Hawaii
Hawaii governor ignores President Trump in speech, but prepares for potential federal cuts
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Gov. Josh Green said he wanted to focus his third State of the State speech on the accomplishments of his administration and the Legislature over the last two years.
But he also admitted that he purposely left out one of the biggest challenges facing the state: potential budget cuts by the incoming Trump administration.
RELATED POST: Hawaii governor highlights ‘greatest hits’ in third State of the State address
After the speech, the governor told reporters the omission was intentional.
“I could chase the bombastic statements that come from the new president day in and day out,” he said. “I would rather chase housing, homeless solutions, and health care providers for our state.”
Rep. Della Au Belatti, D-Makiki, Punchbowl, is a leader of the progressive Democrats in the state House and says she’s not sure leaders are prepared to respond for how quickly Trump will move the rest of his agenda.
“I am extremely, extremely concerned about the cuts, particularly the cuts that are going to hit the most vulnerable communities: Medicaid, education,” Belatti said. “Those are things that we will have to look at to fund with general funds if there are cuts, so I’m very concerned that we’re a bit quiet on that front.”
The governor’s proposed budget includes a large fund to join other state’s lawsuits challenging Trump policies in court, and was among the first to sue Monday over the president’s effort to end birthright citizenship.
RELATED POST: 22 states sue to stop Trump’s order blocking birthright citizenship
“I’m very appreciative that the governor has put in $10 million to join the efforts of other attorney generals,” Belatti said. “But the reality is that if the cuts come fast and furious, we need to be prepared in our budgeting.”
“We are prepared,” the governor responded.
Green said that’s why the state has a billion-dollar surplus and why he is reducing contributions from hotel taxes and interest revenue to his proposed climate impact fund to about $200 million per year, in order to preserve money to cover cuts he expects to women’s reproductive health, homeless programs and up to $300 million in Medicaid funds.
“What is likely to happen at the federal level is significant and deep tax cuts for very wealthy people and then deep programmatic cuts for poor people (like) Medicaid,” he said.
House and Senate leaders agreed they are well prepared and promised tax cuts are not in jeopardy.
But Republicans say they are all over-reacting.
State Rep. Diamond Garcia, Minority Floor Leader, said, “What we’re doing is we’re shrinking the size of government waste, government spending, so the people of this country and Hawaii should be excited about these next four years.”
“I think across the country and the media, there’s a lot of this fear mongering about what’s going to happen,” said Rep. Lauren Matsumoto, House Minority Leader. “Let’s just see what plays out.”
Copyright 2025 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
Hawaii
Suspect arrested in attempted armed robbery on North Shore
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Police have arrested a suspect in a violent attempted robbery on Oahu’s North Shore. Another suspect still has not been located.
Police said the two men approached another man in Mokuleia Friday night. One of the men allegedly assaulted the victim while the other one threatened him with a handgun.
According to police records, the suspects ran off when the victim called police.
Officers later identified one of the suspects as a 50-year-old man. He was arrested Tuesday and faces possible charges of robbery in the first degree.
Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
Hawaii
Few state bills this year face potential veto – West Hawaii Today
Hawaii
Hawaii displays historic photos of Martin Luther King Jr. wearing flower lei during Selma march
HONOLULU — Photographs of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. adorned with flower lei from Hawaii residents who traveled to Selma, Alabama, to join him on a pivotal Civil Rights march went on public display Tuesday in the state Capitol in Honolulu.
The Selma-to-Montgomery marches galvanized passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which did away with most barriers such as poll taxes and other forms of voter discrimination targeting Black Americans in the Deep South.
A delegation of five people brought dozens of flower lei with them from Hawaii to Alabama in March 1965. Images of King wearing lei, garlands that are synonymous with Hawaiian culture, have been previously published — but most of the photos displayed in Hawaii’s new exhibit have never been seen before. Some photos have subtle variations, while others include figures who may have been deemed unimportant at the time. The exhibit runs through July 7.
One of the lei-bearers was Charles Campbell, a high school teacher and chairman of the Hawaii Civil Rights Conference, who a March 20, 1965 article in The Honolulu Advertiser quoted as saying: “Selma has the capability of becoming a real sore that could affect the entire nation.”
King was photographed wearing lei about two weeks after the event known as Bloody Sunday when state troopers violently attacked Civil Rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 7, 1965.
The photos were taken by Civil Rights photographer Matt Herron, whose widow donated them to Hawaii’s Department of Accounting and General Services for the state’s archives.
After the photos were unveiled, Steven Springel stared at a photo of his mother, Nona Ferdon, who was a divorced mother of two children and a graduate student when she traveled to Selma.
This photo provided by Jeannine Herron shows Charles Campbell, who traveled to Alabama for the march from Selma to Montgomery, placing a lei on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Brown Chapel AME in Selma, Ala., March 21, 1965. Credit: AP/Matt Herron
Springel remembers he was just about to turn 7 and only realized as an adult how important her trip was. Growing up in Hawaii, “we never experienced segregation or racial inequality,” he said of his and his sister’s childhood. Ferdon died in 2021.
The exhibit, part of Hawaii’s programming to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, is a reminder people from the Aloha State participated in an important event in history, said Keith Regan, who oversees the department as the state’s comptroller and presided over the photo unveiling as acting governor while Gov. Josh Green is out of state.
The small delegation traveled thousands of miles “to be a part of the Civil Rights movement, to show ‘aloha’ to the world that Hawaii was there holding hands with our fellow brothers and sisters to ensure equality and justice were heard throughout the nation,” he said.
The Hawaii members also wore lei during first day of the 50-mile (80.46-kilometer) march. Mothers of Kawaiahaʻo Church in Honolulu strung together fragrant plumeria plucked from church grounds to assemble the lei.
This photo provided by Jeannine Herron shows Nona Ferdon, a graduate student who accompanied the Hawaii delegation that traveled to Alabama in 1965 for the march for voting rights, attends the march in Selma, Ala., March 21, 1965. Credit: AP/Matt Herron
Giving lei, a word that is both singular and plural in the Hawaiian language, continues to be a way to share the “aloha” spirit. People in Hawaii give and receive lei for all kinds of reasons, including to celebrate birthdays and promotions, or to show appreciation or recognition.
Tomi Knaefler, who had traveled with the delegation as a reporter with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, planned to attend Tuesday’s news conference. But at 96 years old, she wasn’t feeling up to it, said her daughter, Pamela MacDonald, who did attend.
MacDonald said she was 14 when her mother went on the assignment, “the one that she holds dearest to her heart.”
The exhibit comes at the end of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2026 term, which included a ruling gutting the remaining piece of the Voting Rights Act, setting off a wave of partisan gerrymandering in states in the South and endangering generations of gains in Black political representation.
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