Early Hawaiian petroglyphs on a beach are visible again with changing tides and shifting sands

WAIANAE, Hawaii (AP) — Hawaiian petroglyphs dating back at least a half-millennium are visible on Oahu for the first time in years, thanks to seasonal ocean swells that peel away sand covering a panel of more than two dozen images of mostly human-looking stick figures.

The petroglyphs are easy to spot during low tide when gentle waves ebb and flow over slippery, neon-green algae growing on a stretch of sandstone. This is the first time the entire panel of petroglyphs are visible since they were first spotted nine years ago by two guests staying at a bayside U.S. Army recreation center in Waianae, about an hour’s drive from Honolulu.

Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner Glen Kila, who traces his lineage to the aboriginal families of this coastal Hawaii community, said he believes the resurfacing of the traditional marvels are his ancestors sending a message.

“It's telling the community that the ocean is rising,” said Kila, a recognized expert on the local culture and history of Waianae who is consulting with the Army on the protection of the petroglyphs.

Army officials are trying to balance protecting the petroglyphs with their accessibility on a public beach.

John and Sandy Stone consulted tide charts and drove about 30 minutes from their home early Tuesday to get a glimpse after a watching a local TV report about the petroglyphs.

“It was so interesting to touch them,” said John Stone, who splits his time between Hawaii and California. “It felt interesting to kind of have a connection with the past like that.”

It is difficult to date petroglyphs, but an archaeological site in the area is from about 600 years ago, said Laura Gilda, an archaeologist with U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii. According to Kila, Hawaiians arrived in Waianae at least 1,000 years ago.

The beach here fluctuates in size and profile each year, with low-pressure weather systems that form in the eastern Pacific between May and November causing waves that cut away loose sand from shorelines and redeposit them further out, according to an Army report on the petroglyphs. That shift is likely what causes their temporary exposure.

Archaeologists identified a total of 26 petroglyphs. Of the 18 anthropomorphic stick figures, eight are depicted with possible male genitalia and the remainder are of undetermined gender, the report said.

The entire panel stretches about 115 feet (35 meters) long, Gilda said.

When the petroglyphs first reemerged in July 2016, it was after late spring and early summer storms, including hurricanes, with a lot of wave action that swept the sand away, Gilda said.

They remained visible for a period and then got covered again.

“So there's been portions that have ... been exposed since then, but this is the first summer that the whole panel has been exposed again,” Gilda said.

Based on the teachings Kila learned, the lineal petroglyphs appear to be telling a religious, ceremonial story. He interprets the largest figure, which appears to include hands and fingers with one arm raised and the other down, to represent the rising and setting sun.

Kila said that when the military in the 1930s took over the area and evicted Native Hawaiians, including his family who lived there for generations, his great-great grandmother refused to leave so his family exchanged mountain lands with a coffee plantation so she could remain near the bay.

In an interview included in the Army's report, he recalled growing up in Waianae without television. So "the ocean and mountains were our playground,” he said. The Army recreation center was off-limits to the public, and the seawall was the barrier between Native Hawaiians and the military, Kila said.

Kila, now 72, recalled that if they walked on top of the wall, they were clubbed and pushed off by military police.

“We were proud and knew where we came from, so we never fostered any hatred for the military because one day we believed that the land will eventually return to us,” he said.

Kila, while visiting the petroglyphs earlier this week, told The Associated Press that the Army's protection of them represents a shift in that community relationship.

Officials have been grappling with how to share the petroglyphs with the community while also protecting them, Gilda said.

“How much attention do you want to bring to this area? You don’t really want people to go digging for them when they’re not exposed," she said. "But they’re certainly awesome to come and see on the public beachscape.”

Donald Kauliʻa, a Native Hawaiian who was born and raised in Waianae, snapped photos of the petroglyphs Tuesday. Seeing them, he said, feels like “validation that our ancestors were from here.”

