Wednesday evening in Waikiki ended in classic Hawaiian style, with a stunning red, orange and gold sunset, children laughing and splashing in waves lapping the shore – and parents sipping cocktails from plastic cups.

A powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia's Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula triggered tsunami waves of up to 16 feet nearby, and sparked evacuation orders in Japan, Hawaii and across the Pacific on Wednesday (July 30).

If you were to believe some posts on social media, the billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey — who lives in Maui part-time — was accused of callously refusing to let evacuees use her private road to shorten their travel time. But it's typically a bad idea to believe what you see on social media.

Oprah Winfrey's representative and the president of Haleakala Ranch confirmed that a private road on Maui is owned by the ranch and not Winfrey

The earthquake that struck off the coast of Russia late Tuesday registered 8.8 on the Richter scale and ensuing tsunami has raised concerns that the Pentagon could be caught unawares by a natural disaster in a region where thousands of U.