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This is Edward. He was given 6 months to live after being found as a stray. His family was determined to give him the best few months possible, so they introduced him to the ice cream truck. That was 27 months ago.

Smule 26 6 2

<title>Daily Smile: Tuesday, June 2, 2026</title>

Daily Smile: Tuesday, June 2, 2026

 This is Edward. He was given 6 months to live after being found as a stray. His family was determined to give him the best few months possible, so they introduced him to the ice cream truck. That was 27 months ago.

Katie Helland Headshot

Katie Helland

Arts & Entertainment

Aloha Spirit

Films from around the world are heading to theaters on Maui as part of the upcoming 

inaugural Wailuku Film Festival, hosted by the Maui County Film Office and the County of Maui

Tickets for the five-day event are on sale now.

One of the films screening at the festival is “Lahaina Rising,” which was created by a 

, the documentary’s director and a third-generation Maui resident. The film is one of two directed by Schweitzer that will screen at Wailuku Film Festival.

 Lahaina wildfire that destroyed much of historic Lahaina town and killed more than 100 people. “Lahaina Rising” explores water rights, personal stories of how the Maui fires impacted families and the political movement that grew out of tragedy. Last year, the documentary won the 

Hawaiʻi International Film Festival’s Made in Hawaiʻi award for best feature film

“The thing that really inspired me and made me want to tell the story was the community,” Schweitzer told Aloha State Daily. “There was just so much going on. We weren't sleeping much for the first few weeks. But there were a couple moments where really time almost stood still because so many people were helping, so many people were moving, so many people were organizing and bringing in boats — and with how sad we all were at the time — it was beautiful. There were a couple of moments that just really stood out to me where I'm like, ʻThis is the best of humanity, right here.’”

Schweitzer is also the director of “Finding True North,” which will also screen at the Wailuku Film Festival. That documentary features Josh Bogle, a quadruple amputee who found purpose in surfing.

At the moment, these films are not on public streaming services, so events like the 

 are opportunities to see them on the big screen.

The Wailuku Film Festival features the work of more than 55 Hawaiʻi filmmakers, as well as ones from Aotearoa, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Fiji, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, Tonga, and the continental U.S.

For independent filmmakers, film festivals are often a place to build an audience and eventually make connections with streaming services.

“Unless we have a previous connection with Netflix or a major distribution platform, the way to do it is hit the film festival circuit for a full year — try to gain as many awards and recognitions as possible — which will hopefully get the attention of a distribution platform,” Schweitzer said.

One of the challenges of creating “Lahaina Rising” was deciding which stories would make the final cut, 

Schweitzer said. Determining which devastation scenes to include — and which to leave out — was also challenging.

“There are over 10,000 people that experienced what happened in Lahaina on August 8, and there's truly over 10,000 stories,” he said. “Everyone has such an important story.”

In April, “Lahaina Rising” was screened at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, which focused on health, conflict and disaster. 

“The biggest thing I want people to take away is I want them to have hope for humanity,” Schweitzer said. “I want them to have hope for mankind and for our earth. Again, there are all these issues that we talk about — and especially for people not from Lahaina and not from Hawaiʻi — the story shows how our Island has been stripped away, and our rights have been stripped away, and our water has been stripped away, yet our people still have so much hope. Our people still have a fight in them. We're not giving up. We are still optimistic. There are so many ways in here where I hope people can see how strong individuals can be when we come together as one as a community.”

 for screenings at the ʻĪao Theater and Naylor Theater are $15, while those for the 

 at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center are $20. Readers can also visit 

 to help bring “Lahaina Rising” to communities across the nation.

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Lahina Rising Stills 13 1 43 2

<title>Documentary spotlights Maui wildfire</title>

"Lahaina Rising"  focuses on how the devastating Lahaina wildfire of August 2023 changed lives and ignited already existing concerns about water rights and land. Director Matty Schweitzer shares more about the award-winning documentary, which will screen at the inaugural Wailuku Film Festival in June.

Documentary spotlights Maui wildfire

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 of Servco Pacific Inc

, 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."

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:"}]

Dames told Aloha State Daily in an emailed response to questions that the goal was to create something that feels "authentically local" and pay tribute to the community that has made the Tacoma the best-selling vehicle for the past 25 years.

"We're excited to see how customers respond because this edition was inspired by the people who drive Tacomas every day in Hawaiʻi," he says. "We know there's a strong sense of pride around the Tacoma locally, and we think many customers will appreciate seeing that connection reflected in a vehicle designed with Hawaiʻi in mind.

"More than anything, we hope it resonates with the communities, families, small business owners, outdoor enthusiasts and longtime Tacoma owners who have helped make the truck such an iconic part of life in Hawaiʻi."

Dames says that the Tacoma's popularity in the Islands goes beyond transportation.

"The truck is incredibly versatile and well-suited to island life. Whether you're heading to work, spending time with family, going to the beach, exploring the outdoors or supporting a small business, the Tacoma fits naturally into many aspects of daily life.

