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Some Maui residents are speaking out about the need to take care of the tourism industry. Although we must mourn and remember the victims of the forest fire disaster, there is a consensus that if we do not take care of our main industry, tourism, there may be a bigger economic fallout.

Mr. S, a Maui resident, explained that while we need time to remember and mourn the pain of those affected by the forest fire, we should not forget that there are residents who need jobs to make a living. Tourism, Hawaii’s main industry, has played a particularly large role in Maui.

The Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB) said that 1.4 million people visited Maui in the first half of 2023 alone and explained that the tourism industry is Maui’s economic engine. According to the Maui Economic Development Commission, as much as 70% of Maui’s tax revenue comes from tourism.

Rafael Villanueva, director of TEN (Tourism Expert Network), a tourism industry advisory firm, explained that while everything must be devoted to disaster response, it is also important to establish a reconstruction plan. He added that keeping residents employed will be key to reconstruction. Director Villanueva mentioned the shooting incident that occurred at the Las Vegas Country Music Festival in 2017 and hinted that the response implemented by the Las Vegas tourism authorities and government could serve as a reference.

At the time, the Las Vegas government took swift action to maintain tourists by repairing the damage and promoting safety, without a separate mourning period immediately after the disaster. Governor Josh Green said people should avoid visiting West Maui, where the wildfires occurred, but emphasized that tourism is still operating normally in other parts of Maui and neighbouring islands.

In addition, he assumed that if Maui’s tourism industry was halted, a large-scale exodus of residents could occur, and warned that the closure of tourism would be another disaster.

A ‘ridiculous’ incident occurred in which reporters from a broadcasting station in Chicago were robbed by armed assailants while going to the scene to report on the rapid increase in armed robbery.

According to the Chicago Press and the Washington Post on the 29th, two reporters from the Chicago local TV news ‘Univision Chicago’ were preparing for a broadcast at 5:00 am in the West Wicker Park district of Chicago, where recent armed robberies occurred.

The police said, “When the reporters, consisting of one reporter and one cameraman, were filming a report on the scene, a black SUV and a gray car approached and stopped.” he said.

After pointing guns at the reporters and demanding money, they took the cameras set up for filming, two bags containing broadcasting equipment, and the photographer’s personal bag, took their belongings, and got back in the car and fled.

Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Chicago confirmed that the two men involved in the robbery belonged to the company, a 28-year-old man and a 42-year-old man.

The police said on the 29th, one day after the incident, that they are still investigating the case and that the suspect has not been caught.

The incident occurred while police were investigating a series of at least eight armed robberies and vehicle thefts between the night of the 27th and the morning of the 28th in the Wicker Park district, about 8km west of downtown Chicago.

The police explained that the connection between these cases was not revealed, but that each of the two to four people who were hiding and attacked the victim was similar.

Citing Chicago police data, the Washington Post said, “Chicago’s homicide rate has decreased by 8% compared to the same period last year, and the number of shootings has decreased by 11% compared to August last year.”

He added, “The number of reported car thefts totalled 19,500, a 99% increase compared to last August.”

The Chicago Sun-Times said, “It’s already the second case in the past three weeks that a Chicago TV production crew was robbed while covering.” said it did.

The Chicago chapter of the National Union of Broadcasters (NABET) said, “Broadcasters and union officials are considering additional measures to enhance security for on-site production crews.”

The White House announced on the 23rd that it would invest in a cancer vaccine development project using messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology, which made significant progress in the development of a novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19) vaccine.

“Cancer Moonshot,” President Joe Biden’s cancer conquest project, said in a press release on the same day, “Investing $24 million in Emory University’s ‘CUREIT’, which uses mRNA technology to combat cancer and other diseases.”

mRNA, which serves as a kind of blueprint that tells the body how to make proteins, is a substance that has begun to receive attention in earnest after the COVID-19 crisis. A vaccine based on this injects mRNA containing viral information into the body to synthesize viral proteins on its own, inducing antibody formation accordingly. After the Corona 19 pandemic is over, it is expanding its scope to other diseases such as colds and cancer.

The White House explained, “The goal of Curate is to create mRNA that promotes the formation of immune cells that can target and attack tumours.”

