State news in brief for March 1

Final site chosen for Maui wildfire ash, debris

(TNS) — Lahaina wildfire ash and debris will be headed to Kahului for final disposal. Maui County officials picked the Central Maui Landfill over two contending sites in West Maui after an internal analysis adjusted by community survey results. Shayne Agawa, director of the county Department of Environmental Management, announced the selection Wednesday evening during the county’s weekly disaster recovery community update meeting at Lahaina Civic Center. The selection followed several months of work that included narrowing the number of potential sites to three from eight, and two surveys that received 2,757 responses earlier this month largely from people who indicated they live on Maui.

New online dashboard tracks Hawaii public schools’ progress

(TNS) — A new online dashboard has been launched by the state Department of Education to help the public and community leaders follow progress on a six-year strategic plan for improvement of Hawaii public schools. On the LEI Kukui portal at, visitors can view data for the statewide public school system’s performance in three priority areas set by the state Board of Education: “High Quality Learning,” “High Quality Educator Workforce” and “Effective and Efficient Operations.” Examples of 22 data sets tracked so far on the website include percentages of students proficient in math, science and reading; on-time graduation rates; percentages of teachers who have training in their assigned subject matter; and percentages of students who say their school is safe.

Man to be sentenced over child pornography

(TNS) — A Honolulu man who recruited at least four minor girls online to make sex films and was found with child pornography involving children as young as 4 years old will be sentenced in federal court today. Starting in January 2019 and continuing until October 2021, John Michael Brito, 33, used social media applications to entice four minor girls “for the purpose of producing and attempting to produce and receiving child pornography, ” according to a plea agreement Brito entered into with the U.S. Department of Justice. He entered a guilty plea to producing child pornography and will spend between 25 and 50 years in federal prison. He will pay up to a $250, 000 fine, and at least $55, 000 in restitution and fines and a $100 special assessment.

Family stranded in Kona forced to sleep outside when airport closed

(TNS) — One family’s tropical vacation led to a difficult overnight stay when they were stranded outside of an airport overnight. SFGate reports that a family of six arrived at Kona International Airport for a red-eye flight to California, which was the first leg of their trip back home to Idaho. According to SFGate, the family — Timmie John of Idaho Falls, her grandmother and four children — discovered their flight with United Airlines had been delayed. The flight was later canceled, and the family was informed around 11 p.m.

At that point, due to ongoing repair projects, Kona International Airport was closing overnight, meaning the family could not stay inside until the morning. John and her family were offered a hotel voucher from the airline, but then found there were no available hotel rooms within 50 miles of the airport. With no other options, John and her family had no choice but to try and sleep outside. “I asked the United agent where are we supposed to go and sleep if the airport is closing?” John told SFGate in their story. “She said ‘Sometimes I see people sleeping over there’ and pointed to benches on the grass outside. I have four kids and my grandmother was there. She just didn’t care. We were just outside on the grass.”