MONTAUK, New York >> Even after winter storms left East Coast harbors thick with ice, some of the country’s top chefs and trendy restaurants were offering sushi-grade tuna supposedly pulled in fresh off the coast of New York.

But it was just an illusion. No tuna was landing there. The fish had long since migrated to warmer waters.

In a global industry plagued by fraud and deceit, conscientious consumers are increasingly paying top dollar for what they believe is local, sustainably caught seafood. But even in this fast-growing niche market, companies can hide behind murky supply chains that make it difficult to determine where any given fish comes from. That’s where national distributor Sea To Table stepped in, guaranteeing its products were wild and directly traceable to a U.S. dock — and sometimes the very boat that brought it in.

However, an Associated Press investigation found the company was linked to some of the same practices it vowed to fight. Preliminary DNA tests suggested some of its yellowfin tuna likely came from the other side of the world, and reporters traced the company’s supply chain to migrant fishermen in foreign waters who described labor abuses, poaching and the slaughter of sharks, whales and dolphins.

The New York-based distributor was also offering species in other parts of the country that were illegal to catch, out of season and farmed.

Over the years, Sea To Table has become a darling in the sustainable seafood movement, building an impressive list of clientele, including celebrity chef Rick Bayless, Chopt Creative Salad chain, top universities and the makers of home meal kits such as HelloFresh.

“It’s sad to me that this is what’s going on,” said Bayless, an award-winning chef who runs eight popular restaurants and hosts a PBS cooking series. He said he loved the idea of being directly tied to fishermen — and the pictures and “wonderful stories” about their catch. “This throws quite a wrench in all of that.”

As part of its reporting, the AP staked out America’s largest fish market, followed trucks and interviewed fishermen who worked on three continents. During a bone-chilling week, they set up a camera that shot more than 36,000 time-lapse photos of a Montauk harbor, showing no tuna boats docking. At the same time, AP worked with a chef to order fish supposedly coming from the seaside town. The boat listed on the receipt hadn’t been there in at least two years.

Reporters also tracked Sea To Table’s supply chain to fishermen abroad who earn as little as $1.50 a day working 22-hour shifts without proper food and water.

“We were treated like slaves,” said Sulistyo, an Indonesian fisherman forced to work on a foreign trawler that delivered fish to a Sea To Table supplier. He asked that only one name be used, fearing retaliation. “They treat us like robots without any conscience.”

Sea To Table owner Sean Dimin emphasized his suppliers are strictly prohibited from sending imports to customers and added violators would be terminated.

“We take this extremely seriously,” he said.

Dimin said he communicated clearly with his customers that some fish labeled as freshly landed at one port was actually caught and trucked in from other states, but some chefs denied this. Federal officials described it as mislabeling.

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A century ago, small-scale fisheries dotted America’s coasts and fed the country’s demand for seafood. But as time passed, overfishing, strict government regulations and outsourcing to developing countries changed the industry, making it nearly impossible for local fishermen to compete.

The U.S. seafood market is worth $17 billion annually, with imports making up more than 90 percent of that. Experts say one in five fish is caught illegally worldwide, and a study last year by the University of California, Los Angeles and Loyola Marymount University found nearly half of all sushi samples tested in L.A. didn’t match the fish advertised on the menu.

Sea To Table offered a worry-free local solution that arrived from dock to doorstep by connecting chefs directly with more than 60 partners along U.S. coasts. While its mission is clear, scaling up to a national level while naming specific boats and docks is currently unrealistic. Still, the company is predicting rapid growth from $13 million in sales last year to $70 million by 2020, according to a confidential investor report obtained by the AP.

As its business expanded, AP found Sea To Table has been saying one thing but selling another.

For caterers hosting a ball for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who had successfully pushed through a law to combat seafood mislabeling, knowing where his fish came from was crucial.

The Montauk tuna arrived with a Sea To Table leaflet describing the romantic, seaside town and an email from a salesperson saying the fish was caught off North Carolina. But the boxes came from New York and there was no indication it had been landed in another state and driven more than 700 miles to Montauk. A week later the caterer ordered the Montauk tuna again. This time the invoice listed a boat whose owner later told AP he didn’t catch anything for Sea To Table at that time.

“I’m kind of in shock right now,” said Brandon LaVielle of Lavish Roots Catering. “We felt like we were supporting smaller fishing villages.”

Some of Sea To Table’s partner docks, it turns out, are not docks at all. Their seafood was advertised as “just landed” from wholesalers and retailers like Santa Barbara Fish Market — which also has imports — and Red’s Best in Boston. Both collect seafood at harbors and companies up and down their coasts.

Sea To Table also promoted fresh blue crab from Maryland in January, even though the season closed in November. In addition, the company said it never sells farmed seafood, citing concerns about antibiotics and hormones. But red abalone advertised from central California are actually grown in tanks — it’s been illegal to harvest commercially from the ocean since 1997. Rhode Island and Washington state also supply aquacultured seafood, such as oysters and mussels.

Dimin said farmed shellfish “is a very small part of our business, but it’s something that we’re open and clear about.” When asked to provide evidence that the company has been transparent about its use of farmed shellfish, he paused and then replied, “There’s nothing to hide there.”

However, days later, he said he decided to drop aquaculture from his business because it contradicts his “wild only” guarantee.

Private companies that mislead consumers, clients and potential investors could face lawsuits or criminal liability. Both the Food and Drug Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are charged with enforcing laws to prevent fish fraud. Sellers who know, or even should have known, that fish is mislabeled could be found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, mail fraud and wire fraud. The crimes carry potential fines and jail time.

Carl Safina, an award-winning author and leading marine conservationist at New York’s Stony Brook University, said companies that prey on consumers’ good intentions “deserve to be out of business immediately.”

A half dozen commercial fishermen and dealers in various regions of the country voiced concerns and, in some cases, anger about Sea To Table. Others have lashed out in the past using social media. Most spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for their safety and their businesses in an industry where relationships often overlap.

Eric Hodge, a small-scale fisherman from Santa Barbara, said he considered partnering with Sea To Table a few years ago. He quickly changed his mind after seeing canary rockfish on the distributor’s chef lists when the fish was illegal to catch. He also learned Sea To Table was buying halibut from the fish market, which relies heavily on imports. He said he spoke to the company about his concerns.

“Honestly, they know. I just don’t think they care,” Hodge said. “They are making money on every shipment, and they are not going to ask questions. And in seafood, that’s a bad way to go about it because there is so much fraud.”

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The idea for Sea To Table began with a family vacation to Trinidad and Tobago more than two decades ago. Following a fishing trip there, Michael Dimin and his son, Sean, eventually started shipping fresh catch from the Caribbean nation to chefs in New York. Later, they shifted their model to work exclusively with small-scale American coastal fishermen.

Restaurants and other buyers demanding sustainable products were drawn to the company by a marketing campaign that provided a story not just about where the fish came from, but the romantic image of an American pastime. And they were willing to pay a lot — sometimes more than $20 a pound — for high-end species.

The New York Times, National Geographic, Bon Appetit magazine and many others singled out Sea To Table as the good guys in a notoriously bad industry. Larry Olmsted, author of the bestselling book “Real Food, Fake Food,” recommended it as an answer to fraud in a Forbes article.

After learning about the problems, Olmsted said he was disappointed, and that it made no difference to him if part of the business was legitimate: “It either is reliable, or it’s not.”

Sea To Table partnered with sustainability giants such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Marine Stewardship Council and the James Beard Foundation, which collaborated on events and referred to the distributor as an industry favorite. They expressed concern that suppliers who knowingly mislabel catch will damage the movement.

Sea To Table’s products are sold in almost every state, reaching everywhere from Roy’s seafood restaurants to Tacombi taco chain. It can be found at eateries inside the Empire State Building in New York and Chicago’s O’Hare airport, direct to consumers from its own website and even on Amazon for home cooks to order. In addition, more than 50 college campuses such as Yale, Ohio State and the University of Massachusetts have signed up. So have some of the biggest make-it-yourself meal kits, including Home Chef and Sun Basket, a rapidly growing market that Sea To Table says generates a third its revenues.

