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[{"type":"text","text":"Just like a cartoon..."}]

Smile 26 2 5

<title>Daily Smile: Thursday, February 5, 2026</title>

Just like a cartoon...

Daily Smile: Thursday, February 5, 2026

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

You can take advantage of this buy one, get one free ramen deal for a limited time.

, located in Kāhala (next to Sharetea), is celebrating its grand opening from Feb. 14 to 16. Customers who buy one bowl can get the second bowl free during all three days.

The first 50 guests on opening day, Feb. 14, will get free ramen (doors open at 11 a.m.). The first 50 guests on Feb. 15 will get a free exclusive Broth Bar ceramic ramen bowl; the first 50 guests on Feb. 16 will get a free, exclusive Broth Bar limited-edition T-shirt.

The new business — which is opening in the former Domino’s Pizza space — specializes in ramen and appetizers.

Start with appetizers like takoyaki ($8.50), signature gyoza with pork and vegetable filling ($8), spicy cucumber ($6), spicy tuna with crispy wonton ($9) and chicken karaage ($9). The karaage features tender, marinated chicken thighs that are fried to a delectable golden brown, and served with a side of housemade spicy mayo sauce for dipping.

Signature tonkotsu ramen dishes include the original ($18), the spicy ($19) and the original deluxe ($20). All ramen dishes feature broths and noodles that are made in house.

The original deluxe is similar to the original ramen — which comprises a half ajitama egg, one piece char siu, green onions, kikurage and nori — but includes more toppings (three pieces of char siu, three pieces of nori, and a full ajitama egg).

Other entrees include shoyu ($17), miso ($18) and tan tan ($19) ramen; there are also vegan ramen options — original vegan ($18), spicy vegan ($19) and vegan tan tan ($19) — available.

If you’re not in the mood for ramen, there are rice bowls — including spicy ‘ahi ($6.50) and karaage ($6) — and chicken katsu curry ($18).

The eatery is BYOB for the first two months. The Broth Bar Noodle House will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sundays to Thursdays and from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

Open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sundays to Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays  

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The Broth Bar Noodle House dishes

<title>Buy one, get one free ramen deal at this new shop</title>

The Broth Bar Noodle House is opening Feb. 14 in Kāhala. Its grand opening festivities are Feb. 14 to 16, and customers can take advantage of a BOGO ramen deal during all three days.

Buy one, get one free ramen deal at this new shop

Christian Shimabuku Headshot

Christian Shimabuku

Sports

When Isaiah Magdaleno and his size 15 cleats toe the rubber on Friday night at Les Murakami Stadium, University of Hawai‘i baseball head coach Rich Hill will have no doubt the right guy will be on the mound to open the team's season. 

Magdaleno, a Los Angeles native, will begin his junior season with the Rainbow Warriors as the team's ace pitcher. Magdaleno pitched in a hybrid role as a freshman in 2024 — of his 12 appearances, he had four starts and a save. While getting his college baseball bearings, his ERA of 7.61 was the highest on the team. 

Magdaleno blossomed as a sophomore in 2025, quickly establishing himself as one of the country's top bullpen arms. He went 4-1 with a 2.70 ERA, 

. Of his 24 appearances, all came in relief. He locked down nine saves, striking out 77 hitters in 60 innings en route to first team All-Big West Conference honors. 

In college baseball parlance, "Friday night guy" is a term reserved for a team's bona fide No. 1 starter, a role Magdaleno is serving for the first time in a Hawai‘i uniform. Come 6:35 p.m. against Gonzaga, it will be Magdaleno who throws the first pitch of UH's highly anticipated 2026 season. 

"I'm very grateful to get the opportunity," Magdaleno said earlier in the week. "Very thankful to the pitching coach, (Keith Zuniga) and coach (Hill), the opportunity to get the Friday night and opening day start. Very excited to get it going and get the season started."

Despite the success Magdaleno had closing out games in 2025, Hill noticed one of Magdaleno's strengths out of the bullpen was his ability to get more comfortable as his outings went on, a trait he believes will translate well as Magdaleno becomes a full-time starter in 2026. Eighteen of his 24 appearances in 2025 were stretched across multiple innings. 

"He had a couple of outings where it got tied and he was forced to go more than five innings," Hill recalled. "I can remember against UC Irvine on the road, which was a regional team, really an Omaha team, he kind of dominated him. Same thing here at home one night. ... So, he can do it. He seemed to kind of get stronger as the game went. He's got a phenomenal changeup, a great curveball, and the fastball is really improved. I think he can go two times, maybe three times around the order."

