A 26-year-old Waikiki man pleaded not guilty to murder in Circuit Court on Monday in connection with his mother’s death.

Yu Wei Gong appeared at his arraignment before Judge Colette Garibaldi after an Oahu grand jury indicted him April 19 on a charge of second-degree murder in connection with the death of his mother, Liu Yun Gong. With the assistance of a Mandarin interpreter, Deputy Public Defender Darcia Forester pleaded not guilty to the charge on Gong’s behalf.

Garibaldi confirmed Gong’s bail at $2 million and set his trial for June.

On April 11 Gong called 911 and told a police dispatcher that he had killed his mother in September. He told the dispatcher “it was an accident” and that he didn’t mean to do it. The following morning, police executed a search warrant at Gong’s apartment at 414 Launiu St. and recovered seven bags of dismembered body parts in the kitchen freezer.

Policed matched fingerprints to those of Gong’s mother through her state driver’s license records. A deputy medical examiner determined she died of blunt-force head injuries. The manner of death was classified as a homicide.

Gong lived in the apartment with his mother. Police said he and his mother got into an argument after Gong told her he wanted to work instead of go to school. It’s unclear when the argument took place.

Hawaii island

Officials look at ways to contain insect attacking grazing lands

KAILUA-KONA >> The University of Hawaii and state officials are joining forces to contain an insect that is threatening grazing lands on the Big Island.

The spittlebug has been found at two ranches in Kona since September, including one property that had about 2,000 acres of damaged pasture, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported Monday.

“The kikuyu grass was pretty much dead in most areas, with weedy types of grasses coming in,” university extension agent Mark Thorne said about the damaged pasture. “There’s virtually nothing for the cattle to graze, and it was a fairly large area.”

The spittlebug, which creates “spittle masses” where nymphs mature into adults, feeds at the base of grasses and sucks fluid from the plants. Over time this weakens the grass and can kill it.

“If it spreads out from the Kona area and gets out into the Kohala and Waimea pastures, it could be very devastating for the cattle industry here,” Thorne said.

The two-lined spittlebug is native to the southeastern United States. It’s not known how it arrived on the Big Island.

State agriculture officials are working with the Florida Department of Agriculture to identify natural enemies of the insect.

“If they’re able to do that, we would be able to import them in to the (Hawaii Department of Agriculture) quarantine,” state entomologist Robert Curtiss said.

Magnitude-2.5 earthquake hits Volcanoes National Park

A small earthquake rattled Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park on Tuesday.

The magnitude-2.5 quake struck at 4:26 a.m. with an epicenter 5 miles south-southeast of Volcano village, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The depth was about 1.1 miles. The epicenter, just east of Chain of Craters Road, indicates it was likely associated with the ongoing eruption of Kilauea Volcano.

Kilauea continues to erupt at the summit and at Puu Oo in the east rift zone. The episode 61g lava flow continues to enter the ocean at Kamokuna, where a small lava delta has been growing since late March.