Michael Brestovansky

5 days ago | alohastatedaily.com | Michael Brestovansky

The Board of Land and Natural Resources rejected a plan by the U.S. Army to retain land on Hawai‘i Island for training purposes after hours of impassioned opposition by residents. The Pōhakuloa Training Area is a 132,000-acre military complex on the Big Island between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. The U.S. Army leases about 23,000 acres of the land from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, with the majority of the remainder owned directly by the U.S. Government.

6 days ago | alohastatedaily.com | Michael Brestovansky

Hawai‘i's most severe prison sentence will no longer apply to convicted criminals below 21 years old. House Bill 103, which is on the verge of becoming law, prohibits offenders younger than 21 from being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Currently, that sentence is prohibited for offenders 18 or younger. Life imprisonment sentences in Hawai‘i are reserved for those convicted of first- and second-degree murder, or attempted first- and second-degree murder.

6 days ago | alohastatedaily.com | Michael Brestovansky

Here's how Hawai‘i's reps voted. The U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday to pass the Gulf of America Act, a Republican proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico and require the federal government to update the gulf’s name on all official records. The vote was split neatly along party lines, with 211 Republicans voting in support of the measure, and 205 Democrats — including Hawai‘i representatives Ed Case and Jill Tokuda — voting against.

1 week ago | alohastatedaily.com | Michael Brestovansky

The state could shed light on “one of the darkest corners of Hawai‘i's public policies” thanks to a prison reform proposal. Senate Bill 104 would restrict the state’s use of solitary confinement within Hawai‘i prisons and require greater review and reporting of how the practice is implemented.

1 week ago | alohastatedaily.com | Michael Brestovansky

On April 25, the Department of Land and Natural Resources announced that it had conducted a sweep of encampments at Diamond Head State Monument, removing 43 camps from the crater slopes. At the time, DLNR referred to "buckets used to hold human waste" littering Diamond Head. "No one knows if this material will flow into the ocean during rain," read a DLNR news release, which added that DLNR contractors did not remove those buckets because of health concerns.