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Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Golden retriever and baby have a cry-off..."}]

Smile 26 5 29

<title>Daily Smile: Friday, May 29, 2026</title>

Golden retriever and baby have a cry-off...

Daily Smile: Friday, May 29, 2026

 Golden retriever and baby have a cry-off...

Stephanie Salmons Headshot

Stephanie Salmons

Business & Tourism

It's no secret — or surprise — that Toyota Tacomas are popular in the Islands.

In fact, according to Servco Pacific, which has exclusive distributorships of Toyota, Lexus and Subaru in Hawai‘i, it's been the top-selling vehicle in the Islands for 25 years. 

To commemorate that milestone, Servco has unveiled a Hawai‘i-exclusive special edition of the best-selling truck and just 25 will be available statewide, Servco says.

"Hawaiʻi has embraced the Toyota Tacoma as part of its ‘ohana for a quarter of a century,” 

, president and CEO, said in an announcement Friday. "This special edition is our way of saying mahalo to the community that has made this truck the undisputed favorite across the Islands."

[{"type":"text","text":"Aloha State Daily reached out to Servco for more information."}]

The truck comes in the color "mudbath" and comes with a "comprehensive suite of custom components designed to enhance both aesthetics and functionality," the announcement notes.

[{"type":"text","text":"The special build includes:"}]

You'll be able to reserve the truck in person beginning June 6 at Servco Toyota and Maui Toyota dealerships across the Islands. The TSRP, or total suggested retail price, is $44,770 and $7,999 for the Hawai‘i edition accessories.

In 2025, Tacomas made up 7.1% of the market share in Hawai‘i, according to a 

 from the Hawai‘i Automobile Dealers Association.

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

MY26 Tacoma Hawaii Edition 22

<title>Servco Pacific unveils exclusive Hawai‘i edition Toyota Tacoma</title>

The Tacoma has been Hawai‘i's top-selling vehicle for 25 years.

Servco Pacific unveils exclusive Hawai‘i edition Toyota Tacoma

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

Government & Politics

Columnists

The most powerful man in the world got his start firing people on reality television.

For years Donald Trump leaned across a boardroom table and told contestants they were fired, and millions watched. When he ran for President, the bluntness that had been a television gimmick became a qualification for office. He spoke without a script and often without a filter. A great many Americans discovered they preferred a man who acted badly to men who performed well.

Politics runs downstream of culture, the saying goes, and culture runs downstream of whatever screen we happen to be staring at. The television screen that made Trump plausible has been retired. Now the glowing screens that replaced television are in the hands of the children who will pick his successor.

Each generation is raised by a medium, and they seldom notice. The grandparents had radio and the evening news. Their children had cable and a remote in hand. The next generation had broadband by high school. The youngest among us have clutched a glowing rectangle since before they could read.

David Foster Wallace once told a room of college graduates about two young fish. An older fish asks them how the water is. The two swim on for a while before one turns to the other and asks, “what’s water?” The hardest thing to see is the thing you are swimming in. And the water now is streaming.

A stream is a strange thing to describe to anyone who has never sat through one. A young woman plays a video game. A column of text races up the side of the screen, faster than a person can read, full of strangers shouting for her attention. The game is built to dole out small rewards on no fixed schedule, which is the same feature that keeps a gambler seated at a slot machine. Most of the time nothing happens. The viewer stays anyway. He’s probably playing his own game on another screen, and he is waiting, half there, for the day something interesting happens.

Children grow attached to these streamers. Many spend more hours each week with their favorite streamer than they do with their parents.

The streamer does not pose and does not edit. They sit for hours on end, and the rawness is part of the product. The generation before this one built careful profiles and took flattering photos, forever arranging the self for the selfie. This one lets the camera roll.

The printed word once demanded forethought. Ink is permanent, and a man preferred not to look a fool in something that would outlive him. A stream asks for nothing of the kind, only a camera, a connection, and a willingness to be watched doing very little.

If you do not recognize the names Ninja, Kai Cenat, iShowSpeed, or Pokimane, you are not swimming in the stream. But your 16-year-old nephew knows them well. His heart is being trained to speak as they speak and act as they act.

Someone will object that this is the worry of every graying generation. Plato fretted over the written word, our grandmothers over MTV, and the children always turn out fine. Perhaps, but a child reading a book after bedtime is one thing. That same child sitting beside a stranger late into the night, while their parents sleep, is another.

Who pays for all of this? As the saying goes, “whose bread I eat, his song I sing.” For most of history the bread came from a single hand: a patron, a publisher, a network. The streamer’s bread arrives from 10,000 hands, a few dollars at a time.