Magdaleno's fastball hovers in the 95 miles per hour range, but pro scouts and coaches alike believe his changeup is his best pitch. He's also added a cutter and sinker to his repertoire to go with a developing slider. 

With the year he had in 2025, Magdaleno was viewed as an appetizing option for power conference schools were he to enter the NCAA transfer portal. Hawai‘i has seen its share of promising pitchers finish their college careers elsewhere. Harrison Bodendorf departed for Oklahoma State in 2024, while Cooper Walls left for Florida following his freshman season in 2025. But to Magdaleno, leaving was never an option. 

"I was committed to coming back here. I didn't want to leave. I love the fans here, love the community, love the coaching staff," Magdaleno said. "They've always been giving me the ball and they've been trusting me, so I just wanted to give that back to them. And just taking that load off of knowing that I wasn't going to leave to begin with, and coming back and supporting the fans and being a leader once I got back."

As Hawai‘i enters its final season in the Big West Conference, the team believes it has what it takes to make its first NCAA regional since 2010. A big reason why? The Friday night guy taking the ball to start things off. 

"I've never started opening night, so I don't really know what it'll entail, but I know that I'm ready for the this crowd to be live," Magdaleno said. "Since I was a closer, everybody is usually up during those innings towards the back end, so I'm just excited to see what it looks like from up there, but just taking it in and just doing my job at the end of the day, just making pitches and let my defense work, really."

Isaiah Magdaleno 021226

<title>Hawai‘i ace pitcher Isaiah Magdaleno readies for his moment</title>

Magdaleno will get the start on opening day for the Rainbow Warriors on Friday night against Gonzaga.

Hawai‘i ace pitcher Isaiah Magdaleno readies for his moment

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Crime & Courts

A Pearl City woman was sentenced Wednesday to three years of supervised release after threatening to kill President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden.

In March 2024, during the Biden administration, Rebecca Ann Folley, then 47 years old and and posting under the name Becca Waters, posted on Facebook a picture containing the message “Going to kill the president,” followed by “INSPECTOR GENERAL, I NEED YOU ASAP.”

The picture appeared to be a screenshot of a comment field on the official White House website; the threat to kill the president had been written in the comment field, under the prompt “What would you like to say?” It is unclear whether Folley actually submitted the comment via the White House website or merely screenshotted a draft message without submitting it.

, the U.S. Secret Service became aware of Folley’s comment in December of 2024, after the election of President Donald Trump, but before his inauguration. A pair of Secret Service agents met Folley that month at her Pearl City residence.

During an interview with the agents, Folley reportedly told them she was a victim of trafficking but law enforcement would not respond to her reports. In order to provoke a response, she posted “bad trigger words” online as a “cry for help," according to the agents' report.

Folley told the agents she had sent hundreds of such messages since 2022, but received no response, even after posting the White House screenshot on the Facebook page of Gov. Josh Green.

“I started bragging, I was like, ‘I’ve got to be the only person in the United States’ history that’s ever been able to get away with 200 of these things on record,’” Folley reportedly told the agents.

The agents then told Folley to “please don’t do that anymore,” to which she agreed, adding that she was taking medication and receiving mental health treatment.

However, about a week later, Folley herself submitted a tip to the FBI linking to another of her own posted presidential death threats, a Facebook post identical to the previous one. She also posted a new message, warning that, in January 2025, she would “certified mail something VERY VERY VERY special to the field office in Honolulu, the secret service dudes, a enduring gift.”

This went on for months, with Folley sending substantially similar messages to various state agencies, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, and the President’s official Facebook account. Her message to the president was direct: “I’M GOING TO KILL DONALD TRUMP.”

In other posts, Folley said she would blow up the White House, and on one occasion commented on a Facebook post by Hawai‘i Rep. Ed Case “Sir, would you mind if I killed you? Just spit balling.”

Secret Service agents once again interviewed Folley in March, whereupon she said she was no longer receiving mental health treatment and acknowledged that her repeated comments were federal crimes.

Court records also indicate that Folley had previously made threats to a family member in 2021, which prompted an FBI response, and was convicted of third-degree assault in Hawai‘i that year as well, for which she served five days in jail.

For her presidential threats, Folley was arrested in April, and she remained incarcerated for seven months. During this period, attorneys discussed Folley’s mental competence to stand trial, with a U.S. District Court Senior Judge Helen Gillmor finding it plausible that Folley was mentally unwell.

The details of a court-ordered mental competency evaluation are restricted from the public. However, the court found her mentally competent in October, and she shortly thereafter pled guilty to making threats against the president, a federal felony carrying a maximum possible sentence of five years’ imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.

