HONOLULU—Scientists lowered the alert level for the Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island from a warning to a watch on Saturday and said the mountain’s first eruption in nearly 40 years may soon end. The U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said in a bulletin that the eruption on the mountain’s northeast rift zone…

HONOLULU—The eruption of the Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island continues to ease, scientists said Sunday, reinforcing an earlier pronouncement that the mountain’s first flare-up in nearly 40 years might soon end. “We have good news to report,” Ken Hon, the scientist in charge of the U.S. Geological Survey at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory,…