State gets $20.4 million for jobless

The U.S. Department of Labor released $20.4 million in unemployment insurance modernization incentive funds to Hawaii yesterday.

The state qualified for the funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act by including certain provisions in laws pertaining to unemployment. The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations can use the funds to pay unemployment benefits or, if appropriated by the Legislature, for administering its unemployment insurance program or delivering employment services.

Isle firm wins grant for vaccine work

Hawaii Biotech Inc. has received a $2.9 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease to continue development of a vaccine to protect healthy people against tick-borne encephalitis.

The grant “;will allow us to complete pre-clinical development and move forward towards clinical testing of our tick-borne encephalitis vaccine candidate,”; said Dr. Elliot Parks, CEO of Hawaii Biotech. The company has also developed vaccine candidates for the dengue and West Nile viruses.

Hualalai resort completes renovation

The Four Seasons Resort Hualalai has completed a 15-month-long, $40 million renovation project that added 20 suites and transformed its spa, beachfront bar, lounge and restaurant.

The new one- and two-bedroom suites at the AAA five-diamond-rated resort provide between 1,150 and 1,950 square feet of indoor-outdoor living space. The hotel is promoting a $495 nightly from Sept. 15 to Dec. 17 to mark the project's completion.

Hackers tie up Twitter once again

Twitter Inc., the Web site that lets people post updates through 140-character messages, said it was attacked again by hackers, following a series of assaults that hobbled the site last week.

“;We're back up and analyzing the traffic data to determine the nature of this attack,”; San Francisco-based Twitter said yesterday on its blog.

Twitter was the target of a so-called denial-of-service attack last week, along with Facebook Inc. and LiveJournal Inc. Hackers flooded the sites with requests, causing them to slow down or crash. The company said last week that defense measures caused some of the disruptions. The site was shut down entirely on Thursday. The next day, many users couldn't send updates, known as Tweets, via short messaging service and other applications, Twitter said.

ON THE MOVE

  » Hawaii Biotech has appointed Michael Spooner to its board of directors. He is a nonexecutive director of Mesoblast Ltd., an Australian adult stem cell company.

» Hawaii Women's Lawyers has elected new officers and directors for 2009-2010: Joanne Lo Grimes, president; Ruth K. Oh, vice president/president-elect; Shellie K. Park Hoapili, secretary; Zale T. Okazaki, treasurer; and directors Emi L. Kaimuloa, Lori K. Amano, Sarah Bazzi, Cathy Betts, Dianne Brookins, Stacey Djou, M. Nalani Fujimori Kaina, Lane Hornfeck, Jen-L. Lyman, Lynne McGivern, Tricia Nakamatsu, Karen Nakasone, Jennifer Rose, Patsy Saiki, Lauren R. Sharkey and Natalie Wilson. Student representatives are Jennifer Allen, Jamila Jarmon and Erin Kobayashi.

» U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Steven Cesar Acosta will be among 29 people honored in October at the Sixth Annual Luminary Honorees sponsored by the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference.