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Loved ones of victims injured in fireworks explosion seek help in long roads to recovery

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Loved ones of victims injured in fireworks explosion seek help in long roads to recovery


HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Loved ones of some of the victims who were severely injured in a tragic fireworks explosion at a New Year’s Eve celebration in Aliamanu are asking for help as they fight for their lives.

Authorities said a fireworks “cake” with roughly 50 illegal aerial rockets in it tipped over and fired into a carport that set off more fireworks inside.

RELATED STORY: 3 dead, dozens injured in massive illegal fireworks explosion in Aliamanu

Three women were killed. Many others had critical injuries with burns over much of their bodies.

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As loved ones begin to share more details about the victims, Hawaii News Now will continue to update this story and provide more information on how the public can help support them.

Melissa and Kevin

Family members identified two of the victims who were injured as Melissa and Kevin.

They said Kevin sustained “grave” injuries and is currently hospitalized. However, Melissa will need to be flown to the mainland for medical care because there are no available beds in the burn unit.

Melissa and Kevin have a 3-month-old son, who is being taken care of by family members.

Donations will go to Melissa’s mother to support the couple’s son as well as medical expenses.

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Click here for their GoFundMe page.

Melissa and Kevin(GoFundMe)
Charmaine Benigno

Another victim, Charmaine Benigno, a mother of two young boys, was also severely injured in the explosion.

Her family said she will require extensive medical care.

All donations will go to her boyfriend, Jacob, to support their sons and her medical expenses once she returns home.

Click here to donate.

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Charmaine Benigno
Charmaine Benigno(NAKAMOTO FAMILY)



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Suspect arrested in attempted armed robbery on North Shore

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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.

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Few state bills this year face potential veto – West Hawaii Today

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Few state bills this year face potential veto – West Hawaii Today






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Hawaii displays historic photos of Martin Luther King Jr. wearing flower lei during Selma march

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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.”

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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.

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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...

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.

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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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