How can it be, we wonder, that the tourists keep coming despite all the rain we had in April, fairly extreme weather believed to be the outcome of climate change? One answer: There’s climate change elsewhere on the planet, and the extreme weather is worse there.

The month’s visitor arrivals continued their climb, with more expansion expected from Hawaiian Airlines routes to and from Long Beach, Calif. But while it’s not showing up in the hard data yet, reports of a slowdown are emerging from post-flood Kauai and, of course, the volcano zone. Let’s hold off celebrating, just for a bit.

Hawaiian word mispronounced at spelling bee

A 14-year-old boy from McKinney, Texas, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night by correctly spelling koinonia — “Christian fellowship or body of believers.” However, if Abhijay Kodali, 11, also from Texas, who took third place, would like to challenge that coronation, we’ll back him.

Kodali was felled by the Hawaiian word, ‘a‘ali‘i (a hopbush), missing one “a.” But that was a small wonder as the event’s “pronouncer” opted for Merriam-Webster’s take, in which you hear just one “a.”

One of the color commentators during the ESPN broadcast correctly noted that the word should be pronounced with an extra syllable to emphasize that extra vowel.