Whether they know it or not, a company spending money at any point in a long chain that begins with an abused fisherman and ends with a diner is inadvertently supporting the problem. Customers who responded to AP said they were frustrated and confused.

“Not ok,” Ken Toong, who is responsible for UMass Dining, said of Sea To Table. “We believed them.”

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AP’s investigation began with one of Sea To Table’s nearby suppliers. Located on New York’s eastern coast beyond the posh Hamptons, Bob Gosman Company opened in Montauk as a mom-and-pop clam shack more than six decades ago.

Now run by cousins Bryan and Asa Gosman, it is a small empire sitting on a multi-million dollar property. Oceanfront restaurants, shops and motels bustle with tourists in the summer. And its fish market, where 70 percent of the tuna is imported, has become one of the biggest wholesalers in the area.

Gosman’s gets most of its tuna along with other species from a place in the state where fish can always be found, regardless of the season: The New Fulton Fish Market. The nine-acre refrigerated warehouse just outside Manhattan is the second-largest facility of its kind, moving millions of pounds of seafood each night, much of it flown in from across the globe.

Beautiful maroon slabs of imported high-grade tuna were on display for several nights in December, January and February, as well as other times throughout last year, when AP reporters roamed the market. The frigid building buzzed with workers on forklifts zigzagging across slick concrete floors, stacking orders waiting to be picked up.

In the early hours, often between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., boxes of fish bearing foreign shipping labels from all over the world were arranged into piles with “Gosman” scribbled across them in black marker. They were later hoisted onto a waiting truck with the same name.

After a three-hour drive east, the AP watched the loads arrive at the company’s loading dock in Montauk, just as the sun was rising on the tip of Long Island.

The tuna, swordfish and other species were then ferried inside Gosman’s warehouse. They came from Blue Ocean in Brazil, Vietnam’s Hong Ngoc Seafood Co., and Land, Ice and Fish in Trinidad and Tobago. Occasionally, boxes showed up from Luen Thai Fishing Venture and Marshall Islands Fishing Venture, part of a Hong Kong-based conglomerate that’s a major supplier of sushi-grade tuna. Despite recent conservation partnerships, Luen Thai has a checkered past, including shark finning and a bribery scandal that resulted in the jailing of a former Cook Islands marine resources minister in 2016.

Bryan Gosman said Sea To Table stressed it would not take imports. But with no yellowfin tuna landed in New York during the coldest winter months — which a federal official confirmed — it was impossible to provide high-quality loins from Montauk.

“So in the beginning, there were times when we were trying to hustle around fish,” Gosman said. “Buying fish at different places, so it could be a legitimate business plan that they’re trying to follow.”

Eventually, with Dimin’s blessing, Gosman said he started getting fish from as far away as North Carolina and trucking it up to New York.

They stopped that arrangement in March. Gosman said it wasn’t profitable. Dimin said they wanted to avoid the “complexity of communicating” their sourcing.

Meanwhile, in the dead of winter, AP had turned to a chef to order $500 worth of fish on their behalf. Sea To Table provided a receipt and verbal assurances that the seafood — which arrived overnight in a box bearing the company’s name and logo — had been landed in Montauk the day before.

The invoice even listed the “Standin Up” as the boat that caught it. But the vessel’s owner said it was in another state at the time, hundreds of miles away.

“I know my name is being used,” said Robert Devlin, who was upset by the news. “A lot of people do fraud that way.”

The AP also shipped tuna samples supposedly from Montauk to two labs for analysis: Preliminary DNA testing suggested the fish likely came from the Indian Ocean or the Western Central Pacific. There are limitations with the data because using genetic markers to determine the origins of species is still an emerging science, but experts say the promising new research will eventually be used to help fight illegal activity in the industry.

Bryan Gosman said they keep Sea To Table’s fish separate, but acknowledged there’s always a chance some imported tuna can slip through with domestic.

“Can things get mixed up? It could get mixed up,” he said. “Is it an intentional thing? No, not at all.”

———

The investigation didn’t end in Montauk. One of the boxes in Gosman’s stack at the Fulton fish market was stamped with a little blue tuna logo above the words “Land, Ice and Fish,” out of Trinidad and Tobago.

This is where the AP traced companies in Sea To Table’s supply chain to slave-like working conditions and the destruction of marine life.

The global seafood industry is known for providing cheap fish that comes with another price. Unscrupulous foreign companies operate with virtually no oversight in vast swaths of international waters, as AP reported in a series of stories in 2015. Those reports helped free more than 2,000 enslaved fishermen in Indonesia.

Though it’s nearly impossible to tell where a specific fish ends up, or what percentage of a company’s seafood is fraudulent, experts say even one bad piece taints the entire supply chain.

On learning that Sea To Table’s supply chain could be tracked to businesses engaged in labor and environmental abuses, Dimin said it was “abhorrent and everything we stand against.”

He said he was temporarily suspending operations with two partners to conduct an audit.

During the investigation, reporters interviewed and obtained written complaints from more than a dozen current and former Indonesian fishermen — including Sulistyo — who were connected to companies in Sea To Table’s supply chain.

Sulistyo said his trawler plied waters between Africa and the Caribbean. Occasionally, it stopped in Trinidad and unloaded swordfish, yellowfin and bigeye tuna at Land, Ice and Fish.

Some crew members who docked there said they were beaten and forced to work when they were sick or hurt. At times, they said, migrant workers died on board and were tossed in the freezer with their catch while the boat continued to fish.

“You are out 500 miles or a thousand miles from shore, he is the law at that point,” John Duberg of Land, Ice and Fish said of individual captains. “And if he feels he has a misbehaving crew member, he may have to take disciplinary actions.”

Marine life was treated with even less respect. Some men said they were ordered to pull in as many sharks as they could catch and slice off their fins, which are a delicacy in Asia. The bodies were tossed back into the ocean, a practice banned by many countries.

Whales also were killed, their heads sometimes chopped off and their teeth extracted as good luck charms. The workers showed photos and videos of fishermen posing with mutilated sharks and whales. While some men appeared to celebrating, others said it left them feeling sickened.

Sulistyo endured the abuse and long hours for a year before jumping to another ship in 2017, demanding to be taken to port. He returned to Indonesia and was classified as a victim of trafficking by the International Organization for Migration.

After hearing that just 30 pounds of tuna could be sold in America for more than $600 — the amount Sulistyo earned during his entire year of work — he stared at the ground in disgust.

“I want to say to the Americans who eat that fish, please appreciate what we did to catch this fish with our sweat, with our lives,” Sulistyo said. “Please remember that.”

WASHINGTON >> The Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark interest rate for the second time this year and signaled that it may step up its pace of rate increases because of solid U.S. economic growth and rising inflation.

The Fed now foresees four rate hikes this year, up from the three it had previously forecast.

The central bank raised its key short-term rate today by a modest quarter-point to a still-low range of 1.75 percent to 2 percent. The move reflects the economy’s resilience, the job market’s strength and inflation that’s finally nearing the Fed’s target level. The action means consumers and businesses will face higher loan rates over time.

It was the Fed’s seventh rate increase since it began tightening credit in 2015, and it followed an increase in March this year.

The Fed announcement helped resolved a debate in financial markets over whether the Fed under Jerome Powell, who succeeded Janet Yellen as chairman in February, might see a need to signal a possible acceleration in rate hikes. The statement the Fed issued today after its latest policy meeting ended suggested that he does.

Besides raising its projection for rate increases this year from three to four, the Fed removed a key sentence from the previous statement that had been viewed as foreseeing a need to keep rates low for an extended period. The Fed had said its key rate “is likely to remain, for some time, below levels that are expected to prevail in the longer run.”

The Fed’s new projection for the pace of rate hikes shows four rate this year and three in 2019 — both unchanged from its previous forecast in March — and one in 2020, down from the two that had been projected previously.

