SAN FRANCISCO >> U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband, University of California Regent Richard Blum, was named today by the state auditor’s office as one of the regents involved in admissions scandal where UC wrongly admitted dozens of wealthy, mostly white students as favors to well-connected people.

Among those “inappropriately admitted” were a student whose family was friends with a member of the Board of Regents, the child of a major donor and an applicant who babysat for a colleague of a former admissions director, according to the report released Tuesday by the California State Auditor.

In one case, a regent unidentified in the audit sent an “inappropriate letter of support” directly to the UC Berkeley chancellor on behalf of a student with only a 26% chance of winning a sp...

Three Hawaii elementary schools were named 2020 National Blue Ribbon Schools today and all are repeat winners — Waikiki School, Liholiho School in Kaimuki and E.B. de Silva Elementary in Hilo.

Each was recognized as an “exemplary high-performing school” by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, based on their academic prowess. But leaders at all three public schools say their academic success stems in part from a focus on fostering their students’ social and emotional well being.

Liholiho was recognized as a Blue Ribbon School in 2004 and 2011; Waikiki School in 2007 and 2013; and E.B. de Silva in 2014. They were among 367 public and private schools to receive the coveted National Blue Ribbon award this year.

News of the awards came as a welcome lift to staff at the schools as the...

WASHINGTON >> The FBI has not seen evidence of a “coordinated national voter fraud effort,” its director, Christopher Wray, told lawmakers Thursday, undercutting President Donald Trump’s efforts to stoke fears about mail-in ballots by claiming without evidence that they are an election threat.

Any fraud effort would have to be widespread and well coordinated to change the election outcome, and carrying out that kind of fraud would be a “major challenge for an adversary,” Wray said. But he made it clear he was not minimizing other threats to election security, including smaller-scale frauds.

“It’s on our radar,” Wray told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Wray’s testimony came a week after the president publicly attacked him for asserting at a...

The state Department of Health is spending $14 million in federal CARES Act money to boost staffing at Hawaii hospitals statewide over the next four months.

The money will go towards the temporary hiring of more than 200 mainland nurses and specialists, some of whom will be arriving this weekend, the DOH said.

Gov. Ige approved the money this week through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to increase health care capacity as the state reopens the kama’aina economy today and public schools and tourism in October.

The state contracted Cincinnati, Ohio-based staffing firm ProLink Healthcare to fill 85% of the specialized positions by medical-surgical nurses, critical care nurses and telemetry nurses for Kuakini Medical Center, Queen’s Medical Center, Adventist ...

Authorities in Louisville, Kentucky, have charged Larynzo Johnson, 26, with 14 counts of wanton endangerment and two counts of assault on a police officer after two officers were shot during protests in the city, according to the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections.

Johnson was arrested Wednesday, booked this morning, and is scheduled to be arraigned Friday, the department said.

The city erupted in angry demonstrations Wednesday after a grand jury decided not to bring charges against the police officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor during a botched nighttime raid on her apartment in March. The grand jury instead indicted another officer involved in the raid for recklessly firing shots that entered a neighboring apartment.

The decision in a case that has drawn widespread con...

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DENVER >> Whether people who live in territories controlled by the U.S. automatically become citizens under a constitutional amendment that secured citizenship for freed slaves was a major focus of arguments Wednesday in a federal appeals court in Denver in a case seeking citizenship rights for residents of American Samoa.

American Samoa, a cluster of islands some 2,600 miles southwest of Hawaii, is the only U.S. territory where residents have no birthright claim to citizenship.

Instead, they are granted “U.S. national” status, meaning they can’t vote for U.S. president, run for office outside American Samoa or apply for certain jobs. The only federal election they can cast a vote in is the race for American Samoa’s nonvoting U.S. House seat.

In December, a federal judge in Utah...