However, Folley was sentenced only to seven months in jail — which she has already served — and three years of supervised release. As part of her supervised release terms, she is required to participate in substance abuse and mental health treatment programs, and will have her use of computers strictly monitored.

Courtfed

<title>Pearl City woman gets supervised release following threats against the president</title>

Rebecca Folley made hundreds of Facebook posts threatening to kill Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Pearl City woman gets supervised release following threats against the president

Government & Politics

A proposed law requiring AI developers to impose controls on their AI services is advancing through the state Legislature.

The Senate Joint Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Labor and Technology 

, which would require AI operators to adopts certain disclaimers and protocols in order to mitigate AI’s potential to impact users’ mental health.

The bill requires that any “conversational artificial intelligence service” — e.g., an AI chat service such as ChatGPT — to include clear notifications informing users that they are not communicating with a human, particularly if the user is a minor. Those notifications would be issued at the beginning of each session and subsequently at least every hour, and would remind the user to take a break from the service.

Furthermore, operators would have to develop protocols for how an AI service could respond to user prompts indicating an intention to self-harm or commit suicide. Those protocols would include responses referring the user to crisis service providers and preventing the AI from explicitly claiming that the service is intended to provide professional mental health care.

Also, in cases where a user is reasonably believed to be a minor, AI operators would be required to impose controls preventing the AI from generating pornography, making sexually explicit statements, making statements simulating emotional or romantic connections with the user, or claiming itself to be sentient.

The bill follows growing reports of “AI psychosis,” a trend wherein habitual users of AI chatbots developing delusional beliefs exacerbated by the AI’s responses.

Last April, California teen Adam Raine committed suicide after confiding his suicidal ideation to ChatGPT; according to a 

 filed by Raine’s parents against ChatGPT developer OpenAI, the chatbot had advised Raine about the viability of specific suicide methods and repeatedly validated his suicidal thoughts.

And in 2024, 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III committed suicide after extensive use of Character AI, a chatbot emulating the personalities of fictional characters. Following months of sexually charged conversations with the chatbot — during which Setzer confided his suicidal thoughts, which were encouraged and validated by the chatbot — Setzer killed himself after the chatbot told him to “come home to me as soon as possible.”

 Character Technologies, Character AI’s developer.

Hawai‘i isn’t the only state considering such a measure. Lawmakers in Washington state 

 their own bills that would require similar protocols from AI operators. Meanwhile, Illinois, Utah and Nevada have all 

 prohibiting the use of AI chatbots in mental health therapy.

The bill was broadly popular at Tuesday’s committee hearing. Nahelani Parsons, a representative of Google’s government affairs and public policy team, submitted testimony in support of the bill, although she added that Google’s AI chatbot, Gemini, has content safeguards and suicide protocols already in place.

On the other hand, one AI company — Aidgentic LLC, which describes itself as an “AI-focused automation agency” — testified against SB 3001, arguing that most major AI chatbots already include safeguards to reduce harm, but those can still be circumvented by users despite the billions of dollars invested in those safeguards.

“If passed, this bill would effectively mandate that small Hawai‘i businesses solve technical safety challenges that even the world’s largest tech companies have not yet fully resolved,” Aidgentic wrote.

Meanwhile, the state Department of the Attorney General raised concerns that the bill technically could be considered a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“A statute preventing a conversational artificial intelligence service from making the statements described … may be viewed as a content-based law and subject to challenge under the First Amendment,” read testimony by the Attorney General’s Office.

Whether AI-generated statements are protected by the First Amendment remains an open question. Last year, during the Character AI lawsuit, a Florida judge 

 the developer’s argument that the First Amendment shields the company from lawsuits based on the chatbot’s statements.

 issued by President Donald Trump last December. That order claimed that “excessive state regulation” has hamstrung AI companies from innovation by creating “a patchwork of 50 different regulatory regimes that makes compliance more challenging” and called for a “minimally burdensome national standard” governing AI models.

In any case, the Joint Committee voted to recommend the bill’s passage with amendments as requested by the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. Those amendments include a provision requiring AI companies to only collect data from users necessary to run the service and a provision to make any violation of the bill’s terms an unfair or deceptive practice.

[{"type":"text","text":"The bill is still awaiting a hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee."}]

Meanwhile, a corresponding House measure, 

, is in similar straits, having passed the House Committee on Economic Development and Technology last week.

Hawaii State Capitol 7 29 25

<title>'AI psychosis' bills pass Senate, House committees</title>

Proposed laws would require AI developers to enact protocols to reduce self-harm among users.

'AI psychosis' bills pass Senate, House committees

 on the number of sharks attacks in the United States by state in 2025. Using data compiled by the media outlet as well as by 

, there were at least 28 reported shark attacks nationwide last year.