The new median forecast projects the Fed’s benchmark rate at 3.1 percent by the end of 2019, up from 2.9 percent in the previous forecast. For 2020, the Fed foresees a median rate of 3.4 percent. That means that by then, it thinks its key rate will finally exceed the 2.9 percent it sees as neutral — as neither stimulating nor restraining growth. Should the Fed’s expectations prove accurate, its rate policy would then be intended to slow the economy.

In its updated forecasts, the Fed envisions stronger growth this year, with the economy expanding 2.8 percent, up from the 2.7 percent it predicted in March. Unemployment, now at an 18-year low of 3.8 percent, would drop to 3.6 percent by year’s end and to 3.5 percent in 2019 and 2020 — levels not seen in 49 years. Inflation by the Fed’s preferred gauge would hit its target of 2 percent this year and edge up to 2.1 percent over the next two years.

A gradual rise in inflation is coinciding with newfound economic strength. After years in which the economy expanded at roughly a tepid 2 percent annually, growth could top 3 percent this year. Consumer and business spending is powering the economy, in part a result of the tax cut President Donald Trump pushed through Congress late last year.

With employers hiring at a solid pace month after month, unemployment has reached 3.8 percent. Not since 1969 has the jobless rate been lower.

Beginning in 2008 in the midst of the financial crisis, the Fed kept its key rate unchanged at a record low near zero for seven years. It then raised rates once in 2015, once in 2016, three times in 2017 and now twice this year.

The Fed aims to achieve its mandates of maximizing employment and stabilizing prices by lowering rates to spur growth during times of economic weakness and raising rates to slow growth if the economy threatens to overheat. When the Fed tightens credit, it aims to do so without derailing the economy. But if it miscalculates and overdoes the credit tightening, it can trigger a recession.

The economic expansion has survived for nine years and is now the second-longest in history. It will become the longest if it lasts past June 2019, at which point it would surpass the expansion that lasted from March 1991 to March 2001.

While many economists think the current expansion will exceed the 1990’s streak, some worry about what might occur once the impact of the tax cuts begin to fade and the Fed’s gradual rate hikes begin to curb growth.

The Fed’s pace of rate hikes for the rest of the year could end up reflecting a tug of war between a sturdy economy and the risks to growth, including from a potential trade war that could break out between the United States and such key trading partners as China, the European Union, Canada and Mexico. All those countries have vowed to retaliate against any U.S. tariffs with their own penalties against U.S. goods.

A global trade war would risk cutting into U.S. economic growth by depressing American export sales and raising inflation by making consumers and businesses pay more for imports.

The Fed’s meeting this week is to be followed by policy meetings of two other major central banks — the European Central Bank on Thursday and the Bank of Japan on Friday. While Japan’s central bank isn’t expected to make any major policy shifts, anticipation is rising that the ECB may outline as early as this week plans to begin paring its bond-buying stimulus program as a prelude to ending them altogether.

Polynesian Voyaging Society master navigator Bruce Blankenfeld was presented Sunday with the 2018 Papahanaumokuakea Umu Kai Award for inspiring the next generation to take an active role in ocean sustainability and reviving the art of traditional wayfinding.

The award, established by NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries for Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, is presented to a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner who invokes the spirit of traditional fishing practices and management while adapting to modern fishing environments. Papahanaumokuakea staff presented the award at the World Oceans Day celebration at Ko Olina.

“It is an honor to present Bruce with this special award,” said NOAA superintendent for Papahanaumokuakea Athline Clark in a news release. “He embodies the true spirit of a mentor, who inspires our next generation to actively be involved in learning about and caring for our ocean.”

In addition to being one of Hawaii’s five “pwo” (master) navigators, Blankenfeld served as crew training coordinator and captain on the Hokulea Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage. A long-distance paddler, fisherman and coach, Bruce began his association with the Polynesian Voyaging Society in 1977 and was part of the 1980 crew that sailed from Tahiti to Hawaii. Since then, he has sailed more than 70,000 miles using traditional, non-instrument methods.

The late Uncle Eddie Kaanaana was the first recipient of the award in 2006. Other recipients include Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson, former Department of Land and Natural Resources Chair William Aila Jr., Hawaii Volcanoes National Park ranger and traditional ulua fisherman Clarence “Aku” Hauanio, and Uncle Mac Poepoe, a fisherman and community leader on Molokai

“Bruce exemplifies all of the important values behind the Umu Kai Award,” said Thompson, president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society. “He has an exceptional, very rare, deep relationship with the ocean that is both learned and instinctual that has allowed him to become an extraordinary deep-sea navigator and a strong leader. We would not have been able to successfully complete the Worldwide Voyage without him.”

NEW YORK >> U.S. stocks are mixed Wednesday after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates and said it expects to increase rates two more times by the end of the year. Banks are rising, as they stand to make more money on lending. Bond yields are higher and big-dividend stocks like real estate investment trusts are falling.

A federal court ruled that AT&T’s $85 billion purchase of Time Warner can proceed, and that’s sending ripples through the market as investors bet that hundreds of billions’ worth of deals in the media, telecommunications and health care industries stand a better chance of getting approved.

KEEPING SCORE

The S&P 500 index remained at 2,785 as of 3:20 p.m. Eastern time. On Tuesday the benchmark index closed at its highest level since late January, when investors began worrying about a sharp pickup in inflation. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 19 points, or 0.1 percent, to 25,301.

The Nasdaq composite also wobbled but turned higher again, rising 23 points, or 0.3 percent, to 7,726. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks lost 2 points, or 0.2 percent, to 1,679. Both of those indexes finished at record highs Tuesday.

Most of the stocks on the New York Stock Exchange traded lower.

FED GOING FOR FOUR

Policymakers at the Federal Reserve plan to raise interest rates four times this year, as they expect inflation to increase at a faster pace and slightly exceed their target of 2 percent. Their projections show unemployment falling to a 50-year low later this year. The increase in rates Wednesday was the second this year.

The decision sent stocks lower, as many investors hoped the Fed would only raise rates three times this year. But the Fed’s view didn’t come as a shock after months of signs that economic growth and inflation are picking up.

Bond prices slumped. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.98 percent after it traded at 2.95 percent just before the Fed’s decision was announced.

The dollar rose to 110.55 yen from 110.33 yen. The euro rose to $1.1773 from $1.1750.

CABLE CONNECTION

Late Tuesday a judge approved AT&T’s $85 billion purchase of Time Warner and rejected the government’s argument that the deal would stifle competition and lead to higher cable bills. The purchase will give the wireless and cable giant control of CNN, HBO and the Warner Bros. movie studio. Time Warner climbed 2.2 percent to $98.36 while AT&T lost 5.7 percent to $32.40.

Media companies rallied. Netflix gained 5 percent to $382.28 and CBS gained 3.7 percent to $54.30.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Investors are waiting for Comcast to officially announce an all-cash offer for Twenty-First Century Fox’s entertainment businesses, and Fox surged 6.9 percent to $43.36 while Comcast rose 0.6 percent to $32.58. Comcast has said it’s preparing an offer but was waiting for the outcome of the AT&T case. Fox has agreed to sell those businesses to Disney for $52.4 billion in stock, setting up the possibility that Disney will have to raise its offer. However Disney added 2 percent to $106.40.

Investors felt that CVS’s effort to buy health insurer Aetna is more likely to go through, and they felt similarly about Cigna’s offer for pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts. T-Mobile USA and Sprint made smaller gains. Investors have been skeptical the government would allow the third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers to combine.

THE QUOTE

Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, said the ruling is probably a good sign for the two health care deals because, like AT&T and Time Warner, those acquisitions won’t reduce the number of companies competing in an industry, unlike a Sprint-T-Mobile merger. But investors might be drawing overly broad conclusions from Judge Richard Leon’s ruling, Gordon said.

“The judge’s decision is based on some very particular facts of the AT&T-Time Warner case,” he said, including the growing popularity of streaming services and greater competition for advertising revenue. “This isn’t a case that’s about a big sweeping legal philosophy.”

