To indulge a look beyond Kilauea’s damage to homes and humans, is to see the awesome power of nature’s geology.

The summit region of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (HVNP) has been closed to the public due to earthquakes that have rendered the popular park unstable, with huge cracks on the park’s roads, vehicle lots and rock walls. The magnitude of force is mind-blowing, as noted by geophysicist Kyle Anderson during a media tour Thursday: “I’m used to looking at changes on the order of centimeters. Here the scale is tens of feet per day. … The scale is just staggering.” It’s tough seeing HVNP closed; it had 2 million visitors last year. But we get it — safety first.

HMSA case highlights diabetes issue

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing the Hawaii Medical Service Association, contending that the health insurer has violated federal law by denying “intermittent” leave to employees with disabilities for medical treatment. HMSA maintains it’s in compliance with the law.

In the suit, one plaintiff, who has type 2 diabetes, said that after HMSA policy allowed her to take up to four days off monthly for medical appointments for about one year, the policy was dropped. The case raises a general workforce question, as prediabetes and type 2 diabetes now affect nearly 600,000 people in the islands.