The state, with legislative approval, is set to pay out more than $1.5 million in settlement money for two high-profile cases on the Big Island.

A Hamakua beach park finally reopened Wednesday after seven years of closure and renovations.

Kohanaiki, also known as Pine Trees, was bustling Saturday with families attending the 26th annual Surf for the Earth and Beach Clean Up.

The nene gosling that died last month in Lili‘uokalani Park and Gardens in Hilo likely was killed by toxoplasmosis, an infection spread in the feces of feral cats, according to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Adult coconut rhinoceros beetles, a highly destructive invasive pest that has devastated Oahu palm trees, have been detected on the Big Island for the first time.

A 31-year-old Hawaiian Paradise Park man admitted shooting an acquaintance Friday morning — and there is video footage of the incident, according to court documents filed by police.

HONOLULU — Amy Chadwick spent years scrimping and saving as a single mother of two to buy a house in the town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui. But after a devastating fire leveled Lahaina in August and reduced Chadwick’s home to white dust, the cheapest rental she and her now-husband could find for their family and dogs cost $10,000 a month.

Fall enrollment at the University of Hawaii in Hilo was down last year, continuing a years-long trend.

The fate of the Thirty Meter Telescope rests in the hands of the Hawaiian community, observatory officials say.

A proposed law that would make motorists thrice convicted of driving without a license within five years guilty of a felony will go to Gov. Josh Green’s desk for his signature.