ENERGY

Benchmark U.S. crude rose 0.4 percent to $66.64 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained 1.1 percent to $76.74 per barrel in London.

Wholesale gasoline added 1.7 percent to $2.13 a gallon. Heating oil picked up 1.1 percent to $2.19 a gallon. Natural gas advanced 0.8 percent to $2.97 per 1,000 cubic feet.

METALS

Gold added 0.1 percent to $1,301.30 an ounce. Silver gained 0.6 percent to $16.99 an ounce. Copper inched up 0.1 percent to $3.25 a pound.

OVERSEAS

Germany’s DAX rose 0.4 percent. France’s CAC 40 and the FTSE 100 in Britain took tiny losses.

The Nikkei 225 in Japan rose 0.4 percent and South Korea’s Kospi fell less than 0.1 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.2 percent.

Single-occupant vehicles may use the Zipper Lane that will remain open until 10 a.m. today to help ease traffic congestion following a cement spill on the eastbound lanes of the H-1 freeway, according to the Hawaii Department of Transportation.

Police shut down three lanes between Kunia Road and the Waikele offramp due to the spill that occurred sometime before 8 a.m.

Work to clean up the spill is expected to be completed by noon.

FRANKFURT, Germany >> Even after Volkswagen was hit with billions of dollars in penalties in the United States over an emissions-cheating scheme that continues to unfold, the company remained mostly unpunished in Europe.

That changed today, when German prosecutors said they had imposed a fine of 1 billion euros, or $1.2 billion, on the carmaker for failing to properly supervise the employees who devised and deployed illegal software in diesel models to evade pollution controls. In a statement, the Braunschweig state’s attorney’s office described the penalty as one of the largest ever imposed on a company in postwar Germany.

The fine, based in part on how much money Volkswagen is estimated to have saved via the cheating scheme, pales next to the roughly $26 billion the company has paid in the United States to settle criminal charges and civil suits. But it is a signal that German authorities will not let the carmaker escape punishment despite its political clout and importance to the national economy.

Herbert Diess, Volkswagen’s chief executive, said the penalty was “a further essential step” in the company’s efforts to move past the diesel scandal.

“We are working intensively to deal with our past,” Diess said in a statement Wednesday. “Further steps are necessary to restore trust in our company and the auto industry piece by piece.”

Volkswagen has admitted installing software in 11 million diesel vehicles that caused pollution controls to operate properly only when an engine’s computer determined that the car was undergoing a test. Under actual driving conditions, the vehicles produced much more lung-damaging nitrogen oxides than allowed by law.

Although the vast majority of the vehicles at issue are in Europe, the financial penalties were much stiffer in the United States because of the country’s stricter enforcement regimen and a legal system that is more favorable to consumers.

Volkswagen’s costs from the cheating scheme keep growing in the United States. On Wednesday, Vermont’s attorney general, T.J. Donovan, said the state had reached a $6.5 million settlement with Volkswagen and its Porsche and Audi units related to the emissions scandal.

Germany and most other European countries do not allow class-action lawsuits of the kind that forced Volkswagen to pay damages to the owners of 600,000 diesel vehicles in the United States and to fix or buy back the cars.

The European Union also has no central enforcer of clean air rules that is the equivalent to the Environmental Protection Agency, and regulators in individual European countries paid little or no attention to whether cars were polluting more than was acceptable.

German prosecutors are continuing their investigations into about 70 current and former Volkswagen employees, including a member of the management board and a former chief executive.

Those inquiries will probably continue to pose a threat to Volkswagen’s reputation. The company also faces civil suits in Europe brought by shareholders who accuse it of shirking its duty to them. If successful, the suits could cost Volkswagen an additional 10 billion euros, about $11.7 billion.

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NEWARK, N.J. >> Two brothers who admitting bribing doctors in a $100 million health care scheme were sentenced to prison today, closing a case that featured accounts of cash bribes, prostitutes and $300,000 luxury cars.

David Nicoll, 44, considered the orchestrator of the seven-year scheme, received a six-year sentence for his role in a fraud authorities said at the time of his arrest in 2013 was one of the largest of its kind ever uncovered. His younger brother, Scott, received a 43-month sentence.

Both sentences were far below the 25-year combined maximum sentences the brothers faced after they pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe doctors and money laundering through their New Jersey company, Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services. Both men cooperated with the government and were instrumental in helping prosecutors earn more than 50 guilty pleas or convictions.

In a wavering voice, David Nicoll told the court today he was “embarrassed and ashamed” by his crimes. In a similarly emotional statement, Scott Nicoll told U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler he was “honestly sorry” for his actions.

Chesler praised the brothers’ cooperation, which he termed “timely, significant and useful,” but didn’t minimize their crimes.

“There can be little doubt that your conduct was the most egregious conduct that occurred in this case,” he told David Nicoll. “You were the center of this operation and you were at the core of this spider web that you wove. You took a company that was making nothing and you made yourself a big fortune. And let’s not kid ourselves, it was for one reason: greed. You wanted the money.”

According to prosecutors, David Nicoll spent $5 million of the proceeds on luxury cars, including a $300,000 Ferrari and a $291,000 Corvette. He has been ordered to forfeit $50 million made from the scheme.

While Scott Nicoll’s attorney painted him as an employee of BLS who played a lesser role than his brother, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Elberg noted that Nicoll was recorded on a phone call negotiating with a doctor to send more blood samples in exchange for more money.

“Scott Nicoll is encouraging that doctor to order tests on patients whether they need it or not,” Elberg said. “He is right at the heart of this scheme.”

David Nicoll was a trained nurse and former pharmaceutical sales rep, and his brother had worked selling concert tickets, when David Nicoll borrowed money from his father-in-law to buy a struggling lab in northern New Jersey in 2005. Within a year, they had hit upon a way to drastically increase their income, according to authorities: Bribe doctors to steer blood samples to BLS for testing.

They accomplished this first by signing bogus agreements to rent office space in doctors’ offices; then, when New Jersey law discontinued that practice, they switched to bribing doctors with bogus consultant agreements paid for by shell corporations formed specifically for that purpose.

Nicoll testified last year that he dealt with “probably hundreds” of doctors during his years at BLS. When asked how many had been bribed, he replied: “The large majority.”

The company also wined and dined doctors at fancy restaurants, took some on private jet trips and even provided some with prostitutes, Nicoll testified.

The U.S. attorney’s office estimated at least $100 million of the revenue the company made between 2006 and 2013 derived from the bribery scheme.

WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump has a point when he lambastes Canada for protecting its dairy farmers with hefty tariffs.

But the United States is hardly innocent when it comes to farm protectionism. And the very real difficulties that U.S. dairy farmers face can’t all be blamed on America’s neighbor to the north. And in fact, despite Canada’s tariff, the U.S. runs a surplus in dairy trade with its northern neighbor.

A look at Trump’s complaints and the complicated reality behind them:

>> Trump: “Canada charges the U.S. a 270% tariff on Dairy Products! They didn’t tell you that, did they? Not fair to our farmers!” — Trump tweet on June 8.

>> The facts: The president is basically right about the tariffs. And the United States has some legitimate gripes about Canadian farm policy. But the whole situation is far more complicated.

Canada has long run an elaborate “supply management” program that effectively shields its farmers from competition. Canada allows a small amount of dairy and poultry imports into the country duty-free or at very low tariffs. Anything above the cutoff is hammered: Consider 245 percent tariffs on cheese. And 298 percent on butter.

The World Trade Organization says Canadian dairy tariffs average nearly 249 percent, compared with the United States’ 17 percent.

Dairy is a highly sensitive political issue in Canada. French-speaking Quebec is dairy country. Shielding farmers from competition is one way to placate the province’s separatist movement. Canada has also angered American farmers by flooding export markets with cheap skim-milk powder.

Still, Canadian trade policies have had only a “tiny impact” on America’s struggling dairy farmers, says Daniel Sumner, an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis.