The man on camera learns, the way Pavlov’s dog learned, which tricks ring the bell. He drifts toward whatever is loud and lurid, because that is what loosens the audience’s pursestrings. And the streamer’s purse, more often than anyone cares to admit, is filled by the small donations of the lonely and unwell. The performer fancies that he is leading his audience. In reality, the audience is training the performer.

None of this stays in the world of entertainment. It is now, almost precisely, how a person raises money and wins office.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez raised more than $20 million last year. Most of that came in small sums from ordinary people. It’s the same $5 gesture that lands in a streamer’s account, pointed at a political campaign.

Television made Trump famous, and only later made him a candidate. With AOC it went the other way around. She was on camera before she was anyone, and the politics grew out of that.

 her journey to attend the Standing Rock protests. Then she got a call to run for office. Ten years later, she is an early front-runner for her party’s 2028 nomination.

AOC never stopped streaming. In 2020, she sat down to play a video game with Pokimane, then the most popular female streamer on Twitch. They drew a live audience of 400,000 people. This was two weeks before the election, and AOC was stumping to register voters.

 with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was then running for Vice President as a Democrat. A few days earlier, Republican candidate Donald Trump sat for a 

 Joe Rogan interview. This was a week before the election.

The Psalmist said that men who trust in idols become like them. Our streaming idols never stop talking but rarely say anything. They speak through the night, whispering into our children’s ears. They perform for a few dollars at a time, taken from 10,000 hands. And soon, they may choose our President.

Kai Cenat livestream

<title>The politics downstream</title>

Presidents used to emerge out of whistlestop tours, radio address, television and cable. Now, for the youngest voters and voters-to-be, political power gathers in the frenetic world of livestreams. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa talks about what this means.

The politics downstream

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Crime & Courts

 the City and County of Honolulu after she was fined nearly $600,000 over an improper apartment listing.

In 2019, Sandra May needed a tenant. She had owned a home on Wilhelmina Rise since the 1970s, with a lower unit in the home available for rent by long-term tenants. But after her husband died in 2019, May, living on a fixed Social Security income, needed to make ends meet, but couldn’t find another tenant.

To broaden her search, May listed the unit on several online rental platforms. But May — who her attorney Loren Seehase said “struggles to utilize any kind of technology” — had inadvertently listed the unit as available for less than 30 days.

That same year, the City and County adopted an 

 hiking up fines against property owners illegally hosting short-term rentals. Violators could be fined up to $10,000 for each day a violation persists.

In November 2019, May received a notice of a violation from the city regarding an online property listing. She promptly corrected the listing to show that the unit was only available for periods of 30 days or more, and believed the matter to be done.

Two years later, after the lifting of the Covid-era moratorium on evicting tenants for non-payment of rent, May again was in need of new tenants. Once again she listed the unit online, once again (in 2023) she received a notice of violation from the city, once again she corrected the listing, once again she thought the matter over.

In April 2024, it happened again. Only this time, because this was a recurring violation, the city informed May that she would incur daily $10,000 fines until the listings were corrected.

Unfortunately, May spent much of late March and April in and out of the hospital following a car crash and other medical procedures. By the time she learned of the violation and was able to correct it, 59 days had elapsed — and now she owed the city $590,000.

On the same day, the city also placed a $10,000 lien on May’s property stemming from the second violation.

“She’s like, ‘you know you’re going to put an old lady out on the street,’” Seehase told Aloha State Daily. “‘I can’t pay this, you’d have to take my home.’ And the city responded by saying ‘Well, I guess you’d better get an attorney.’ So, it was a very callous response. Poor Sandra was in tears about it, and there was no conversation, there was no negotiating, there was no listening to reason.”

May sought out attorneys, who referred her to the Pacific Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm that focuses on property rights cases. Even better for May, the PLF works pro bono, Seehase said.

Seehase said the letter informing May of how much she owed the city did not mention any way to challenge the fines. Without a mechanism within ordinances to challenge the situation, Seehase said the only option is to challenge it on constitutional grounds, in federal court.

In particular, Seehase said the case could be argued to be in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. That amendment most famously concerns “cruel and unusual punishment,” but also protects against excessive fines.

Seehase said other Eighth Amendment cases have attempted to determine whether particular fines are so ruinous they will destroy a person’s livelihood, weighed in proportion to the actual crime itself.

In this particular case, Seehase said, May’s mistake brought no harm to anybody other than herself.