President Biden said, “We launched the ‘Cancer Moonshot’ project to end cancer,” and “Today we took an important step toward this goal. We will use mRNA technology to develop technology to boost our immune system to fight cancer. that,” he emphasized. “The Emory research team is using the mRNA technology that has been used to end the coronavirus crisis for years, turning cancer into a more treatable disease,” he added.

The ‘Cancer Moonshot’ project, named after mankind’s moonshot, is a large-scale project that encompasses the development of innovative technologies at the federal government level to overcome cancer, as well as cancer prevention and expansion of medical convenience in the community. Earlier, at the Korea-US-Japan summit held at Camp David on the 18th, President Biden said, “We decided to support the US cancer conquest project ‘Cancer Moonshot’ through exchanges of experts from the three countries.”

It was confirmed that there was a residential complex for the elderly with 34 households in the Hawaii wildfire disaster area, raising the possibility that many of the elderly here were sacrificed.

Sanford Hill (72), a surviving resident of the Hale Mahaolu Eono, a senior living complex in Lahaina, Maui Island, Hawaii, said in an interview with NBC News on the 16th, “There is no way to know which of the neighbours survived. “

Hill said he knew of only three people who had escaped from the 34-unit complex, and that even with news of other survivors, the whereabouts of only a few were confirmed. He also called the company that owns the residential complex, but said he only heard “no information” from the staff.

He said that when the fire broke out in Lahaina on the 8th, there was no evacuation warning, so all residents, including himself, were unaware of the dangerous situation. He stayed home for half a day on the 8th and watched firefighters extinguish a fire in the east of town, but said it was nothing serious at the time.

The building’s manager went around telling the tenants that they “might have to evacuate,” but then word spread that the fire was under control, and the firefighters left. He went out to see his scheduled dental appointment. “I wasn’t worried, nobody was worried,” he recalled. “Everyone was at home, nobody was evacuated.” On the way back from the dentist’s office, he saw black smoke billowing toward Lahaina from the east side of town, and as he drove toward the house, he met a woman who hurriedly ran off the road on foot. This woman, she said, said the town was burning, and Hill managed to survive by getting this woman in her car and driving her out of town.

Hill stayed at the shelter the next day, stayed overnight in a hotel, and moved to temporary accommodation in Kihei. He said he had been homeless and moved into this senior living complex in Lahaina in 2016. It is said that this complex was popular for its low rent of $144 per month. Hill was able to live comfortably by paying the monthly rent of the house with a monthly social security allowance of 914 dollars. However, he was worried that this house disappeared overnight, and he was at a loss as to how he would be able to find it in the future. He also expressed his anger at the authorities for not issuing an alert for a fire, which had been completely unprepared for the fire before.

Families of other elderly people who lived in the complex are also struggling. Clifford Abihai, from California looking for the 98-year-old grandmother, has searched for shelters and put-up missing flyers, but has not received any information. “All I want is confirmation that her grandmother is okay,” he said.

Daniel Yakut, who is looking for her 90-year-old grandmother, was also frustrated, saying, “We can’t go in (the site), we can’t look for it.” Buddy Zantok, 79, one of the first two deaths disclosed by Hawaii authorities the day before, was also said to have lived in the senior living complex.

The remarks made by a 6-year-old boy who shocked American society by shooting a teacher earlier this year with a grudge against suspension were belatedly disclosed. He said that even when he shot people, he was not afraid, but rather showed off his actions proudly.

WTKR, a Norfolk, Virginia-area television station affiliated with CBS, reported on the 8th that this fact was revealed after examining the contents of a search warrant related to the case recently obtained. According to the media, on January 6 of this year, a first-year boy who fired a pistol at Abigail Juner (25), a teacher who was in class at an elementary school in Newport News, Virginia, was immediately caught and subdued by a reading instructor.

In a subdued situation, the boy said, “I shot and killed that XX”, “I did it”, and confided to school officials that “I took my mom’s gun last night”, WTKR reported. The search warrant also contained statements made to the police by the victim’s teacher, Juner, while he was hospitalized. Juner said the boy pulled a pistol out of his pocket and pointed it at himself. She asked, “What are you doing with it?” The boy paused for a moment before pulling the trigger. The bullet fired by the boy hit Juner in his left hand and lodged in his chest, and Juner escaped the classroom immediately afterward and moved to the teachers’ office but was in critical condition.

After four surgeries, she survived and filed a $40 million lawsuit against the school authorities for ignoring warnings that the boy in question had a firearm. According to the search warrant, several school staff members, including the reading instructor who subdued the boy, were told by other students that the boy’s book bag contained a gun, and they checked the bag during recess, but could not find the gun.

Police dispatched after the incident found a loaded and abandoned 9mm pistol on the classroom floor, and the gun’s owner, the boy’s mother, was charged with felony crimes related to child neglect. However, it is said that the child who committed her crime is receiving treatment while escaping criminal punishment.

According to CNN, the boy’s parents said through their lawyers that day, “This boy has extreme emotional issues. We are all working hard to help him get better every day.” Previously, they claimed that the boy had a ‘severe handicap’. Meanwhile, the search warrant obtained by WTKR states that the boy attacked another teacher while attending kindergarten at the school.

Investigators who interviewed the now-retired teacher said, “Two years ago, in September 2021, the boy walked behind her (her teacher) in a chair, then wrapped his arms around her neck and pulled her down, preventing her from breathing.” I was so sleepy,” she said. At the same time, CNN broadcast reported that the assistant teacher had to force the boy out of the classroom.

In the state of Georgia, ignoring heat wave warnings and ‘forcing’ an outdoor event, it happened that about 20 people with heat illness occurred in a pile at once.

Georgia’s Savannah Morning News, citing local fire authorities on the 1st, said that at least 10 people, including children, were taken to the emergency room at Lake Mayer Park in Savannah, Georgia on the afternoon of the 30th of last month with heat-related illness.

In addition, 10 other people received first aid at the scene and were handed over to their guardians. An official from the Savannah Fire Department said that all those hospitalized were in an emergency related to heat illness and were discharged after receiving sufficient fluids.

They were attending a local event hosted by Louisiana State University’s popular women’s basketball player, Flauge Johnson. At the time of the event, the temperature in the Savannah area reached 35 degrees, and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a heat wave warning, but the organizers went ahead with the event.

The organizers had a fire truck on standby at the event site in case of an emergency. However, from around 4:20 pm, heat-related patients began to appear one after another, and the situation was difficult for on-site emergency personnel to cope with, so two additional fire trucks were dispatched in an emergency, the fire department said.

In the end, the Savannah police and fire department immediately stopped the event and closed the park until the 31st, the day after the accident, to prevent similar incidents from occurring. Savannah Fire Chief Joseph Shaw said, “This situation is unprecedented.” The city of Savannah, where the accident occurred, is a port city located in southern Georgia, and a factory dedicated to Hyundai Motor Company’s electric vehicles is being built in nearby Brian County.

The son of NBA star LeBron James (USA) has recovered from a cardiac arrest during practice.

The Associated Press and ESPN, an American sports media, quoted the James family’s announcement on the 26th and reported, “James’ son, Bronny, collapsed from cardiac arrest during practice yesterday.”

Bronny, born in 2004, had a sudden heart problem while training with players from his team, the University of Southern California (USC), in Los Angeles, California, USA the day before.

James’ family said, “We express our gratitude to the school medical staff and staff who worked hard to ensure the safety of the players.” Bronny decided to go to USC in May of this year and could be in the 2024 NBA draft at the earliest.

AFP reported, “Experts expect Bronny to be a top 10 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.”

If Bronny is selected in the 2024 draft, he could make his NBA debut in the 2024-2025 season. In 2024, James will be 40 years old, and his son Bronny will be 20 years old.

Oregon governor re-imprisoned after cancelling pardon for convicted prisoner released 2 years ago.

A ‘person of interest’ identified by the police in connection with the deaths of four women recently found dead in the Portland area has been arrested and re-imprisoned in prison.

He is a convicted prisoner who was released with an amnesty in 2021 for theft along with model prisoners. Gov. Tina Kortek cancelled the pardon for Jesse Lee Calhoun, 38, who was arrested and ordered him to serve the remaining 11 months of his sentence.

Calhoun had been pardoned along with 40 other prisoners by former Gov. Kate Brown. According to police, the bodies of four women, were found in separate forests in Portland between the months of February and May.

The police did not disclose how these women were murdered and their bodies abandoned, or why Calhoun was singled out as a person of interest.  Calhoun has not yet been formally charged.