Despite Canadian barriers, in fact, the United States last year ran a $474 million trade surplus in dairy with Canada: It exported $636 million in dairy products to Canada and imported $162 million, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

U.S. dairy farmers are ailing nonetheless. The price of milk is down nearly 10 percent from a year ago and 38 percent from four years ago. But the main cause of the depressed prices is more elementary than Canada’s labyrinth tariff schedule: Too much milk.

“We’re just too damn good at what we do,” said Gordon Speirs, who runs a 2,100-cow dairy farm in Brillion, Wisconsin. Improved genetics and farm management techniques mean that cows produce far more milk than they used to.

Adding to the glut, the European Union has a history of protecting its farmers, too. Three years ago, it ended quotas that had limited milk production in Europe as a way to keep prices artificially high. Freed of restraints, European dairy farmers increased production, putting downward pressure on milk prices.

What’s more, Canada is hardly alone in protecting its farmers. Even wealthy nations with low overall duties, including the United States, maintain pockets of trade protection.

“It’s called politics,” said Laura Baughman, president of The Trade Partnership, a pro-free trade research firm.

For example, the United States charges a 350 percent tariff on tobacco products and up to 164 percent on peanut imports. It also maintains strict limits on sugar imports that effectively raise the price of overseas sugar by nearly 57 percent, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission. Food manufacturing companies argue that, as a result, many candy-making jobs have been sent overseas, where sugar is cheaper.

U.S. sugar producers wield political clout from years of being prolific campaign donors to both political parties. When the Bush administration negotiated a free trade agreement with Australia in 2004, sugar was the only U.S. industry to obtain a complete exemption from the pact’s tariff reductions.

One irony: One of Trump’s first acts as president was to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Under the TPP, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had agreed to phase out its dairy supply management program over 10 years, says Christopher Sands of the Center for Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

When the United States pulled out, the 11 remaining TPP countries decided to go ahead with the pact. But they retracted some of the painful concessions they’d made at America’s behest — including Canada’s vow to dismantle barriers to dairy imports.

Closer Dylan Thomas of the University of Hawaii baseball team was named to the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA)/Rawlings All-Region second team on Wednesday.

Thomas is the first UH player to receive ABCA honors since Kolten Wong and Lenny Linsky in 2011.

The sophomore was recently drafted in the 38th round of the MLB Draft by the Minnesota Twins. In 2018 for the Rainbow Warriors, Thomas tied a program record with 14 saves in 18 opportunities, 11th in the country.

Jerry Rice to host youth camp

Hall of Fame wide receiver Jerry Rice will be one of the featured hosts at the Ka Makana Ali‘i Football Camp, which will be held June 25 at Kapolei High School.

The one-day program is for athletes between the ages of 7 and 14, and will run from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Enrollment for the camp is limited. Please visit www.kamakanaalii.com for more information.

Golf Classic supports hearing impaired

The Georgia E. Morikawa Center, a nonprofit organization that supports the deaf, hard of hearing, and deaf-blind community in Hawaii, will be hosting its inaugural Golf Classic on July 13.

The event will be held at Kaneohe Klipper Golf Course. Donations will go to the building of a community center for the deaf community. The event will include a lunch, an 18-hole, three-person team tournament, and a dinner buffet.

The entry fee is $450 per three-person team or $150 per player. The tournament format is scramble, with a noon shotgun start. Sponsorships are also available. The deadline to enter is June 22.

For more information, email gemgolfhawaii@gmail.com.

Solar permits issued on Oahu rose 42 percent in May to mark the fifth straight month of increases.

There were 297 permits issued by the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting for solar electric systems last month, up from the 209 in May 2017, according to Marco Mangelsdorf, who tracks rooftop solar permits and is president of Hilo-­based ProVision Solar.

Through the first five months of this year, DPP issued 1,131 photovoltaic permits, up 21 percent from 937 in the first five months of 2017.

The top contractors ranked by permits pulled on Oahu were Sunrun, RevoluSun and Hawaii Energy Connection.

“The permitting of systems deploying energy storage remains strong with 60 percent of May PV permits including batteries,” Mangelsdorf said. “There are concerns, however, that the tight supply of the most popular batteries will act as a constraint over the balance of the year to getting these permitted systems up and running in a timely fashion.

“While the macro trend for energy storage production indicates a much larger volume of supply in the years to come, the challenging on-the-ground reality is one of relative product scarcity and higher pricing.”

Oahu, the largest solar electric market in the state, had been declining with just 2,993 solar permits last year compared with 4,591 in 2016 and 7,493 in 2015. The peak for photovoltaic permits issued on Oahu occurred in 2012 with 16,715, leaving last year’s number down 82 percent from the all-time high.

Hawaiian Electric Co. is planning a series of overnight power outages for Iwilei, Kakaako and Ala Moana in July as part of an effort to address potentially dangerous flaws in its equipment.

The outages, which will affect approximately 400 businesses and 2,500 residential customers, will start on July 16 and go from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Mondays through Thursdays for three weeks, HECO said.

HECO advises condominium residents to check with their property managers about whether the outages will affect them.

The scheduled repairs come after a string of more than a dozen power failures involving the six circuits that are to be upgraded. HECO engineers traced the problem to flaws in coupling devices, known as splices, that connect high-voltage cables to the circuits that supply power to customers, according to a HECO release.

HECO said the faulty splices can affect service reliability and pose a safety risk to crews that work in manholes.

The repairs will begin in Iwilei and proceed to Kakaako and Ala Moana. To safely make repairs and minimize disruption, the crews will need to shut down equipment in the manholes, resulting in the outages.

Letters will be sent to commercial and residential customers affected by the scheduled work. HECO employees also have contacted dozens of customers through visits or phone conversations. A schedule of the outages will be provided in advance.

For more information, call 548-7311 or visit hawaiianelectric.com/Undergroundpgrades.

HECO Power Outages Map by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd

Hawaiian Electric Co’s six circuits slated for underground upgrade over a three-week period and the areas where customers will be affected.

Honolulu police have initiated an attempted murder investigation after a longtime sports broadcaster was found unresponsive with a head injury in Chinatown.

John Noland, 60, is on life support at The Queen’s Medical Center. He was found on the ground fronting 1161 Maunakea St. about 1:40 a.m. Saturday.

Emergency Medical Services responded and administered CPR before trans­­porting him to Queen’s in critical condition, according to EMS spokeswoman Shayne Enright.

Police spokeswoman Sarah Yoro said no arrests had been made. Police did not release any additional information.

Noland had been a sportscaster for KHON2 in the early 1980s and later at K5, where he had a sports show. He also was a part of the Hawaii Pacific University television broadcast team with Bob Hogue in the early 2000s. The pair covered basketball and volleyball games that aired on OC16.

In radio, his career included stints at KUMU and K-108, as well as a morning show on KGU radio with Mike Buck.

Noland’s daughter, Alana Noland, said her father was scheduled to fly to Maui Monday to celebrate her recent engagement.

She said she last spoke to her father on Friday. The next morning, she was alerted that he was in the hospital. She, her fiance and Noland’s ex-wife, Sylvia Noland, immediately caught a flight to Honolulu.

Alana Noland described her father as a man with a big heart who loves music, basketball and spending time with his family and friends. She recalled that when she was out with him, people often would stop by, introduce themselves and chat with him.

She said her father was attempting to return to radio and get his show back up and running. “He just loves being a sportscaster,” she said during a phone interview from Washington state.

Bob Hogue, commissioner of the PacWest Conference and former KHON2 sportscaster, has known Noland for at least 30 years, when Hogue first started working at the television station.

“He’s an incredibly funny guy and he knew everybody,” Hogue said during a phone interview from California.

“Our relationship was not only professional but personal as well,” he said, calling Noland a good friend.

Hogue recalled how Noland would reminisce about playing basketball under coach Tony Sellitto at Maryknoll School. “John would always talk about the hanabata days and all the stories of growing up and playing basketball for Tony and the remarkable run he had,” he said.

“I think John has such a deep passion and enthusiasm for sports. He not only talks it but he lives it. I think it’s deep in this soul. You’re rarely going to find someone that cares so deeply about those people that he had literally the honor to cover,” he added.