“This is not the type of situation where we’ve got like a building code violation and lives are imminently in danger,” Seehase said. “This is an advertisement, so there was no harm done to anyone.”

On the other side of the coin, Seehase said the $10,000-per-day fines are the absolute maximum allowed by city ordinance, and that the city could have chosen to reduce those fines at their discretion. Because the city hit May with the $590,000 fines and the $10,000 lien on the same day, Seehase said that “it really kind of appeared that the city went on a vendetta … against poor Sandra.”

Seehase emphasized that, regardless of how the listings may have appeared online, May did not ever offer the property for periods of less than 30 days. If a person attempted to book the property for less than 30 days, May would cancel the booking.

May is seeking relief through the federal court, not monetary damages, Seehase said. Should they win, the court will determine an appropriate remedy, potentially including a partial or total reduction of the fines.

Seehase said the City and County has 21 days to respond once they have been served.

A spokesman for the Department of Planning and Permitting told ASD the department cannot comment on pending litigation.

Sandra May rentalsign 610x407 16x9

<title>Octogenarian sues Honolulu over $600,000 fines</title>

Sandra May was told she owed the city hundreds of thousands of dollars over an improper online rental listing.

Octogenarian sues Honolulu over $600,000 fines

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

 recently opened its second location. The business’s original location is close to Hilton Hawaiian Village; Goofy Café & Dine – Waikīkī Beach is on the first floor of The Twin Fin Hotel on Kalākaua Avenue. Its grand opening is Friday, May 29.

While the original Goofy’s Café offers dinner, it focuses on brunch. The new restaurant, which is in the former spot of Wolfgang Puck Express, features an all-day dining experience with menus for breakfast, lunch, happy hour and dinner.

The breakfast menu is offered from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., according to general manager Michael Tabarejo. The menu features customer favorites like smoked salmon eggs Benedict ($24.50), lemon butter garlic shrimp omelet ($21), avocado toast ($18), and the Big Island beef loco moco ($24). However, the Waikīkī Beach café offers buttermilk pancakes with a variety of toppings.

“Pancakes are only at this location,” general manager Michael Tabarejo confirms. “They (the other location) do French toasts. For our eggs Benedicts, we use sourdough bread instead of English muffins.”

The fluffy buttermilk pancakes come with toppings like fresh berries ($20), Hawaiian tropical fruits ($20), brown sugar mascarpone cream ($18) and bacon mac and cheese ($20). The latter features a sweet-and-savory combo, thanks to the melted cheese topping with maple syrup on the side.

The brown sugar mascarpone cream features a velvety mascarpone whipped with brown butter and rich brown sugar.

The eatery’s popular acai bowls are still available at this location. Choose from the fresh berries bowl ($18), Hawaiian tropical fruit bowl ($18) or niu acai bowl ($19). Tabarejo recommends the latter, which includes papaya, strawberries, banana, coconut mousse, chia seeds and coconut flakes.

The eatery’s lunch menu is served from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Options range from local corn fried rice ($20) and the Goofy cheeseburger ($21) to fish and chips ($23 lunch, $20 happy hour).

“For lunch, the corn fried rice is amazing,” Tabarejo says. “It’s got some protein (pork belly), vegetables and rice. Our fish and chips are also good; they’re light and crispy. We use Swai (for the fish).”

The fish and chips are served with fries and tartar sauce. The Goofy cheeseburger features a brioche bun filled with a double 4-ounce beef patty, Swiss cheese, American cheese, caramelized onions and house sauce, with fries on the side.

The eatery’s happy hour, available daily from 2 to 5 p.m., is exclusive to this location (the eatery’s Village location doesn’t have a happy hour). Customers can enjoy pūpū-style dishes — like ‘ulu hummus and tortilla chips ($12), truffle fries ($12), spicy ‘ahi nachos ($18) and the Goofy spread board ($15) — along with larger plates like the spicy crispy chicken sandwich ($20) and clubhouse sandwich ($20).

The Island-grown breadfruit hummus comes with local tortilla chips. The Goofy spread board ($15) is anticipated to be a signature option. Pick any three house spreads — fresh guacamole, kalua pork rillettes, ricotta honey pepper whip or truffle local mushroom pate — served with toasted sourdough.

The restaurant’s dinner menu, served from 5 to closing, features heartier options like steak and fries ($48), creamy Tuscan salmon ($35), chicken Parmigiano ($26), confit Branzino ($69) and surf and turf ($120). The latter is designed to serve two people, and includes a 1-pound rib-eye steak, lobster tail and Kauai shrimp. The confit Branzino is a Mediterranean sea bass that features a whole fish served with pistachio caper salsa and roasted potatoes.

