Kokua Line: How much can I earn and keep unemployment benefits?

Question : A friend is trying to give me some work while I am looking for a job after being laid off more than two months ago. I appreciate it but I don’t want anything to affect my unemployment insurance. Will it ?

Answer : You can earn up to $150 a week and still receive your full weekly benefit amount, but if you earn more than your weekly benefit amount you will not receive unemployment insurance benefits for that week, according to the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations’ Unemployment Insurance Division. Earnings between those figures—more than $150 a week but less than your weekly UI benefit amount—would reduce but not eliminate your UI benefit for the applicable week, according to its website. Being disqualified because you earned more than your weekly benefit amount one week would not disqualify you from filing the next week, assuming that you earned less. Read more at.

Q : Is the Costco poke recall in Hawaii ?

A : No, the Western United Fish Company recalled Kirkland Signature-branded “Ahi Tuna Wasabi Poke ” from Costco stores in 33 states, but Hawaii isn’t one of them, according to the recall notice posted Saturday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, .

The poke, packaged on Sept. 18 with a sell-by date of Sept. 22, was recalled “because the green onions used in the product have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems, ” the notice said.

Nearly 3, 315 pounds of poke was recalled across the affected states.

AT &T settlement The website for the proposed settlement of class-action lawsuits filed over AT &T data breaches has been updated to make it easier for eligible claimants to request a Class Member ID if they did not receive it by postcard or email. Go to telecomdatasettlement.com and click on the blue bar that says “Resend Class Member ID.” Doing so will take you to a form where you’ll input your full name, followed by either the email address, account number, or phone number associated with your AT &T account. “If the information you entered matches our records, we will send your Class Member ID to the email address associated with your AT &T Account, ” the form says. Eligible claimants have until Nov. 18 to submit a claim. Kokua Line wrote last week () about some AT &T customers saying they were not notified of the proposed settlement, despite being told by AT &T last year that their information was exposed. More than 70 million former or current AT &T customers were affected by the hacks.

Auwe To the driver of a black sedan : On Thursday we were heading mauka bound on Middle Street near Fern Elementary School around 5 p.m. You were in the right lane. I was in the left lane one car length behind. All of sudden you made a U-turn in front of me. I was forced to slam on my brakes, screeched my tires and blasted my horn. I avoided a collision. Then you gave me a dirty look like it was my fault. Imagine if I was a motorcycle or moped rider. I would have T-boned your car and been seriously injured. No wonder traffic fatalities are up. There are imbeciles driving who have no respect for the rules or consideration towards others. C’mon people. We can do better. Lives depend on it.—Signed, All Shook Up Mahalo Many thanks for the beautiful, colorful murals along Kalanianaole Highway from Kahala out to Hawaii Kai. Sometimes these efforts lost steam but they are keeping it up and still painting.—Reader------------Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 2-200, Honolulu, HI 96813 ; call 808-529-4773 ; or email.------------

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