Hogue said he turned numb when he heard about Noland’s condition. “We’re all praying for him and hoping he would recover.”

Sister Joan of Arc Souza, who led St. Francis School in Manoa for 27 of its 94 years as its head of school and principal, was no longer employed at the school as of Monday.

Sister Barbara Jean Donovan, who is responsible for 364 Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities from Honolulu to Syracuse, N.Y., arrived in town with Susan Crossett, executive director of the Partners in Franciscan Ministries, to talk to Souza about retiring in a meeting Monday morning, Donovan said.

“No, actually I did not come into town to fire her,” Donovan told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Wednesday. “I came to talk to her about retirement. …Well, she chose not to retire.”

Asked about Souza’s employment status, Donovan said, “she is no longer the head of St. Francis School in Manoa” and is no longer a school employee.

Souza, 74, could not be reached for comment. With her departure, St. Francis no longer has a nun on campus for the first time in its 94-year history.

Hawaii’s second Catholic saint, Saint Marianne Cope, was a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities when she arrived from Syracuse to tend to Hansen’s disease patients on Molokai.

Souza’s interim replacement is her assistant principal, Erin Marshall.

“You can’t fire a nun,” said Phyllis Leimomi Stephenson, a Saint Francis alumna from the class of 1955 and a former board president of the St. Francis Alumni Association. “Nuns don’t get fired. What is that all about? I have no understanding what is going down the pipe with this.”

Stephenson was among those who successfully pushed officials in Syracuse in 2015 to rescind a plan to close the sisters’ Manoa convent and relocate them to The Plaza at Pearl City assisted living facility.

This week, Stephenson joined 14 other alumni who visited the school following Souza’s exit and were greeted with all kinds of rumors that Stephenson could not verify.

Among them was talk about the school’s financial future.

Donovan said school officials have been trying to quell the rumors in an email to students’ families and during a meeting with school faculty.

Some 418 students already are enrolled for preschool to 12th grade in the fall and more are expected as the school year draws closer, Donovan said.

“There have been some rumors and some misinformation so we have addressed those,” Donovan said. “The school is not going to close. The school is not going to merge. The school is going to make changes to be stronger in the future and guarantee those things do not happen. Operations will stay the same. The people will stay the same. The only big change is that Erin Marshall has been appointed as interim head of school. The board of directors is putting together a search committee and recruiting a new head of school.”

Pressed why Donovan and Crossett came to speak to Souza about retiring, Donovan said, “A 28-year stint in the same position in the same school sometimes becomes routine. … As we move the school forward, we needed some new blood with new ideas to handle the changes that are taking place and try to guarantee the future of the school.”

Asked if St. Francis is in danger of closing because of financial problems, Donovan said, “No it’s not. But we’re looking cautiously at finances for the future.”

Polynesian Voyaging Society master navigator Bruce Blankenfeld was presented Sunday with the 2018 Papahanaumokuakea Umu Kai Award for inspiring the next generation to take an active role in ocean sustainability and perpetuating traditional wayfinding.

The award, established by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries for Pa­pahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, is presented to a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner who invokes the spirit of traditional fishing practices and management while adapting to modern fishing environments. Papahanau­mokuakea staff presented the award at the World Oceans Day celebration at Ko Olina.

In addition to being one of Hawaii’s five “pwo” (master) navigators, Blankenfeld served as crew training coordinator and captain on the Hokule‘a Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage. A long-distance paddler, fisherman and coach, Blankenfeld began his association with the Polynesian Voyaging Society in 1977 and was part of the 1980 crew that sailed from Tahiti to Hawaii. Since then, he has sailed more than 70,000 miles using traditional, noninstrument methods.

The late Uncle Eddie Kaanaana was the first recipient of the award in 2006. Other recipients include Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson, former Department of Land and Natural Resources Chairman William Aila Jr., Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park ranger and traditional ulua fisherman Clarence “Aku” Hauanio, and Uncle Mac Poepoe, a fisherman and community leader on Molokai.

The state is investigating a case of Legionnaires’ disease, a potentially deadly form of pneumonia caused by a bacterial infection.

The Oahu individual with the bacteria known as Legionella is being treated at The Queen’s Medical Center as Health Department officials investigate how the person contracted the disease, primarily spread through inhaling aerosolized water droplets. The bacteria occurs naturally in freshwater lakes and streams, but is a public health concern when spread in building water systems like showerheads and faucets, hot tubs and cooling systems.

It is the sixth case this year. The state has seen an average of 10 cases annually in the past five years.

“These cases have been isolated and unrelated and not clusters or groups of people who became ill. They are single individual cases,” DOH spokeswoman Janice Okubo told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “Occasionally we do get these cases. It’s not something unusual and out-of the-ordinary but we do investigate every case to see if we can determine a source. Whenever you get pneumonia it can be very serious.”

No further details were available, but additional information may be released by the end of this week, she said.

The people most at risk are those with chronic diseases and already compromised immune systems, smokers and the elderly, according to the DOH.

“The Queen’s Medical Center is investigating the case of one patient who has presented with symptoms consistent with a Legionella infection, which is most likely to occur in immunocompromised hosts,” Dr. Leslie Chun, Queen’s chief medical officer and chief quality officer, said in a statement. “It is not readily transmissible from person to person. We are investigating potential sources.”

Dr. Heidi Hillesland, infectious disease specialist and internal medicine physician at Wilcox Medical Center on Kauai, said the lung infection has symptoms of fever and cough similar to other types of pneumonia. Common symptoms include shortness of breath, vomiting and diarrhea, as well as low sodium levels and liver inflammation.

“The infection can range to very mild to severe. Older age and lung disease like COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) are factors that can make the infection worse,” she said.

The bacteria can contaminate soil and water with large outbreaks occasionally in tainted building water systems. The disease was named after a major outbreak in the 1970s in Philadelphia following an American Legion Convention where it was later identified that the hotel had a contaminated air conditioning system.

Patients with the potentially fatal condition may be treated with antibiotics commonly used for pneumonia.

Cecile Daniels, a 41-year-old Unite Here Local 5 member, works two hotel jobs and two part-time cleaning jobs to make ends meet.

Daniels typically works seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., but the extra hours still aren’t enough to rent an apartment large enough to comfortably house her family of four. She also worries that the extra income won’t protect her family from Waikiki’s rising rents, especially when they are still paying medical bills related to her husband’s bout with brain cancer.

“We only have a two-bedroom apartment and my (22-year-old) son wanted privacy so he moved out. It’s my dream that we could all live together again,” Daniels said. “We are struggling so I never thought it could happen. But now I have hope.”

Daniels said she’s excited to be one of 500 Local 5 union members from across the state expected to attend a homebuyers orientation session run by the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) today at the Ala Moana Hotel. The nonprofit NACA, which has $13 billion of mortgage funding from Citibank and Bank of America, has committed $100 million to the Hawaii market, where it plans to open an office focused mainly on helping low-to-moderate income residents.

Gov. David Ige is scheduled to make an appearance at the Local 5 event, which comes in advance of NACA’s five-day “Achieve the Dream” homeownership event, which will be held July 6-July 10 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily at the Hawai‘i Convention Center. That event, which is open to the public, is expected to attract anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 attendees.

It’s also a prelude to June 28, when Local 5 goes back to the bargaining table and plans to ask Marriott and other employers to establish a housing trust fund under the federal Taft-Hartley Act governing labor management relations and amended by Congress to include collectively bargained housing benefits. NACA’s entry into Hawaii and its financial commitment to the state is not dependent upon a housing trust fund being included in Local 5 contracts.

Local 5 Secretary- Treasurer Eric Gill said the union’s hope is that the trust fund would help members buy down NACA mortgage rates. Gill and NACA founder and CEO Bruce Marks met with Ige Wednesday to discuss opportunities for the nonprofit to partner with local government and developers to build workforce housing on state-owned land.