Customers can also enjoy a variety of beverages, ranging from beers and wines by the glass or bottle to house cocktails and “Goofy Flow” drinks. The latter are frozen cocktails and come in flavors like liliko

i, peach and starburst ($18 each), which features a mango strawberry syrup. "Goofy Flow" drinks are usually made with rum, but non-alcoholic versions are also available. 

Goofy Café & Dine – Waikīkī Beach also features a takeout window with a separate grab-and-go menu. The takeout window is open from noon to 5 p.m. and features options like furikake fries ($6), volcano loaded fries ($9), volcano chili cheese hot dogs ($13) and more.

[{"type":"text","text":"The eatery offers a 5% kamaʻāina discount. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Validated valet parking is available (three-hour validation for $8)."}]

Open daily starting Friday, May 29, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Valet parking available (three-hour validation for $8)

Goofy Cafe Waikiki brunch spread 052626

<title>Goofy Café & Dine opens second location</title>

This popular brunch spot — whose original location is near Hilton Hawaiian Village — opened a second location at The Twin Fin Hotel. This new location features brunch, lunch, happy hour and an expanded dinner menu. The café’s grand opening is Friday, May 29.

Goofy Café & Dine opens second location

Igor Lytvynchuk, the Washington man charged with throwing a rock at an endangered Hawaiian monk seal, had his first court appearance in Honolulu on Wednesday.

Lytvynchuk, 38, appeared in U.S. District Court to plead "not guilty" to two charges of illegal taking of an endangered marine mammal. Those charges stem from 

 on May 5 when a man — later identified by investigators as Lytvynchuk — was recorded on video hurling a rock at a monk seal on a Maui beach, seemingly only narrowly missing the animal’s head.

As any form of harassment of an endangered seal violates both the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, that single rock incurred two charges. Both charges are misdemeanor offenses, carrying a maximum possible sentence of one year in prison each, although Magistrate Judge Rom Trader told Lytvynchuk Wednesday that there is no guarantee, if he is found guilty, that he will face the full maximum sentence.

Lytvynchuk was arrested May 13 near Seattle by special agents of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Following an initial court appearance in Washington, the case was transferred to the District of Hawai‘i.

Lytvynchuk had little opportunity to speak at Wednesday’s hearing, confirming in one or two words that he understood Trader’s description of the legal process ahead of him. While his “not guilty” plea drew murmurs from the several dozen people in the gallery, he made no statement about his actions during or after the hearing.

However, a lawyer for Lytvynchuk had previously told media that Lytvynchuk had supposedly believed the seal to be a sea lion threatening sea turtles.

Trader ordered Lytvynchuk to be released on an unsecured $25,000 bond with several conditions, including that Lytvynchuk surrender his passport and all travel documents, that he not change addresses without approval from his pretrial officer, and that his travel is restricted to the Western District of Washington — a U.S. court district covering the state west of the Cascade Mountains — and O‘ahu for court purposes only.

Furthermore, when on O‘ahu, Lytvynchuk is prohibited from accessing any beaches or approaching any marine wildlife, Trader said.

“I think that’s an appropriately tailored restriction, given the circumstances,” Trader said.

Failing to comply with these conditions could result in a warrant for Lytvynchuk’s arrest and put him in jail until trial.

Lytvynchuk is also required to be present at future court hearings. However, Trader said he is inclined to waive that requirement for certain minor hearings and allow Lytvynchuk to appear remotely.

For example, the next hearing date is scheduled for June 9, where attorneys for both sides will set a mutually agreeable trial date and other deadlines. Trader agreed with Lytvynchuk’s attorney Sean Fitzsimmons that Lytvynchuk’s physical presence at that hearing will not be necessary.

Screenshot 2026 05 27 at 3 58 24 PM 16x9

<title>Lytvynchuk pleads 'not guilty' in monk seal case</title>

Igor Lytvynchuk will be barred from O‘ahu beaches as his court case over an alleged attack on a Hawaiian monk seal continues.

Lytvynchuk pleads 'not guilty' in monk seal case

A San Franciscan candidate for Honolulu Police Chief hopes to be “the last outside chief in Honolulu.”

Dave Lazar is one of three nominees for O‘ahu’s top cops selected by the Honolulu Police Commission. Formerly with the San Francisco Police Department for 33 years, Lazar is one of two candidates from the Mainland, the other being Georgia resident Scott Ebner.

But while Lazar told Aloha State Daily that his outside perspective is what the Honolulu Police Department needs right now, he added that his hope is to strengthen the department enough that it can shape the next generation of leaders without having to look farther afield.

“I want to get the culture in such shape where, in terms of succession planning, you bring that next generation of leadership in internally, and they’re part of the reform effort, they’re part of all the changes,” Lazar said.

Lazar’s highest priority changes, he said, will be to improve transparency and accountability within the department, something he said is sorely needed.

“The prior chief did not last his full term,” Lazar said. “There was an interim chief, and then the chief before that didn’t last her full term, and the chief before that was, you know, indicted and arrested for corruption. So this is a department that is in need of strong leadership, is in need of tremendous support and it needs a chief that has their backs.”

If selected, Lazar said he wants to modernize HPD, implementing technology and other best practices being adopted by other police agencies around the country. As an example, he addressed HPD’s clearance rate, the proportion of cases the department closes; the most recent data from the state Attorney General found that only about 20% of cases ended up closed in 2024.

“That’s the perfect example of why change is needed,” Lazar said. “Because if the most current data you have is 2024 and not the first quarter of 2026, that’s one thing that we need to fix.”

Lazar said that, in the SFPD, the homicide clearance rate was upwards of 80% — HPD’s homicide clearance in 2024 was 57% — thanks in part to better adoption of data integration technologies that allow officers to analyze relations between data points much more efficiently.

Of course, Lazar added, HPD also has a significant staffing shortage that stretches investigators thin. He echoed 

 by fellow chief candidate Mike Lambert that improving the working conditions of HPD officers is key to improving officer retention.

“When we talk about retention, it’s about wellness,” Lazar said. “Do they have wellness opportunities? Is there a path on career development? Do we really support them personally and professionally?”

Like Lambert, Lazar wants to invest into HPD’s infrastructure and resources, saying that “you feel good about where you work because things are modern. You feel like leadership cares about you because you’re being provided with the equipment you need to do your job effectively.”

However, unlike Lambert, Lazar took a hardline stance against HPD ever collaborating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I come from a department where we don’t cooperate at all with ICE,” Lazar said. “That’s what I’m used to, that’s the right thing to do. If I’m selected as chief, we will not cooperate whatsoever with ICE. We will not participate in anything they have going on.

“We’re not going to transport for them, we’re not going to support them, we’re not going to respond to any of their calls, we’re not going to set up perimeters,” Lazar went on. “Those are the policy decisions that will be made on my watch.”

Lazar acknowledged that there may be incidents where a criminal investigation overlaps with an ICE operation, but he said that HPD’s actions would remain separate from ICE’s.

If selected, Lazar said he will work with the Honolulu community and the State of Hawai‘i Organization of Police Officers to develop specific policies for how HPD handles immigration questions.

“I would work very hard to promote to the entire community that they need to report crime, that they can come to the HPD and report crime, that we want to help them regardless of their immigration status,” Lazar said. “We can’t let our officers be out in the community without any direction from leadership in order to make sure that they are covered in what they do.”

By the same token, Lazar said efforts to improve the transparency of HPD will help emphasize the diversity of the department: “If you look around at HPD, and they come from different backgrounds and different ethnicities … you build a tremendous amount of trust.”

While Lazar’s own background is largely separate from Hawai‘i, he has some family ties to the island. His wife of 32 years comes from a Hawaiian family and he has “plenty of aunties and uncles” across the island, he said.

Lazar, who is 55 years old, retired from SFPD in 2025, having never been permanent police chief there, although he had stints as acting chief between 2022 and 2024. He said that, by the time of his retirement, he no longer had interest in the top job, and much of the department’s leadership was also retiring amidst a mayoral transition.

Nonetheless, he said that he still has “so much energy,” and soon decided after retiring that he wanted to keep working. Lazar said SFPD was in a very different place when he began his career — “in need of reform, in need of technology” — in ways similar to how HPD is today.

“It’s almost like I get to repeat that experience [with SFPD],” Lazar said.

If selected, Lazar said he thinks he “probably has a good 10 years left” before leaving the job.

Whether Lazar gets the job will be determined on Wednesday. The Police Commission will conduct final interviews with all three candidates Tuesday, and make a final selection the following day.

Editor's note: ASD has also reached out to the third candidate, 

former Glynn County, Georgia, Police Chief Scott Ebner, but as of Tuesday night had not heard back.

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Daily Smile: Friday, May 29, 2026

ASD Staff

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Daily Smile: Friday, May 29, 2026

Authors

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