HONOLULU (AP) _ Matson Navigation Co. and its unionized crew workers are tentatively agreeing to a new contract that averts a strike.

The contract would give wage increases and pay parity to unlicensed container ship workers on Matson's trans-Pacific cargo ships who are represented by three unions.

The new five-year contract is with the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, Seafarers International Union-Marine Cooks, and the Marine Firemen, Oilers, Watertenders and Wipers Association.

It is still subject to ratification by union members.

The Sailors Union of the Pacific, which represents about 2,000 Matson workers and 200 employees in Hawaii, had voted in June to authorize a strike if a new contract wasn't reached.

HONOLULU (AP) _ Journalists in Hawaii will be protected from having to reveal their anonymous sources and private notes under a new law signed by Gov. Linda Lingle on Wednesday.

Hawaii joins 33 other states and the District of Columbia as areas with various statutes shielding journalists from being forced to testify or disclose information sources. A federal shield is pending before Congress.

"Hopefully it will enhance the free flow of information to the public," said Gerald Kato, chairman of the University of Hawaii's School of Communications. "This is a big step toward establishing a privilege for journalists in their ability to do stories that involve confidential sources."

Both traditional and online journalists are protected under the Hawaii law, although Internet reporters have to show that they're serving the public interest before they'd be granted the safeguard.

The law intends to prevent journalists from being jailed if they refuse to cooperate with government authorities' requests for sources, notes or video recordings.

Investigative reporters may benefit the most from the law when they quote sources who demand anonymity because they fear retribution, Kato said. Without a shield law, the protections of the First Amendment may not be sufficient to guarantee the freedom of journalists who refuse to comply with subpoenas or a judge's orders.

No Hawaii journalists have been imprisoned for not naming their sources, but the bill's sponsor, Rep. Blake Oshiro, said he wanted to enact a shield law before the situation arose.

He said he was inspired by the federal case of former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who was jailed for 85 days in 2005 for refusing to identify which Bush administration officials had talked to her about CIA operative Valerie Plame.

"The media play an important role in terms of keeping government as well as big businesses and corporations honest," said Oshiro, D-Aiea-Halawa. "Otherwise, the fear is that decisions get made in back rooms without any real light of truth being shined on them."

The law protects any reporter who has ever worked for a newspaper, magazine, news agency, radio station or television station. It covers online writers such as bloggers only if they hold a similar job to traditional journalists or regularly publish news in the public interest.

Hawaii prosecutors agreed to the measure after carving out exemptions for defense of felony cases, civil actions involving defamation, public safety, source consent to disclosure and when the person claiming the privilege has observed the alleged commission of a crime.

Malia Zimmerman of Hawaiireporter.com is fighting a subpoena of her notes and records from her investigative reporting into the March 14, 2006, failure of Kaloko Dam on Kauai, which unleashed a 20-foot-high wave of water that killed seven people as they slept.

Her reporting tools are being sought by the dam's owner, James Pflueger, as he builds his defense against lawsuits from the victims' families.

VATICAN CITY (AP) _ The Vatican has moved a Belgian priest who ministered to leprosy patients in Hawaii close to sainthood.

The Vatican says Pope Benedict XVI approved a miracle attributed to Father Damien. Damien was beatified in 1995 so the latest approval means he will be canonized at a date still to be set.

Damien ministered to leprosy patients who had been banished to Molokai after an epidemic in Hawaii in the 1850s. The Belgian-born priest contracted the disease and died in 1889 at 49.

The Vatican approved as a miracle the healing of a Honolulu woman diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She was cured in 1999 after she visited the island where Damien worked and prayed to the priest.