuana, Mexico on foot, on November 12.
She does not appear to have returned into the United States but she was able to get in touch with her family to confirm she was safe.
Police ‘haven’t seen Hannah Kobayashi themselves but won’t compel her to see them’
The L.A. Police Department say that haven’t seen Hannah Kobayashi but they “have no reason to compel her to see us.”
Lt. Doug Oldfield, from the department’s missing persons unit, told People that they discovered Kobayashi had been found from her family’s attorney.
“We have not seen her and at this point we have no reason to compel her to see us,” he told the outlet.
“It’s a big news story so she may decide to come with a lawyer, but she is not obligated to speak to us.”
He added that police do not have many further details about her disappearance.
Who is Hannah Kobayashi?
Hannah Kobayashi, 30, is a budding photographer from Maui, Hawaii, whose disappearance last month triggered prompted a massive search.
She was heading to New York City, from Hawaii, on November 8 for a new job and to visit relatives when she missed the connecting flight in LA International.
Her “alarming” messages over the next few days panicked her family.
When she stopped responding entirely, they reported her missing.
Her father, Ryan Kobayashi, had flown to LA to help with her search but has since been found dead in a car park near the airport.
The LA county coroner’s office gave the cause of death as suicide.
KALIHI (HawaiiNewsNow) – Farrington High School remains closed Wednesday after a shooting that left a school security guard seriously injured, officials said.
“An early morning incident occurred at Farrington High School this morning. The school’s administration is working with the Honolulu Police Department,” the state Department of Education said in a statement.
They added that the campus will be closed to faculty and students on Wednesday as a precautionary measure.
Honolulu police, firefighters and paramedics responded to the campus around 4 a.m. on North King Street.
According to Honolulu EMS, a 21-year-old man was shot in the leg and rushed to a nearby hospital in serious condition.
We’re told the victim is a school security guard.
It’s unclear if the shooting happened on school grounds and there’s no word yet on the suspect.
HNN has reached out to HPD for more details.
The investigation is ongoing.
This story will be updated when more information becomes available.
Copyright 2024 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
Hawaii
Kealakehe H.S. engineering team Hawaii’s lone entrant in NASA competition – West Hawaii Today
So many high schoolers are contemplating their futures, but for those on Kealakehe High School’s student engineering team, the future is now.
They will be the only team representing Hawaii among 75 global teams in NASA’s prestigious Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC), in April 2025 in Huntsville, Ala. Those teams hail from 20 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and 16 countries — including 38 high schools, 35 colleges and universities, and two middle schools.
The competition challenges students to design and build human-powered rovers capable of navigating simulated extraterrestrial terrains. The design and build process requires all the STEM disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
“This HERC is an interesting competition just because it’s so college-based,” said the team’s advisor, Justin Brown, a math teacher and the school’s Career Technical Education coordinator. “And that’s where we’re really finding the big opportunities for the kids. And now that we have the nicest shop in the state, we’re extremely fortunate. It’s like, ‘Hey, let’s go build some real stuff.’
“And so, it’s been a really good push for us to apply all those skills to some really high-level engineering and design work.”
Brown, who was named Hawaii Teacher of the Year in 2021 by the national nonprofit Association for Career Technical Education, has been successful writing grants and forging external partnerships that allow his students to rub elbows with professional mentors in the aerospace, robotics and engineering fields, and to build their models in an environment akin to what they might find in an industrial setting.
“We’ve been very fortunate,” Brown said. “We win a ton of national and international awards every single year. Our kids graduate with an associate’s degree. We’re articulated with college engineering in high school.
“We’ve just added about $5 million in state-of-the-art equipment, and have been looking at what does that mean in terms of our engineering prep program.”
HERC aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards, which are used in Hawaii public schools.
Teams earn points by successful completion of design reviews, designing and assembling a rover that meets all challenge criteria and successful completion of course obstacles and/or mission tasks. The team with the highest number of points accumulated throughout the project year will be the winner in their respective division.
Students must do 100% of the work, which includes the design, construction of the vehicle and task components — including work that is supported by a professional machinist for the purpose of training or safety — written reports, presentations and preparations for the competition. Through these tasks, students gain a deeper understanding of concepts and content and enhance their communication, collaboration, inquiry, problem-solving and flexibility skills.
