Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said that the steadfastness of Palestinians in Gaza despite genocide, shows ‘the failure of Israel’. Barghouti is at the Al Jazeera Forum, an event focusing on geopolitical shifts in the Middle East.
Published On 7 Feb 20267 Feb 2026
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SUNSEEKERS heading to Hawaii must now shell out more money to cover a tourist tax hike.
Government officials have praised it as a new “green fee,” but opponents have slammed it as a “surf tax” which bumps up accommodation prices.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green signed legislation last May to generate an estimated nearly $100 million annually.
The “green fee” adds about $3 per night to your bill if you’re booking a $400-per-night hotel room, according to Aloha Hawaiian Vacations.
“Some are praising it as a much-needed environmental investment,” it added.
“Others feel like it’s just another added cost at a time when tourism still hasn’t fully bounced back post-pandemic.”
Forbes described it last month as a “first-of-its-kind visitor levy in the United States aimed at funding climate resilience and environmental conservation in the state.”
The levy raises rates on hotel room, vacation rentals and short-term rental stays.
The government also wanted to charge cruise line passengers, but the new charge is being challenged by industry officials in a lawsuit.
Money raised through the tax is to be invested in climate disaster resilience and environmental protection, according to the government.
“Visitors are willing to pay a climate impact fee in order to support Hawaiʻi’s environmental protection efforts and preserve the beauty and cultural heritage of the islands for future generations,” it explained last May.
But, some tourists have resisted what they’re calling a “surf tax” said the Robb Report.
There’s also been some negative comments on social media, where it’s been slammed as a “money making” venture, and a “disgusting cash grab” which will “make Hawaii even more unaffordable.”
“We have no emissions testing on cars in Hawaii, but now we’re suddenly concerned about pollution and are going to place a climate tax on tourists?” asked one resident.
“This is about greed and incompetence, not the environment.”
Hawaii does not require a mandatory tailpipe emissions test – also known as a “smog check,” for vehicle registration, said Engineer Fix.
“Unlike many states that quantify pollutants like hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, Hawaii does not perform this type of performance-based assessment.”
Hawaii’s new “Green Fee” raises taxes on hotels, vacation rentals and short-term rental stays
The measure is Act 96, signed by Governor Josh Green on May 27, 2025 and it is designed to funnel money into environmental projects in Hawaii.
Starting January 1, 2026, the tax on hotel stays and vacation rentals increased from 9.25% to 10%.
Cruise ship operators were also to be taxed for the first time on cabin fares, with an 11% charge.
But they are fighting the tax with a lawsuit.
Visitors have been charged the new levy since January 1, after it was signed into law last May.
The tax was prompted by recent natural disasters, including the 2023 Maui wildfires that killed more than 100 people and destroyed thousands of structures.
It raises the state’s transient accommodations tax (TAT) by 0.75% for a total of 11% placed upon the nightly lodging rate, said the governor last May.
Prior to its approval, officials had signaled hopes to slug tourists $40 to raise “$200 million in conservation workforce revenue.”
However Senate Bill 1396 instead increased the TAT rate by a more modest 0.75% – rather than a higher fee.
Supporters are thrilled that money raised will be spent on projects such as replenishing beach sand, coral reef rehabilitation, plus fire prevention projects.
“As an island chain, Hawaii cannot wait for the next disaster to hit before taking action,” said Gov. Green last June.
“We must build resiliency now, and the green fee will provide the necessary financing to ensure resources are available for our future.”
The cruise ship industry has managed to avoid the fee – for now.
An 11th-hour reprieve was granted by the federal appellate court, reported Civil Beat on January 1.
“Judges upheld the cruise industry’s request that its ships not have to pay the new fee while in port — or to pay any of the visitor taxes already charged to hotels and vacation rental owners — while the battle over their inclusion plays out in court.
“That means Hawaii will see a 10% decrease in expected revenue from the nation’s first green fee while the injunction is in effect.
“That reduction would become permanent if the industry’s main trade group, Cruise Lines International Association, prevails in court.”
Leading Democrats have rolled out a new and unvarnished message — that the U.S. Department of Justice cannot be trusted.
“Let’s be really clear: We can’t trust anything the DOJ does. The DOJ is corrupt. They’re corrupt on every major issue in front of this country,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said Friday at a news conference in his district.
“We cannot trust the Department of Justice. They are an illegitimate organization right now under the leadership of [Atty. Gen.] Pam Bondi and the direction of Donald Trump,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said during his own news conference in Washington, D.C.
The remarks — which hold profound implications in a two-party democracy meant to be protected and served by a nonpartisan justice system, and which a White House spokesperson called “shameful” — followed a week of equally stunning actions by the Justice Department, where President Trump has installed staunch loyalists, including Bondi, to high-ranking positions.