"Just as important, Tacoma owners in Hawaiʻi have built a strong community around the vehicle over the years. For many families, it's a truck they've trusted for generations," he continued. "That combination of capability, reliability, and deep local connection has helped make the Tacoma one of the most recognizable and beloved vehicles in Hawaiʻi."

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.

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

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Crime & Courts

A former Hawai‘i County housing official was sentenced Thursday to nearly four years in prison over a scheme that defrauded the county for nearly $11 million.

Alan Scott Rudo, 59, was a housing specialist at the Hawai‘i County Office of Housing and Community Development between 2006 and 2018. During his tenure at the department, Rudo conspired with accomplices to fraudulently award housing development agreements and affordable housing credits to those accomplices’ businesses, pocketing about $1.9 million in bribes and kickbacks.

Through those development agreements, the companies received land valued at about $10.9 million, on which they never built a single unit of housing. The conspirators then sold or transferred the land and the affordable housing credits for a tidy profit.

Rudo was charged in 2022 with conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud; he pled guilty that same day. Rudo testified at a 2025 trial of his co-conspirators, and was himself sentenced in U.S. District Court on Thursday.

Judge Jill Otake handed down a sentence of 46 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

In a sentencing statement submitted to the court, Rudo apologized for his actions.

“I betrayed the trust the community placed in me and I caused harm that I can never take back,” Rudo wrote. “I think about that every day and I accept full responsibility for my actions. There is no excuse for the choices I made.”

Rudo wrote the investigation has cost him his marriage, his home and his career, and has forced him to “rebuild [himself] from the ground up.” He said he chose to cooperate with the investigation against his former associates “because it was the right thing to do,” and that he is “committed to doing better.”

His associates — attorney Paul Sulla, 79, of Hilo; attorney Gary Zamber, 56, of Kea‘au; and businessman Rajesh Budhabhatti, 65, formerly of the Big Island — were themselves charged with conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and nine counts of honest services wire fraud, and the three were convicted by a federal jury in 2025.

Rudo’s co-conspirators were sentenced earlier this year. Zamber was sentenced to 70 months in prison in January, Budhabhatti was sentenced to 90 months in February and Sulla was sentenced to 60 months in April.

Courtfed

<title>Former Hawai‘i County housing official sentenced for bribery scheme</title>

Alan Scott Rudo was paid nearly $1.9 million for conspiring to fraudulently award housing development contracts to his associates.

Former Hawai‘i County housing official sentenced for bribery scheme

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

 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

A proposal to build the Thirty Meter Telescope on the former site of another observatory is “feasible,” said a TMT project leader last week.

Last October, Gov. Josh Green and all four of the state’s Congressional delegates signed 

 urging leaders of the TMT project to consider shifting the construction of the controversial observatory to another site on Mauna Kea’s summit.

The letter cited “the Hawai‘i community’s request” to instead build TMT on the site of a decommissioned observatory, rather than disturbing a previously untouched piece of summit land, as the plan has been so far. The letter’s signatories assured that they would work with the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority and the University of Hawai‘i to develop a process for securing the permits necessary for such a shift.

, TMT project manager Fengchuan Liu told the board that the project could still work if it was shifted to the former site of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, which was fully dismantled in 2024. The CSO, first activated in 1986, was selected for decommissioning as part of the terms for TMT to receive a permit; the University of Hawai‘i needed to commit to close five existing telescopes by 2033.

“We on the project have taken a preliminary look at this issue from the technical side, scientifically, engineering-wise, and we believe it is feasible to build on the CSO site,” Liu said.

Liu said there are size differences between TMT and CSO: TMT’s 

, including the observatory dome, support buildings and parking area is roughly five acres, while CSO 

Nonetheless, Liu reiterated that moving the site to the former CSO location could conceivably be done. He suggested that the observatory’s support facility — used to recoat the TMT’s primary mirror segments — could be moved off the mountain to a location at sea level. Liu said this would introduce a logistical burden to the telescope’s operation, but would reduce the observatory’s footprint.

However, the logistics of such a move are still unclear, Liu said. He told the board he does not know whether the process would require new conservation district use permits or new environmental impact studies, and said the TMT’s own board would also need to sign off on the change.

Liu added that the change in site would also introduce minor variances in the observatory’s functionality: he said the CSO location is in a valley lower than most other summit observatories, causing different wind patterns that could impact the telescope’s imaging, although he believes those impacts can be mitigated.

By the same token, Liu said the lower site would also make the facility less visible from around the island than its proposed higher-elevation site.

While there was no public testimony on the matter at last week’s meeting, the board’s discussion last November of Green’s letter drew hundreds of pages of testimony, largely in opposition to the TMT project in general, relocated or otherwise.

One way or another, the future of the project remains unclear. The National Science Foundation announced in 2024 that it could only realistically fund one of two proposed telescopes as part of a “U.S. Extremely Large Telescope” project — either TMT or the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile.

 last year that it had removed TMT from consideration — punching a $1.6 billion hole in the observatory’s budget — Congress passed 

 last month stipulating that the NSF advance both projects into final design review, although with no additional funding granted to either telescope.

 For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Daily Smile: Tuesday, June 2, 2026

ASD Staff

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Daily Smile: Tuesday, June 2, 2026

Authors

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