Hawaii

More than 150 people on the island of Hawaii have so far contracted the mosquito borne virus and more cases are expected.

Hawaii's disease outbreak control centre says it is still safe to travel to the Big Island.

The declaration will help the state speed up the process of building a homeless shelter for families, and the state is considering four possible sites, Ige said at a news conference Friday.

“We are making sure that we have options for those who are homeless to move into an emergency shelter, and the biggest deficit in the system is shelter space for families,” Ige said. “So the emergency proclamation would allow us to stand up shelters for families in an expeditious manner."

Arbitrary quotas not linked to conservation objectives are keeping them tied at the docks. These struggling vessels and small businesses they support are accumulating millions of dollars in debt each month, causing untold anxiety for the local fishing community and consumers.

The rest of the Hawaii fleet has been forced out of its primary fishing grounds in the Western and Central Pacific and must travel more than a thousand miles into the Eastern Pacific to set hooks to catch bigeye tuna.

Ignacio has grown to a Category 4 storm, with sustained winds of up to 140 mph. Forecasters at the Central Pacific Hurricane Center said conditions are right for it to continue strengthening Saturday, but upper-level winds will weaken the storm in the following days.

This is the sixth tropical cyclone in the Central North Pacific basin for the 2015 season.

If this depression attains tropical storm intensity, it will be named Kilo.

The center of tropical depression Three-C was located about 685 miles south-southeast of Hilo and 875 miles southeast of Honolulu.

The depression is moving toward the west near 16 mph. A west to west-northwest motion is expected over the next two days.

Hawaii fishermen will still be able to catch bigeye in eastern waters regulated by a different fisheries commission.

Last year fishermen continued catching bigeye after they hit their quota in November because federal authorities drafted rules allowing them to attribute some catch to U.S. territories.

But Mike Tosatto, Pacific Islands regional administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries service, said officials haven’t yet had time to draft similar rules for 2015.