WHAT IS IMPORTANT TODAY

About the Lahaina Apocalypse, some better news, in that the death toll of 115 was reduced to 97, with now only 31 missing.

Also, that historic banyan tree, once thought to also be a victim, is sprouting green leaves. Watch a video of this growth.

Meet the Press has a new moderator, Kristen Welker. She yesterday interviewed Donald Trump. Read about the 11 most newsworthy moments. However, you know that Trump needs fact-checking. Here are 11 points were he flubbed numbers, misstated facts and omitted critical context. You got to admit that he makes life more interesting. Yet you wonder how and why so many Republicans still support him. Next, President Joe Biden?

I worked in the U.S. Senate for three years. That was more than 40 years ago. Everyone dressed formally. Now:

Senate’s dress code: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has changed the Senate’s informal dress code to allow senators to wear whatever they want on the floor, which will go into effect today.

Yes, John Fetterman can now wear shorts when addressing his colleagues. Chuck Schumer, however, indicated that he would continue to wear suit and tie. Republicans lambasted the rule change, calling it disrespectful to the decorum of the Senate. Here is what Governor Ron DeSantis said.

If I find an article you can read I'll later link it here (although you can try the New York Times or Mercury News), but David Brooks published an op-ed entitled Milt Romney has given us a gift: his views of the GOP.

In short, Romney is a decent Republican today, something missing in their leaders today.
Writes about Mitch McConnell's tragic attempts to do some good, but is failing.
Mentions McKay Coppins' new book about Romney.
That there have been admirable Republicans in our past, like John McCain, Mitt's father George, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and George H.W. Bush.
The GOP needs to change, but if Trump is leading it, will not reform, and will continue to be deprived of power. Kind of what I said a few days ago.

People send me stuff. They are mostly as old as me, both what is sent and who. Especially appropriate for today if you're in Japan, for September 18 is Happy Respect for Aged Day. Today is a national holiday in that country.

“If you want to know how old a woman is, ask her sister-in-law." - Edgar Howe

"Old age comes at a bad time." – San Banducci

"Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened." - Jennifer Yane

"Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you are aboard, there is nothing you can do about it."- Golda Meir

"Nice to be here? At my age it’s nice to be anywhere." – George Burns

"First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper up, then you forget to pull your zipper down." - Leo Rosenberg

"At age 20, we worry about what others think of us…at age 40, we don’t care what they think of us…at age 60, we discover they haven’t been thinking of us at all." - Ann Landers

"When I was young, I was called a rugged individualist. When I was in my fifties, I was considered eccentric. Here I am doing and saying the same things I did then, and I’m labeled senile." – GB

"We don't grow older, we grow riper." - Pablo Picasso

"It's paradoxical that the idea of a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone." - Andy Rooney

"I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a lot more as they get older, and then it dawned on me — they’re cramming for their final exam."- George Carlin

"When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old." - Mark Twain

"There’s one advantage to being 102, there’s no peer pressure." - Dennis Wolfberg

"There are three stages of man: he believes in Santa Claus, he does not believe in Santa Claus, he is Santa Claus." - Bob Phillips

"Looking fifty is great — if you’re sixty." - Joan Rivers

"At my age ‘getting lucky’ means walking into a room and remembering what I came in for." – Unknown

Plus a photo of Nuuanu Valley from 15 Craigside yesterday.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicio...

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for...

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

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