Blog: www.kgmb9.com/howard

Video Headlines:

A lawsuit charges conspiracy to fix shipping rates through fuel surcharges. Maui Tropical Soaps is going after Matson but calls Horizon a co-conspirator. The math in the suit is complicated and could be open to challenge.

Most interisland flights for this weekend are sold out despite the highest fares in years. Go is charging almost 200 roundtrip to Lihue and Hawaiian is averaging 280.

Go begins charging 25 bucks for second checked bag in mid-July. Its smaller planes have limited cargo space.

The House Appropriations Committee has approved 200 grand for reef research in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and a quarter million for the Honolulu police crime lab.

Hawaii's first Internet-based TV network is on the air. PacificNetwork TV is dedicated to promoting Hawaii, its people, its culture, and its products, to a global audience. Edgy Lee took a year off from making movies to build it.

The official definition of a recession is two consecutive down quarters for the GDP, gross domestic product. By that definition, no "R" word yet. First quarter GDP grew at an annualized rate of 1 percent. It isn't much but it's more than either private economists or the government itself predicted.

COLA Vote:

The Senate governmental affairs has done something that's important for any federal employee based in Hawaii. It voted yesterday to phase out Hawaii's COLA in favor of locality pay like they get on the mainland. You can actually get more money in your paycheck from a COLA. It's not taxable. But it's also not counted as income. So it doesn't count toward retirement. Some federal workers have actually transferred to the mainland near the end of their careers in order to switch to locality pay and lock in a larger pension. That's a grim decision for someone who likes being in Hawaii, and Senator Akaka, a member of the Senate governmental affairs committee, has been trying for years to get something done. Yesterday the committee sent a remedy to the Senate floor. The issue is complex -- for example, postal workers have slightly different rules and Akaka wants a solution that doesn't mess with THEIR pensions. But at this point he thinks it looks good for a rewrite of the rules to allow all federal employees to stay here through retirement without detriment to their income.

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