In the top spot was Florida, with 15 attacks by such species as bull sharks and lemon sharks, in incidents where the shark was  identified.

Next came California with 4 attacks, all attributed to great white sharks.

Hawai‘i had the third largest number of attacks with three, no fatalities. The attacks were attributed to a blacktop reef shark, a tiger shark and one unknown species.

There followed South Carolina with two, Texas with two, North Carolina with two, then Massachusetts and New York with one attack each.

The 28 reported attacks marked a decline from 36 in 2024.

"The odds of being killed by a shark in the United States are more than 4 million to 1, according to 

" reported USA Today. "Researchers say people are more likely to die by lighting strike (1 in nearly 80,000), accidental poisoning (1 in 193), or a hospital infection (1 in 38)."

[{"type":"text","text":"Globally, there were 11 fatalities among 68 reported attacks."}]

Know your shark! Hawai‘i's Department of Land and Natural Resources has an online identification guide for the roughly 40 species of shark seen in Hawai‘i's waters, click 

Shark warning i Stock 1161806839 16x9

<title>Where Hawai‘i ranked for shark attacks in 2025</title>

Shark attacks were recorded in eight states last year.

Where Hawai‘i ranked for shark attacks in 2025

Daniel Farr 02

Daniel Farr

The Maui County Council has taken its first formal step toward creating two new hotel zoning districts designed to accommodate certain existing vacation rental properties as the County moves forward with a phased ban on transient vacation rentals in apartment-zoned areas.

By an 8-1 vote on Jan. 7, the Council approved Resolution 25-230, sending a proposed ordinance establishing H-3 and H-4 hotel districts to the Lanaʻi, Maui and Molokaʻi Planning Commissions for review and feedback. The resolution does not rezone any properties but begins the required review process under the County Charter.

The resolution is closely tied to Bill 9, the Council-approved measure that sets a timeline to phase out transient vacation rentals in apartment districts countywide. Under Bill 9, vacation rentals would no longer be permitted in West Maui apartment districts after 2028, with apartment districts elsewhere in the county following on Jan. 1, 2031.

Councilman Tom Cook, who chairs the Water and Infrastructure Committee and represents the South Maui residency area on the County Council, told Aloha State Daily that the new zoning categories are intended to acknowledge that not all apartment‑zoned vacation rental properties can realistically transition to long‑term housing.

“It became clear that not all affected properties are suitable for residential conversion,” Cook said.

Cook said many of the properties impacted by Bill 9 are older buildings with high maintenance costs, leasehold constraints, or locations vulnerable to sea-level rise, making residential use impractical. The H-3 and H-4 districts, he said, would allow those legacy visitor properties to remain appropriately zoned rather than being forced into a housing role they cannot reasonably fulfill.

At the same time, Cook said the approach allows the County to focus housing efforts on properties that are better suited for residential use, while maintaining stable real property tax and general excise tax revenue that supports infrastructure, services and housing programs.

Cook emphasized that the proposed districts would not automatically rezone properties or expand the number of vacation rentals.

“The creation of the H-3 and H-4 districts does not automatically rezone any property, nor does it add new vacation rental properties,” he told ASD.

Any property seeking H-3 or H-4 zoning would still be required to meet all applicable development standards and planning requirements. The primary difference, Cook said, is that the new hotel districts would allow transient vacation rentals, while A-1 and A-2 apartment zoning would not.

The Council opted to transmit a clean version of the bill to the planning commissions without attaching site-specific environmental conditions. Cook said that approach was intentional, since the zoning categories could apply in a variety of settings.

“Environmental considerations are best addressed during the actual rezoning process,” Cook told ASD, when individual property conditions can be evaluated.

Cook added that, in his view, shoreline erosion and sea-level-rise risks should be addressed comprehensively across all shoreline properties, rather than through zoning-specific rules. Those concerns, he said, should be examined when individual properties apply for rezoning, as appropriate.

Asked how the Council is weighing housing goals against potential impacts to County revenue, Cook said the Temporary Investigative Group’s recommendations for H-3 and H-4 districts reflect an effort to support housing while keeping the County's finances in mind.

“Housing policy must be balanced with economic reality,” he told ASD.

Cook declined to comment on how the proposal could affect the County’s legal position amid pending litigation related to Bill 9, citing County policy on ongoing lawsuits.

The planning commissions are expected to review the proposed ordinance and provide findings and recommendations to the Council before any further legislative action is taken.

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Daily Smile: Thursday, February 5, 2026

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Daily Smile: Thursday, February 5, 2026

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