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New report shows significant increase in keiki poverty in Hawaii

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New report shows significant increase in keiki poverty in Hawaii


HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A new national report is raising the alarm about a sharp rise in Hawaii children living in poverty.

The report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows child poverty has risen by one-third since the pandemic.

Nicole Woo, director of research and economic policy at the Hawaii Children’s Action Network, said the increase amounts to about 8,000 more children now living in poverty.

“One of the main reasons for this increase in child poverty is the loss of pandemic supports the federal stimulus and the child tax credit,” Woo said. “Without those kinds of financial supports, families are falling back into poverty in Hawaii and across the country.”

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The report also found that without current programs like food assistance, rental aid and tax credits, the number of children in poverty would more than double from about 37,000 to 84,000, or one in four keiki statewide.

“Parents are struggling between paying for food, paying for rent and all those crucial things that keiki need to thrive,” Woo said.

That includes families like Mia Hall’s. The military spouse and family engagement specialist says her household falls under what Aloha United Way calls an ALICE family: asset limited, income constrained, yet employed.

She says the ongoing government shutdown has made life even harder.

“We do live paycheck to paycheck, which is true for a lot of families in Hawaii,” Hall said. “I have a second part-time job, but it’s still not enough to make up for the loss we’d experience if my husband didn’t get paid.”

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Hall says the shutdown also disrupted care for her son, who has autism and Tourette’s syndrome.

“They just cut off all the therapies for my son, his occupational therapy, his physical therapy everything he needs,” she said.

The Hawaii Children’s Action Network encourages families in need to visit hawaiifoodhelp.com, which connects residents to programs such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), WIC (Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children), and free school meals.



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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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