The process of making salt from sea water is a lengthy and laborious one that requires patience, perseverance and stoicism. Work that salt makers do for hours or even days could be wiped out by passing rain showers, which are all too common on the island of Kauai. The multi-step process used by Native Hawaiian families is several centuries old.

How is salt made at the Kauai salt patch?
Step 1: Deep wells or puna are cleaned of dirt and debris so the sea water that enters them through underground channels is clean and conducive to salt making.

Step 2: The salt beds or loi are smoothed out using river rock to seal the rich black clay and mud mixture.

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Step 3: Sea water from the wells is transferred to rectangular holding tanks known as waiku. The brine in the waiku begins to evaporate and salt crystals begin to form on the surface.

Step 4: The salt maker gently pours this brine from the holding tanks into the drying beds.

Step 5: Over several weeks, the water evaporates and slushy layers of white salt begin to form. This salt is harvested by carefully and slowly raking the large flakes from the bed and transferring them to baskets.

Step 6: The harvested salt is then dipped back into the sea water to rinse off debris.

Step 7: Once rinsed, the salt is left to dry in the sun for at least four weeks.

During a good salt making year, a family may complete three harvests repeating the same process.

Can the salt be sold?
No. This sacred salt can be traded or given away, but must never be sold. The amounts harvested annually have significantly shrunk. Five decades ago, families gave away 5-gallon buckets full of salt. Today, it is handed out in sandwich bags.

How is the salt used?
Hawaiians use it in cooking, healing, rituals and as protection. Typically, the whitest in color is used as table salt, the pink salt is for cooking and the red is used in rituals and blessings, but that could vary depending on the circumstance and the cultural or spiritual context.

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Malia Nobrega-Olivera, who is working to preserve this sacred tradition, believes Hanapepe salt has the power to ward off bad energy.

After the Maui fires in August that claimed 100 lives, spiritual practitioners from the island specifically requested white Hanapepe salt from Nobrega-Olivera to bless and "calm" the traumatized island, particularly areas that housed makeshift morgues. 

The salt makers continue to send their salt to survivors who are rebuilding their lives. They also plan to visit Maui to share their knowledge of salt making with the locals.

Idaho student murders suspect Bryan Kohberger's defense team has asked the judge to reconsider his denial of their efforts to have the indictment against him dismissed as prosecutors look to speed up the clock for the quadruple stabbing suspect's trial.

In a court filing last week, Kohberger's team asked for a hearing behind closed doors to argue against the grand jury proceedings in secret. Their reasoning was entered under seal.

Judge John Judge scheduled a closed-door hearing on the defense motion for Jan. 26 and a public hearing on the prosecution's request to schedule a trial date later that same day.

Judge previously denied two defense motions to dismiss, finding Kohberger's lawyers were "historically interesting and creative" in their arguments but not grounded in state law. 

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"Kohberger has failed to successfully challenge the indictment on grounds of juror bias, lack of sufficient admissible evidence, or prosecutorial misconduct," Judge wrote. "Kohberger was indicted by an impartial grand jury who had sufficient admissible evidence to find probable cause to believe Kohberger committed the crimes alleged by the State. Further, the State did not engage in prosecutorial misconduct in presenting their case to the jury."

Kohberger is accused of entering a six-bedroom home just steps off the University of Idaho campus and killing four of the six students inside – Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20 and Ethan Chapin, 20.

Housemates and best friends Mogen and Goncalves were discovered in an upstairs bedroom. Under Mogen's body, police found a Ka-Bar knife sheath they say tested positive for Kohberger's DNA.

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On the middle floor, responding officers found the bodies of Kernodle, who also lived in the home, and her boyfriend Chapin, who was spending the night.

The landlord donated the property to the school last year, and administrators had it demolished on Dec. 28.

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In a letter to the University of Idaho obtained by Fox News' Christina Coleman, Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said investigators anticipated "no further use" of the off-campus rental home for their case.

"Based on our review of Idaho case law, the current condition of the premises is so substantially different than at the time of the homicides that a ‘jury view’ would not be authorized," he wrote.

Experts have been mixed on the issue, with Philadelphia-area defense attorney David Gelman telling Fox News Digital that a jury visit to the crime scene would be a "logistics nightmare" that could potentially have no impact on the jurors so long after the slayings, while Boise-based lawyer Edwina Elcox said there is potential for an unmatched perspective when viewing the interior in person.

Thompson has requested the trial begin sometime this summer.

Police arrested Kohberger on Dec. 30, 2022, weeks after the murders. By then, he had taken a cross-country road trip with his dad back to his family home in Pennsylvania. At the time of the slayings, he was studying for a Ph.D. in criminology at Washington State University, about a 10-mile drive from the King Road house.

He allegedly killed the four students across two floors in the three-story building, sparing two other housemates, one of whom told police she saw a masked man while peeking out her bedroom door.

Kohberger could face the death penalty if convicted.