Gill said NACA’s entry into Hawaii is key to helping the state’s low-to-moderate income residents afford mortgages and to maximizing the assistance a Taft-Hartley housing trust fund could provide to union members.

While Taft-Hartley housing funds have been operating for some time in Las Vegas and Bos­ton, Gill said Local 5’s upcoming bargaining would introduce the concept to Hawaii for the first time. Gill said a new housing trust fund would operate much the same as other Local 5 Taft-Hartley funds, including health and welfare; pension; training and trust; and the multiemployer 401(k).

“We don’t expect a huge fight from employers. Homelessness is getting worse as housing costs go up. If our members are living on the street, it’s hard to show up on time,” Gill said. “We can’t control the cost of housing, but we can reduce the cost of buying a home.”

“When we ask our members about their main issues, housing is No. 1. Well over half of our members, whether they have a mortgage or are renting, spend more than half of their income on housing,” said Local 5 spokeswoman Paola Rodelas.

NACA mortgage holders don’t spend more than 33 percent of their gross income on housing, but Marks said they get more bang for their buck than a conventional mortgage. NACA is able to offer generous terms because banks look to the nonprofit to meet provisions in federal law that require them to provide mortgages for working people.

NACA’s lending program requires zero down payment, no closing costs or fees or primary mortgage insurance. NACA gives all qualified buyers the same below-market interest rate regardless of credit worthiness. The 30-year-mortgage interest rate, which is currently 4.15 percent, can be bought down to zero by the homebuyer. The program also has terms for 15-year mortgages, multifamily mortgages and mortgages on properties that require renovations.

In Hawaii, which has high housing costs and low affordable housing inventory, Local 5 plans to partner with NACA to help its members get the lowest mortgage rates possible. For every 1 percent of the purchase price that an individual is able to put down to buy down the rate, NACA knocks off one-quarter percentage point from the interest rate of a 30-year mortgage and one-half percentage point from the interest rate of a 15-year-mortgage.

“There are more scams in the real estate industry than any other industry. But as good as this program sounds, it’s even better,” Marks said. “We’re building up neighborhoods and families that have been locked out of homeownership. We work with applicants and we stay in contact with owners. This program works. Our foreclosure rate is just .0021 (percent).”

Cristina Fernandez, a 39-year-old housekeeper at Hilton Hawaiian Village, said she and her husband are optimistic that the program’s more flexible financing terms and underwriting could help them finally obtain a mortgage.

“When I was on call at Hilton and didn’t have as many hours, we got behind on some of our bills. We got turned down for a mortgage because of our credit rating,” Fernandez said. “I’m super excited that there is a program that depends more on our income (than a credit report).”

Ellison Lyman, a 35-year-old Hilton Hawaiian Village employee, said she hopes to pool resources with her family to buy the rental where they currently live and renovate it.

“Success would mean that we could stay in Hawaii,” Lyman said. “The cost of living, especially housing, is so high in Hawaii that we’ve been talking about moving to Nevada or Oregon.”

PAHOA, Hawaii >> As the Kilauea eruption entered its seventh week, weary Puna residents whose lives are in limbo continued to seek solace and sustenance at several relief sites in Pahoa.

At the makeshift Puuhonua o Puna distribution center, nicknamed The Hub, dozens showed up Wednesday night to enjoy a free hot meal of baked fish, kim chee fried rice and other dishes provided by World Central Kitchen, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that feeds people in areas hit by natural disasters.

Noxious volcanic fumes forced Tarika Lea, 72, to leave property she was living on near MacKenzie State Recreational Area. She said she is now living with friends in an unfinished yurt at Hawaiian Paradise Park.

Without a refrigerator and other kitchen essentials, Lea has been going to The Hub once a day for lunch or dinner. Along with a meal, she finds comfort in being around others who are in similar circumstances.

“It’s priceless,” Lea said of the free meals offered at The Hub. “There’s community and you can immediately start talking to people. You find camaraderie and empathy.”

Along with the county, private and nonprofit groups that are lending a hand in recovery efforts, the state is reaching out again to the federal government to provide further assistance to Hawaii island residents who have lost their homes and property in the eruption that started May 3.

Gov. David Ige said Wednesday that Hawaii County estimates lava has destroyed approximately 455 dwellings in Leilani Estates, Lanipuna Gardens, Vacationland and Kapoho Beach Lots, of which 192 are primary residences. Many other homes throughout Puna have been cut off by lava or are uninhabitable due to poor air quality from volcanic gases. County officials initially had estimated that more than 600 homes were lost.

Ige announced he has requested approval to use federal programs that assist individuals to address eruption-related losses. The array of programs provides services including crisis counseling, transitional housing assistance, disaster unemployment aid, legal assistance for dealing with insurance claims, landlord issues and other concerns, and financial aid to address residents’ needs and help them get back on their feet.

President Donald Trump approved Ige’s request for a disaster declaration on May 11, authorizing the Public Assistance Grant Program for Hawaii County and Hazard Mitigation Grant Program for the state.

Meanwhile, the threat of vog is looming large over the Puna, Kau and Kona areas. The National Weather Service reported Wednesday that light winds will allow volcanic fumes to drift inland and to the south, wrapping around the island to the Kona side. Even Hilo in East Hawaii could be affected, officials said.

Heavy vog is expected to remain until early next week, according to the weather forecasters.

Residents can learn more at a community meeting on volcanic ash and vog that is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. today at the Ocean View Community Center in Kau.

Meanwhile, the lower East Rift Zone eruption in Puna continues as it has in recent weeks, with the dominant fissure 8 producing 140-foot-high fountains of molten rock and a large channelized flow that is entering the ocean where Kapoho Bay had been and generating a large plume of “laze,” steam laced with hydrochloric acid and tiny shards of volcanic glass.

The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory also reported spattering and small flows at fissures 16 and 18.

PEPEEKEO, HAWAII >>

The humanitarian crisis in its sixth week on Hawaii island, forcing more than 400 people into shelters and away from erupting lava, also has taken a toll on animals in the area.

More than a couple hundred head of livestock and pets from farms and homes threatened or overtaken by lava also are refugees from the fiery destruction.

While many have been rescued and fostered by caring volunteers, some haven’t been so lucky and were lost or have perished — perhaps from noxious gases, lava or starvation.

Sam the ram, Ginger the dog, Bucky the goat and Maryanne the cow are among the lucky ones.

They are four of the 213 animals now living on a 27-acre fruit farm in Pepeekeo, about 8 miles north of Hilo, and about 33 miles north of the eruption that has covered about 5,000 acres of land in Puna.

Brian Spencer, the operator of Konohiki Plantation, reached out through Facebook, offering to take in animals for acquaintances in the rural Leilani Estates subdivision where lava began erupting May 3.

“I was expecting to get four or five,” Spencer said. “So many people were flooding me. They (animals) started pouring in over two weeks.”

Now, two Peruvian horses occupy a longan orchard. Geese and an Arabian horse were assigned to live among starfruit. Sheep and an adopted donkey that blends in with 12 donkeys Spencer already had cavort under rambutan trees. There’s even a bull named Jelly Bean who likes being petted.

Overall, rescued animals on the farm include three horses, three cows, 12 sheep, a donkey, a pig, a goat, two dogs, three cats, 25 geese, about 60 chickens, 36 ducks and two guinea fowl.

“It’s hard to count them all,” said Spencer, who already had chickens, ducks, six pigs, three dogs and a couple of “barn cats” on the farm where he lives with his partner, a physician.

Spencer isn’t the only one helping displaced animals.

Syndi Texeira of Keeau was initially asked through a friend to help retrieve a pet from Leilani Estates. The effort mushroomed into about 20 animals being brought to safety on the first day, she said.

“I was basically running around to neighbors asking if they needed help,” she said. “It was chaos.”

The effort involved corralling animals and taking them out of the subdivision where around 130 homes were destroyed by lava while many more were abandoned because of county evacuation orders. Texeira said cats were particularly difficult to catch.

