Next it will be carrier pigeon: The Sunshine Blog was bummed to see that the Honolulu Star-Advertiser plans to get rid of newspaper carriers, at least in Waikiki, and send the paper via U.S. Postal Service instead. That will start July 1, the publication says in a recent letter to subscribers.

It’s unlikely the mail will come early enough to let subscribers read their newspapers over their morning coffee. Which is really what having a morning paper is all about.

But Aaron Kotarek, the newspaper company’s senior vice president for audience and operations, who sent the letter, didn’t respond to an interview request.

Neither did the Star-Advertiser’s new owner, Todd Carpenter, who told Civil Beat in January, when the sale of the newspaper was pending, “I look forward to speaking with you at the appropriate time.”

Unfortunately The Blog can only infer that, in Carpenter’s mind, the appropriate time for the legacy newspaper’s new owner to grant us an interview will be … never. Carpenter didn’t respond to follow-up interview requests when the sale of the paper went through in March, and he didn’t respond to requests this time either.

Still, Kotarek did shed some light on the reasons for cutting service in his letter to readers.

“The reality is that in the post-pandemic gig economy world, we don’t have enough carriers to deliver the newspaper consistently each day,” he wrote.

It’s a trend that the post office says has driven other newspapers to dump their carriers.

“As the labor market has tightened in recent years, many publishers have struggled to find private carriers for traditional home deliveries,” the postal service said in a recent blog post.

The service receives about 100 applications for periodical delivery each year; in 2023, more than 50 came from daily or weekly papers, the postal service said.

The greater risk for local journalism in Hawaii is that the Star-Advertiser’s new owner will cut more than its paperboys — as it has done in other markets since buying the Star-Advertiser, the Garden Island on Kauai, the Hawaii Tribune Herald, West Hawaii Today, Midweek and a number of sister papers in the Northwest and Alaska from Canada’s Black Press.

Last week, the Seattle Times and other news outlets reported that Carpenter’s Sound Publishing division in Washington was cutting 62 jobs. That included the executive editor, managing editor, page designer, web producer, six reporters and two photographers — about half the staff — of the Everett Herald, the paper’s health reporter, Sydney Jackson, said in an interview.

Jackson said staffers in Everett were led to believe that Carpenter’s acquisition wouldn’t mean big layoffs.

“They were pretty misleading in their intentions,” she said.

The Blog called the Star-Advertiser’s union rep, reporter Kevin Knodell, who told us that in Honolulu they are trying to hire reporters.

Just not newspaper delivery people, apparently.

Tulsi time?: Donald Trump has said he’s already picked his running mate but won’t yet reveal who it is. But CNN says Tulsi Gabbard is still in the hunt.

The cable news channel listed the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii among nine other potential vice presidential candidates, which include frontrunners North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.

“As a congresswoman, she voted ‘present’ on both articles of impeachment against Trump in 2019,” says CNN. “And in recent months, she has ramped up her praise and defense of the former president, alleging at a Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year that “the Democrat elite and cronies” are ‘using our criminal system to prosecute’ Trump and ‘undermine his support.'”

In 2016, Gabbard was considered by Trump for jobs at the Defense Department, State Department and the United Nations, a source then told CNN.

The VP announcement is expected in time for the Republican National Convention next month.

Read all about them: Last month The Blog reported the most recent state House of Representative allowance spending reports. Technical glitches delayed the posting of the Senate reports, but now they are up.

As is typical, senators drew on their annual $16,350 to pay for common items such as bottled water, office supplies, gifts of lei and so forth. But there were a couple of items that got The Blog’s attention, in no small part due to the price tag and purpose.

Legislators often use their allowances to print and mail newsletters to constituents. Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz spent $9,742 to do that earlier this month. He also transferred about $3,500 from postage funds for the newsletter that are separate from legislative allowances and range from $1,500 to $3,500 a year, depending on the senator’s position.

Next to Dela Cruz, the biggest Senate allowance spending was usually for travel and related expenses:

• Sen. Glenn Wakai spent $1,670 to attend a sports and convention facilities conference in Las Vegas in May.
• Sen. Tim Richards spent $4,524 for himself and a staffer to attend an agricultural policy summit in Washington, D.C.
• Sen. Dru Kanuha spent $2,781 to attend the same summit as Richards. He also spent $285 for a visa for a Hawaii-China travel mission in May.
• Sen. Lorraine Inouye spent $926 to attend a women in government conference in Seattle earlier this month.
• Sen. Ron Kouchi spent $885 for a staffer to attend an Asian American / Pacific Islander summit in Las Vegas this month.

And here’s one other allowance item that earns Blog props for novelty: Sen. Brenton Awa spent $2,616 on a gas riding lawn tractor for his rural Oahu district for “aina-based projects.” Hmmm …

Awa also spent $2,000 for excavation services for a food tree-planting project in Haleiwa plus another $163 for supplies — Clorox, bins, buckets, string and a “wheel barrel.” Earlier this year Awa also spent about $6,500 for tree-planting in Kahaluu.

Common ground: Former Hawaii Gov. David Ige recently joined seven current and former governors of western states to talk about bipartisanship and collaboration.

“All of us learned a long time ago that you can’t get anything done unless you work with people,” Ige told moderator Judy Woodruff. “I do think that’s a fundamental belief that all of us have, that we’re committed to making our communities better and we’re committed to collaborating and working through issues.”

He added: “The administration, regardless of whether it’s Republican or Democrat, wants to be successful. So, when the governors, Democrats and Republicans, can find common ground and find solutions that work, they are more than happy to work with us to make it happen because it’s their success.”

Watch the full panel discussion here. It took place in Olympic Valley, California, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Western Governors’ Association.