“We had to present to a panel of NASA engineers and kind of, like, defend the decisions we had made,” Brown said. “And this has been a real journey for the kids. We had to turn in a 30-page write-up. It was a beast for the kids. We had to present the Monday before Thanksgiving. And the only time they could put us in was 5 a.m. our time. And we had to do the review before we start building.
“We get to do a lot of iterations, and we’ll have another big presentation for them in February.”
After the design review presentations with NASA, Kealakehe’s students will build a prototype for testing prior to competition.
Brown said that 42 students are currently working on the rover, although by April, perhaps 20 or so will make the trek to Alabama. As the fabrication lead on the project, junior Zach Smith will likely be one attending the NASA competition.
“I think the unique aspect of HERC is that it allows students to get an earlier introduction to the aspects of what NASA’s doing as far as the early stages of the lunar rover, or even how to design for the potential usage of certain components of the Mars rover when we hopefully get there,” Smith said.
Smith taken a giant leap toward his college education via distance-learning classes through the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York. He said he’s “found an interest, specifically in mechanical engineering or applied physics.”
“I’ve had a long interest in robotics, itself, ever since elementary school,” Smith said. “When Kealakehe High School started initiatives to implement robotics to the lower levels of education, I found an interest then. And when I came into high school, I started pursuing STEM as well as robotics as a freshman.”
Brown said the work being done on the lunar rover is a continuation of work done on the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s.
“All the training and the testing that those astronauts did, that happened on Maunakea and Mauna Loa,” he said. “Our kids are curious and inventive. They have all the right stuff to be the future leaders in this new aerospace industry that’s coming up. And HERC is just a great combination of all that, because they’re building cool stuff. It connects to some very real things that we want the kids to consider, like who’s space for? Who gets to make the decisions? Why aren’t students like our students in those rooms? And what do we need to do to make sure they are in the future?
“There’s a whole new generation who’s getting to fall in love with space exploration. But this competition harkens back to the kind of missions that were going on then. Because of the cool new toys, things that used to be done with the world’s best professional engineers can now be done with high school kids.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
Hawaii
First Alert Weather Days declared for Hawaii Island, Maui County amid strong winds, elevated fire danger
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The HNN First Alert Weather team has been monitoring the strong winds and chance for elevated fire danger all week long.
Due to gusty winds, low relative humidity, and dry brush fuels present in leeward regions, Wednesday and Thursday are now FIRST ALERT WEATHER DAYS for Hawaii Island and Maui County.
Winds
The National Weather Service has issued several alerts across the state as winds continue to build in strength. Those alerts currently include:
A WIND ADVISORY for portions of Hawaii Island and Maui County. This advisory will end at 6 p.m. Wednesday. Sustained easterly winds could reach as strong as 25-35 miles per hour, gusting up to 50 mph.
A HIGH WIND WARNING for Hawaii Island’s summits. This warning will end at 6 p.m. Wednesday. Sustained easterly winds could reach as strong as 50-60 miles per hour, gusting up to 70 mph.
Cooler-than-average high temperatures for this time of year may keep relative humidity levels from reaching the 45% humidity criteria for a Red Flag Warning, but the ingredients for fire danger are still present.
Drought is still present in many leeward areas across the state. Please remain vigilant and avoid burning throughout the rest of this week.
Small Craft Advisory
A SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY for all offshore waters. This advisory will last until 6 p.m. Thursday. Easterly winds up to 30 knots and seas up to 12 feet are expected.
Surf
Among the strong winds, high surf is also in the forecast across the island chain.
A HIGH SURF ADVISORY is also in effect for the north and west-facing shores of Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, and the north-facing shores of Maui. This advisory will last until 6 AM on Wednesday.
Surf on north-facing shores could peak as high as 18-24 feet today. Wave heights are forecasted to drop to around 12-16 feet tonight.
Surf on east-facing shores is also on the rise this week due to the strong trade winds.
Chief Meteorologist Jennifer Robbins has Hawaii’s most accurate First Alert Forecast every weeknight at 5, 5:30, 6, 9 and 10. Get weather updates every ten minutes on HNN Sunrise, weekdays with Guy Hagi and weekends with Billy V. Meteorologist Drew Davis has your forecasts on This is Now at noon, First at Four and Hawaii News Now at 6:30. And join Ben Gutierrez weekends.
Copyright 2024 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
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