A view of Kaneʻilio, a temple near Pokai Bay that cultural practitioner Glen Kila believes is spiritually connected to the nearby petroglyphs carved into the rock along the shoreline, July 22, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Cultural practitioner Glen Kila poses for a portrait near the shoreline where ancient petroglyphs at Pokai Bay, July 22, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Archaeologist Laura Gilda of the U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii Environmental Division fills a petroglyph carving with sand to make its shape more visible during low tide at Pokai Bay, July 22, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Archaeologist Laura Gilda of the U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii Environmental Division, left, and cultural practitioner Glen Kila walk along the shoreline near exposed petroglyphs at Pokai Bay, July 22, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Cultural practitioner Glen Kila poses for a portrait near the shoreline where ancient petroglyphs at Pokai Bay, July 22, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Ancient petroglyphs carved as human figures are visible on the exposed rock surface at Pokai Bay, July 22, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

A close-up shows two of several human-shaped petroglyphs carved into the rock at Pokai Bay, July 22, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Cultural practitioner Glen Kila walks around the petroglyphs carved into the rock at Pokai Bay during low tide, July 22, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

A drone view shows petroglyphs carved into the rock surface at Pokai Bay, July 22, 2025, in Waianae, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powellsaid Sunday the Department of Justice has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.

The move represents an unprecedented escalation in President Donald Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he's repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.

The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project Trump has criticized as excessive.

Here's the latest:

Stocks are falling on Wall Street after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Department of Justice had served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony about the Fed’s building renovations.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3% in early trading Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 384 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%.

Powell characterized the threat of criminal charges as pretexts to undermine the Fed’s independence in setting interest rates, its main tool for fighting inflation. The threat is the latest escalation in President Trump’s feud with the Fed.

▶ Read more about the financial markets

She says she had “a very good conversation” with Trump on Monday morning about topics including “security with respect to our sovereignties.”

Last week, Sheinbaum had said she was seeking a conversation with Trump or U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the U.S. president made comments in an interview that he was ready to confront drug cartels on the ground and repeated the accusation that cartels were running Mexico.

Trump’s offers of using U.S. forces against Mexican cartels took on a new weight after the Trump administration deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Sheinbaum was expected to share more about their conversation later Monday.

A leader of the Canadian government is visiting China this week for the first time in nearly a decade, a bid to rebuild his country’s fractured relations with the world’s second-largest economy — and reduce Canada’s dependence on the United States, its neighbor and until recently one of its most supportive and unswerving allies.

The push by Prime Minster Mark Carney, who arrives Wednesday, is part of a major rethink as ties sour with the United States — the world’s No. 1 economy and long the largest trading partner for Canada by far.

Carney aims to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports in the next decade in the face of President Trump’s tariffs and the American leader’s musing that Canada could become “the 51st state.”

▶ Read more about relations between Canada and China

The comment by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson came in response to a question at a regular daily briefing. President Trump has said he would like to make a deal to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous region of NATO ally Denmark, to prevent Russia or China from taking it over.

Tensions have grown between Washington, Denmark and Greenland this month as Trump and his administration push the issue and the White House considers a range of options, including military force, to acquire the vast Arctic island.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO.

▶ Read more about the U.S. and Greenland

Trump said Sunday that he is “inclined” to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after its top executive was skeptical about oil investment efforts in the country after the toppling of former President Nicolás Maduro.

“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One as he departed West Palm Beach, Florida. “They’re playing too cute.”

During a meeting Friday with oil executives, Trump tried to assuage the concerns of the companies and said they would be dealing directly with the U.S., rather than the Venezuelan government.

Some, however, weren’t convinced.

“If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” said Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company.

An ExxonMobil spokesperson did not immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment.

▶ Read more about Trump’s comments on ExxonMobil

Trump’s motorcade took a different route than usual to the airport as he was departing Florida on Sunday due to a “suspicious object,” according to the White House.

The object, which the White House did not describe, was discovered during security sweeps in advance of Trump’s arrival at Palm Beach International Airport.

“A further investigation was warranted and the presidential motorcade route was adjusted accordingly,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Sunday.

The president, when asked about the package by reporters, said, “I know nothing about it.”

Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman for U.S. Secret Service, said the secondary route was taken just as a precaution and that “that is standard protocol.”

▶ Read more about the “suspicious object”

Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.

Iran had no direct reaction to Trump’s comments, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran, insisted “the situation has come under total control” in fiery remarks that blamed Israel and the U.S. for the violence, without offering evidence.

▶ Read more about the possible negotiations and follow live updates

Fed Chair Powell said Sunday the DOJ has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.

The move represents an unprecedented escalation in Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he has repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.

The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project that Trump has criticized as excessive.

Powell on Sunday cast off what has up to this point been a restrained approach to Trump’s criticisms and personal insults, which he has mostly ignored. Instead, Powell issued a video statement in which he bluntly characterized the threat of criminal charges as simple “pretexts” to undermine the Fed’s independence when it comes to setting interest rates.

▶ Read more about the subpoenas

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)