The Multnomah County Prosecutor’s Office said it had “at least one person of interest” brought to the fore during the investigation and said it had heard testimony from many. Calhoun was arrested and served time in 2019 on charges such as theft and carjacking, and he was pardoned the following year, along with her fellow convicts who collaborated in fighting wildfires in 2020.

At the time, Governor Brown had commuted their sentences, saying that they were judged not to harm the safety of society. Deputy Attorney General Todd Jackson said Calhoun was involved in another crime after being released from prison and is currently under police investigation.

Governor Kortek accepted this, and Calhoun returned to prison on the 7th and began serving the remainder of his sentence, Jackson added. As the bodies of the mysterious women were found one after another, rumours spread on social media that these cases were linked.

Police denied that there was any evidence to support this until last month, but finally changed their stance on the 17th and joined the view of other investigative agencies that there was a connection to these cases.

An official said that nine local law enforcement agencies, including Oregon’s three county prosecutor’s offices and the state police department, are jointly investigating the case. The state coroner’s office has not revealed the cause of death of the victims or the details of the killings.

In Rolling Hills Estates, known as a wealthy residence in Los Angeles County, California, more than 10 luxury homes collapsed one after another, forcing residents to evacuate in a hurry.

According to the Los Angeles County Fire Department and the City of Rolling Hills Estate on the 11th, ground movement has occurred in some housing complexes in the area since the 8th. As a result, the walls of 12 houses built on the ground began to crack and collapse, and a red alert was issued. 16 residents were evacuated from their homes, and luckily there were no casualties.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department said in a social media notice on the 10th that “10 of the houses with red alerts are still moving,” and “an additional 16 are under surveillance.”

“The speed at which the houses were destroyed was shocking,” said Janice Hahn, chairman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. “There are still many things we don’t know about this situation,” She added. However, she said, “I think that with the heavy rains we experienced last winter, especially after a drought, the water that flowed underground could have moved the ground as it put pressure on it.”

In Southern California, including LA County, heavy rains fell 11 times from the end of December last year to March of this year, causing flooding in various places. The southwest area of Los Angeles County, where the Rolling Hills Estate is located, is mostly hilly and at high altitude, so there was little damage from flooding, but it is possible that the ground has been weakened by record rainfall.

Rolling Hills Estate is a residential city on the Palos Verdis Peninsula in southwestern Los Angeles County, with a population of about 8,000 and a median household income of about $160,000 as of 2021.

So far, 26 million applications…Procedures for cancelling $430 million loan forgiveness. The Supreme Court on the 30th related to two lawsuits against the policy that the Biden administration exempted student loan debt up to $20,000 for households with an annual income of less than $125,000 ($250,000 for couples combined) in August of last year.

As a result, the policy of cancelling student loans worth a total of $430 billion, which President Biden had been promoting with a bet right before the midterm elections, was in the process of being scrapped. In addition, it is expected that this ruling will inevitably cause confusion throughout society, including the 40 million people who have expected to benefit from it.

The Supreme Court, which was reorganized so that conservative justices account for a majority (6 to 3) during the days of former President Donald Trump, ruled that the preferential admission system for minorities in universities was also unconstitutional the day before. The lawsuits were filed by two individuals in six Republican-controlled states and two in Texas.

Six conservative justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, have made it clear that the administration needs congressional approval and has no independent authority to launch such a costly program. The Biden administration has argued that there is sufficient legal authority to cancel such student loans under the HEROES Act introduced in 2003, but the Supreme Court dismissed the claim.

In a majority opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts, “While the Department of Education argues that the law grants the authority to cancel $430 billion in principle on student loans, it does not.” It is allowed to be, but not so that the law itself can be rewritten from scratch.” Reuters reported, citing a White House official, that the White House strongly opposes the court’s decision, and that President Biden will come up with a new plan during the day for student loan relief.

In Washington, the prevailing view was that the conservative Supreme Court would put a brake on policy ahead of this ruling. Some analysed that there was no possibility that the president would raise his hand, but as a result, there was no change.

According to the New York Times (NYT), since the announcement of the student loan relief policy, 26 million people have applied for student loan relief, and the government has approved 16 million of them. There have been no cases where the indemnity process has been carried out yet.