News flash: Looks like the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and its sister publications on the Big Island and Kauai will soon be turning over the keys to the printing press to the Alabama newspaper chain that has been trying to buy them.

A Canadian bankruptcy court last week approved the sale of Black Press to its new owners, which include Carpenter Media, the Alabama spinoff from a Mississippi newspaper company that is known for running relatively small community papers. The sale is expected to be finalized Friday.

The Seattle online news site Post Alley has been keeping closer tabs on the sale than The Sunshine Blog and has an excellent account of what has been going on in an article published Monday. Besides papers in Hawaii, Black Press owned news operations in Washington state, Alaska and a few other places. All are going to the new owners.

It’s still unclear what this will mean for Black’s Hawaii operations (we have calls into the S-A and Carpenter Media) but Post Alley writer Chuck Taylor reports that “court documents indicate there will be unspecified Black Press layoffs before the deal closes on Friday.”

The Blog hates to say it but Oahu Publications, the Black Press subsidiary that owns the Hawaii papers as well as Midweek, really can’t lose much more editorial blood before it shrivels up.

One interesting tidbit from the most recent bankruptcy court report regarding Hawaii’s operations. It seems the Star-Advertiser was the victim of a ransomware attack in January. “Akira Ransomware Group (“Akira”) initiated a ransomware attack where it encrypted a number of servers utilized by BP Hawaii by gaining access through weaknesses in BP Hawaii’s virtual private network (the “Cyber Incident”),” the report says.

The newspaper was still able to publish but the attack took out its business functions including billing subscribers for about a month. Akira demanded $4 million ransom which the newspaper negotiated down to $150,000 using an intermediary who specializes in such things.

“The Ransom Amount was paid to Akira in bitcoin through an intermediary that provides cryptocurrency ransomware settlement services,” the report says. “Shortly after the Ransom Amount was paid, access to the encrypted servers was restored.”

OMG. When did this all become so … matter of fact?

Well, how ’bout that: The person who led the charge to limit marriage rights between one man and one woman in Hawaii over a quarter of a century ago now says he’s sorry for his role.

“I want to take this opportunity before I vote to sincerely apologize,” Sen. Mike Gabbard said at a hearing Tuesday of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “As some of you know, I played a critical role in the passage of the 1998 constitutional amendment. So I want to say to all the people, I’m sorry. I am sincerely sorry if I offended you in any way. That comes from the bottom of my heart.”

Gabbard said that he had intended to vote against House Bill 2802, which proposes a Con Am to repeal the Legislature’s authority. And he said he still has “some issues” with the legislation.

But he said his views on marriage have changed over the years.

“I don’t believe government has any business in telling people who they can and they cannot love,” he explained, stunning the committee room audience that included prominent marriage rights activists.

Gabbard then proceeded to vote with reservations — a yes vote — on legislation that proposes to remove the Legislature’s authority over marriage.

The Leg never did act on that authority, and same-sex marriage became law in Hawaii in 2013 and nationally in 2015. But, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 that eliminated the right to an abortion under the federal constitution, marriage equality activists want to ensure that the rights of LGBTQ people in Hawaii are preserved.

Carrying the torch: Speaking of people who championed marriage equality, the Big Island Press Club this week gave its annual meritorious Torch of Light Award to retired Intermediate Court of Appeals Judge Daniel Foley. It’s for Foley’s work leading the Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct (The Blog prefers to call it the Foley commission) that proposed bills to increase transparency and accountability in local government.

But Blog fans will remember that Foley was the attorney for the same-sex couples in Baehr v. Lewin in 1993, where the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled it was sex discrimination under the state constitution’s bill of rights to deny same-sex couples marriage licenses — unless the state could demonstrate a compelling state interest to discriminate against the couples.

The press club also issued its Lava Tube Dishonor to HIEMA Administrator Col. (Ret.) James Barros for his continued support of the state’s “constitutionally questionable law” allowing the governor and county mayors to suspend electronic media transmission during a state of emergency. The law, says the club, “could be interpreted by some leaders as a ‘kill switch’ of sorts which would prevent journalists from reporting news during an emergency.”

A bill to get rid of that suspension authority, by the way, is moving through the Legislature.

And the Big Island Press Club also bestowed its Oʻo Award to none other than Kevin Dayton, senior reporter for Honolulu Civil Beat.

“Dayton, digging into public records through numerous requests through Hawaii’s Uniform Information Practices Act and cultivating sources within the system, wrote dozens of articles shining the light on dire conditions in Hawaii’s prisons and jails, raising public awareness and sparking government action,” the club said in a press release this week.

Be it resolved: It happens a lot at the Hawaii Legislature: Bills are proposed that are just too controversial or unpopular to handle, and so they are killed in favor of studying the ideas presented.

That’s the proposal from two House resolutions that are set to be heard Wednesday afternoon by the House Legislative Management Committee. House Resolution 119 and House Concurrent Resolution 138 ask the Legislative Reference Bureau to consider what it would take for Hawaii to have a year-round legislature.

The resos — they are identical; a resolution expresses the will of the Legislature but does not have the effect of law, while a concurrent resolution requests action — identify a couple of reasons to meet more frequently:

• to get a “more thorough understanding of public sentiment, as lawmakers have increased opportunities to interact with their constituents and stakeholders and analyze community needs”;
• longer sessions are more likely to establish policies “that address specific concerns of their state, rather than applying policies from other states and national lobbying organizations”; and
• a year-round legislature would also “increase transparency” by giving lawmakers more time to address statewide issues while hearing from the public.

A yearlong Legislature, of course, would require significant increases in staffing and resources and would be paid for by taxpayers. The resos ask the LRB to report back to the Leg by the 2025 session.

The Leg currently meets from the third Wednesday in January to early May.