Eventually, all of that work resulted in a Facebook page, Hawaii Lava Flow Animal Rescue Network, administered by six individuals, including Texeira, who started out as strangers but bonded over the shared cause. Through the network, animals have been placed in homes and facilities across the Big Island, sometimes with help from the Hawaii Island Humane Society.

In one case, someone asked for help taking two horses out of harm’s way as lava advanced toward Noni Farms Road, which became partially buried by lava. After fighting through fences and brush to get to the home on Noni Farms Road, Texeira’s daughter and Kristina Decosta managed to ride the horses out.

More recently, Texeira and Decosta rode a boat to Pohoiki to look for a three-legged dog nicknamed Sweetie Pie who had been lost in Kapoho. The dog’s owners said the dog had been missing for several days and that their house had been destroyed by lava, Texeira said.

The effort didn’t turn up Sweetie Pie, but Texeira said there was a good outcome.

“We did not find her, but we did find another dog and a cat,” she said. “It was amazing. We were surprised that they would have survived.”

Texeira said there have been sad moments seeing or smelling dead animals that had not survived the lava and the dangerous gases it produced.

Mimi Bergstrom of Holualoa was brought to tears by the outpouring of support for lost or trapped animals during the eruption.

“The whole community response is amazing,” she said during a stay in the Pahoa area where she volunteered at the grass-roots disaster victim assistance complex Puuhonua o Puna. “It’s like a beehive.”

The Hawaii Island Humane Society said it has rescued about 150 animals and either returned them to owners or found them foster homes.

The organization also participated in a Saturday meeting with government agencies, rescue volunteers and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to improve communication and develop a formal response plan that will benefit from aerial and ground assessments of Leilani Estates conducted Monday.

“Gaining permission and safe access to areas affected by the eruption remains a high priority for the task force,” the Humane Society said in a statement. “Firm plans and communication are now in place with the various agencies to seek permission to gain safe access to rescue animals and pets.”

On the grass-roots side, all the past and ongoing work to save animals has not been easy.

“We’ve worked long hours,” Texeira said. “It’s almost like a full-time job.”

The Hawaii Lava Flow Animal Rescue Network has raised about $17,000 after setting a $10,000 goal on gofundme.com.

Spencer of Konohiki Plantation said all the foster animals have made life a little crazy, but the community has pitched in by leaving him gift cards to Del’s Feed and Farm Supply store in Hilo. He said he also could use some help from those skilled in animal husbandry so that he can return to picking and delivering fruit from his orchards.

“It’s a lot of extra work,” he said of the animals, “but we’ll take care of them.”

Among the perks of owning the Manoa Cup’s top seed — no traffic.

Sure, Andy Okita isn’t fond of a predawn wake-up, but the 7 a.m. start at Oahu Country Club makes for an easy commute from Mililani to Nuuanu. Once on the course, the opening tee time reserved for the No. 1 player in the bracket eliminates those annoying backlogs on the par-3s.

That said, the path to the state amateur match-play championship remains littered with potential road blocks.

The top seed in the 64-player bracket is automatically awarded to the defending champion and Okita managed to keep his quest for a repeat title on track by outlasting Nick Ushijima in an 18-hole duel on Wednesday.

Okita fell behind on three occasions, didn’t lead until the 15th hole and held on for a 2-up win to advance to the round of 16.

“It feels a lot different,” Okita said of his spot atop the bracket. “I feel a little more pressure on me. It’s not the same as last year when no one knows who I am.”

Okita worked through eight rounds over six days to capture the title last year and the experience “helped me today, especially during the later holes,” Okita said.

“I felt what it was like last year to be in the final match so I felt like it helped me to deal with the nerves. You get nervous but I somehow got through it.”

Okita is aiming to become the first player to win back-to-back Manoa Cup titles since David Fink claimed the tournament’s green jacket in 2010 and ’11. Okita is among three past champions still in contention for a second title in the 110th playing of the Hawaii State Golf Association’s most storied event.

Matthew Ma, the 2012 champion and fourth seed out of Monday’s qualifying round, defeated Nickolaus Nelson 5 and 4. Third-seeded Tyler Ota, the 2015 winner, pulled away from Mason Nakamura 4 and 3.

“The thing that helps is you learn to be patient,” said Ma, who will face former high school state champion and rising Boise State sophomore Jun Ho Won, a Moanalua graduate, today. “Not getting ahead of yourself is really big. Not thinking about tomorrow or what you did yesterday. You have to stay in the now.”

Ma had a match-play preview when he defeated Ota in a three-hole playoff to win the Hickam Invitational on May 20. At 34, Ma is getting used to the high schoolers in the field referring to him as “uncle or coach” and also has a new title at home — dad.

“It kind of puts it into perspective for me now,” Ma said of having a 13-week-old daughter awaiting him after a round. “Playing bad golf is not quite as bad.”

Four-time champion Brandan Kop was 3 down to Stephen Osborne of Reno, Nev., with six holes to play, but rallied to square the match at No. 16. They went to extra holes and Osborne’s par on the 21st hole was enough to advance.

Evan Kawai, a recent Punahou graduate and last year’s runner-up, found himself 1 down with three to play against Peter Jung, but swept the remaining holes to emerge with a 2-up win.

“It’s always fun because you grind the whole day, you get some sleep, you wake up early and start fresh and it’s a different animal every day,” said Kawai, who signed with the University of San Diego.

Former University of Hawaii quarterback Hunter Hughes had a nap in mind after extending his first Manoa Cup appearance when he rattled in a par putt on No. 18 to cap a 1-up win over Thayne Costa.

“I haven’t been sleeping well the last couple days,” he said. “But this is what we play for, this is what we practice for and we care about it.”

The women’s bracket goes into the semifinal round today. Brittany Fan, coming off an appearance at the NCAA championships with Colorado, faces 15-year-old Victoria Takai of Punahou. Fan advanced with a 7-and-6 win over Anna Murata, and Takai defeated Ohio State sophomore Alanis Sakuma 3 and 2.

On the other side of the bracket, Kaylee Shimizu, a Baldwin graduate and Utah Valley junior, faces recent Maryknoll graduate and BYU signee Allysha Mae Mateo.

Allenie Naeole admitted to stealing money from the now-defunct First Hawaiian Homes Credit Union on Molokai for at least 10 years when she was FHHCU’s manager. She pleaded guilty in February to conspiring with the credit union’s only other permanent employee to steal more than $1 million between June 2008 and December 2015 and to aggravated identity theft.

“This caused the demise of a credit union on Molokai,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Perlmutter said in U.S. District Court Wednesday.

She said the amount of loss is higher but that the FBI was not able to recover credit union records before 2008.

U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson sentenced Naeole Wednesday to five years in prison for the conspiracy, the maximum allowed under the law, plus two years for the identity theft. Naeole admitted that she forged the signature of the Bank of Hawaii Molokai branch manager in a letter to the National Credit Union Administration as examiners were closing in on her.

Watson told Naeole he was not influenced by her lack of prior convictions.

“You picked a doozy of a first offense,” Watson said.

He also said he was personally offended by Naeole’s actions because like him, she is a graduate of the Kamehameha Schools, which teaches students to help, not harm, their communities.

In addition to the prison term, Watson ordered Naeole to repay the $1,055,188 she stole. About half of that is owed to the NCUA and the rest to its insurer. Naeole is solely responsible for repaying about three-fourths of the restitution. She shares the responsibility of repaying the rest with her co-defendant, Janell Purdy.

Purdy was FHHCU’s teller and customer service representative. She’s scheduled to get sentenced next month for helping Naeole.

Perlmutter told Watson that Naeole used the stolen money to pay off her credit card bills, to cover living expenses and to support family members. She said the FBI did not find any high-value items on which Naeole could have spent the stolen money.

Naeole’s lawyer, Richard Hoke, said Naeole also took trips with her family and he believes the rest of the stolen money went for “plate lunch” type of expenses.

Naeole told Watson she knows she committed a “horrendous” crime and hurt her community, but she loves Molokai and wants to continue living there. So she said she endures knowing that her neighbors hate her and puts up with store cashiers refusing to help her when she goes shopping.