In recent days, the Justice Department has resisted launching civil rights investigations into two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents. It has since reversed course and launched such an investigation into the second of those incidents, in which 37-year-old Alex Pretti was shot while surrounded by agents, on the ground and disarmed, but has held firm in its decision not to investigate the earlier shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good, who was shot while trying to drive away from a tense exchange with agents.
On Wednesday, the FBI raided and seized voter ballots and other information from the election headquarters of Fulton County, Ga., long a target of Trump’s baseless and disproven claims that widespread voter fraud helped Democrats steal the 2020 election. Bondi was an early backer of those baseless claims, as were other Justice Department appointees.
On Friday, federal agents arrested former CNN anchor Don Lemon and other journalists after their coverage of a protest at a conservative church in Minneapolis. Justice Department officials rejected the defense that Lemon and the other journalists were exercising their 1st Amendment rights as journalists, and accused them of violating the rights of churchgoers.
Also Friday, Justice Department officials released more documents from the Epstein files — a trove of records related to the sexual abuse of minors by the late, disgraced billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein. Democrats argued that the release was still not complete, in violation of a law passed by Congress mandating that they be made public.
In a statement to The Times, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly dismissed Jeffries’ and Garcia’s remarks as “shameful comments by Democrats who cheered on Joe Biden’s weaponization of the Department of Justice against his political enemies, including President Trump,” and said Trump, Bondi and other administration officials “have quickly Made America Safe Again by taking violent criminals off the streets, cracking down on fraud, holding bad actors accountable, and more.”
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment, but officials there have broadly defended the department’s actions as not only justified but necessary for ensuring the rule of law and holding alleged criminals to account.
Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, said both the actions of the Justice Department and the latest statements from Democrats ratcheted up the stakes in the nation’s already tense political standoff — as institutions such as the Justice Department “need to be trusted in the long term” for American democracy to be successful.
“Trust goes up and down in the people in institutions over history, but there’s been a baseline level of support for our Constitution, the way our government is built, and the seal on the building — even if people didn’t trust who was in that building,” Kousser said. “What we may be risking as a country is losing the trust in the building itself, if people think that the might of the federal government is being used to pursue a narrow agenda of one party or one leader.”
Jeffries’ assertion that the Justice Department can’t be trusted came as he denounced Lemon’s arrest. Jeffries said there was “zero basis to arrest” Lemon, and that the arrest was an attempt by the Trump administration to weaponize government against people they disagree with.
Jeffries added that distrust in the federal agency is one of the reasons why House Democrats are pushing for legislative action to require independent investigations by local and state law enforcement in cases when federal agents engage in violent incidents and are accused of wrongdoing — such as the shootings in Minneapolis.
Other leading Democrats have also slammed the Justice Department over the journalists’ arrests.
“The American people deserve answers as to why Trump’s lawless Justice Department is arresting journalists for simply doing their jobs,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).
“The arrest of journalists for covering a protest is a grave attack on the 1st Amendment and freedom of the press,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). “And proof the Trump administration is not de-escalating.”
Garcia’s comments came in a wide-ranging news conference at which he also discussed taking on a leading role in impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has been overseeing the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, including through the deployment of Immigration and Custom Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents to Minneapolis, Los Angeles and other major cities.
Garcia denounced the Trump administration’s handling of the Good and Pretti shootings, arguing that independent investigations were needed — as he said were conducted after police shootings in Long Beach when he was mayor there.
“They should bring in either a special counsel [or] some type of special master to oversee an independent investigation,” he said.
He said that was especially necessary given the fact that Noem and other administration officials immediately bad-mouthed Good and Pretti as violent actors threatening agents before any of the facts were gathered — and in direct contradiction to video evidence from the scenes.
“What happened to Renee Good and Alex Pretti was murder by our own government, and our committee is working right now on a major report on both of those incidents so that those that are responsible are held accountable,” Garcia said.
He also called Lemon’s arrest “horrifying,” saying Lemon was “out there reporting” and is now being “essentially attacked” by the Justice Department. “The arrest of Don Lemon might be the single largest attack on the free press and the 1st Amendment in the modern era.”
Garcia noted that the Justice Department had first shopped Lemon’s arrest around to multiple judges, who denied issuing a warrant for his arrest. Administration officials said a federal grand jury handed down an indictment for the journalist, but Garcia suggested the indictment was fraudulently obtained based on the government putting forward information “we cannot trust.”
Decisions around the two Minneapolis shootings and the arrest of the journalists would have passed through the office of Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Dhillon did not respond to a request for comment Friday. However, she has broadly defended her office’s actions online. For days before Lemon’s arrest, she had slammed his actions, writing on X that she and Bondi “will not tolerate harassment of Americans at worship — especially from agitators posing as ‘journalists.’”
Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche — a former personal attorney to Trump — has broadly defended the department’s actions in Minneapolis, where he said a civil rights investigation into Good’s shooting was unwarranted, and on the Epstein files, which he said have been released in accordance with the law and Trump’s own demands for transparency.
The latter was also something Garcia took issue with Friday, slamming the Justice Department for continuing to withhold some of the files.
“Donald Trump and the Department of Justice just made it clear right now that they intend to withhold approximately 50% or half of the Epstein files while claiming to have fully complied with the law. This is outrageous and incredibly concerning,” Garcia said.
He said his committee subpoenaed all of the files over the summer, and Bondi has yet to comply with that subpoena in violation of the law.
Previously released Epstein records included allegations that Trump was involved in Epstein’s schemes to abuse young women and girls, which Trump — once a friend of Epstein’s — has strenuously denied.
The Justice Department has also taken the unusual step of defending the president in the matter directly, including by releasing a statement last month that the released documents “contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump.”
“To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,” the department’s statement said.
Kousser, the politics professor, noted that this is not the first time that concerns about partisanship within the Justice Department have been voiced. He said similar concerns were raised by many Republicans when the Justice Department was prosecuting Trump during the Biden administration.
Such arguments raise serious alarms, he said, regardless of which way they are directed politically.
“If people feel like the Justice Department is only doing the bidding of whoever won the last election, that moves it from a law enforcement body to a political operation in the eyes of average Americans,” he said. “And that would be a huge loss for our democracy.”
Kim Sang-hwan (2-L), chief justice of the Constitutional Court, and the court’s other justices attend a hearing to deliver a verdict on the impeachment of former police chief Cho Ji-ho at the court in Seoul, South Korea, 18 December 2025. The court upheld Cho’s impeachment over his involvement in former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived imposition of martial law. File. Photo by YONHAP / EPA
Jan. 30 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s Innovation Party said Thursday that the Constitutional Court’s decision striking down the 3% vote threshold for proportional representation is a warning to the country’s two major parties and called on the Democratic Party to amend the Public Official Election Act.
The party argued that the ruling requires broader electoral reform, including abolishing two-member local council districts, expanding regional proportional representation and introducing runoff voting for mayors and governors.
Park Byeong-won, interim spokesperson for the Innovation Party, told a news conference at the National Assembly Communication Center that the court’s decision underscored violations of popular sovereignty. He said the Democratic Party, which holds a majority in the National Assembly, should take responsibility for revising the election law.
Park said the court found partially unconstitutional a provision of the Public Official Election Act that denied proportional representation seats to parties that failed to secure at least 3% of the nationwide vote. As a result, he said, parties receiving less than 3% support will be eligible for seat allocation in the 2028 general election without further legislation.
He added that the court criticized the current system as favoring the two major parties and blocking new political forces from entering the National Assembly. Park said it would be unrealistic to expect the major parties to voluntarily reform a system that benefits them and called the ruling a rebuke that lawmakers must heed.
Park said the decision highlighted the need to abolish two-member local council districts, expand regional proportional representation and introduce runoff voting for local chief executives in upcoming local elections. He said the Democratic Party should move unilaterally to amend the election law to reflect the principle of popular sovereignty.
On Wednesday, the Constitutional Court ruled 7-2 that Article 189(1) of the Public Official Election Act was unconstitutional. The provision limited proportional representation seats to parties that won at least 3% of the national vote or secured five constituency seats.
Minor parties and candidates who failed to meet the threshold in the 21st and 22nd general elections under a semi-linked proportional representation system had filed the constitutional complaint.
— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI
© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.
Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260130010013892
The Los Angeles City Council has again increased what it will pay Gibson Dunn to represent it in a contentious homelessness case, bringing the law firm’s contract to nearly $7.5 million.
In mid-May, the council approved a three-year contract capped at $900,000. The law firm then billed the city $1.8 million for two weeks of legal work, with 15 of its attorneys charging nearly $1,300 per hour.
In a closed-door meeting Wednesday, the council voted 9-4 to approve an increase of about $1.8 million from the current $5.7 million, with Councilmembers John Lee, Tim McOsker, Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez opposed. It was not clear why the additional money was needed.
Rodriguez said that spending resources on outside lawyers instead of complying with the settlement terms in the case is “simply a waste of public funds.”
“In the face of a mounting homelessness crisis, it’s misguided for the City to continue pouring our scarce resources into outside counsel instead of housing the most vulnerable Angelenos,” Rodriguez said in a statement.
The contract “has expanded significantly beyond its original scope,” Lee said in a statement, later adding, “I believe the Council has a duty to demand transparency and closely scrutinize costs.”
The L.A. city attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The city reached a settlement with the nonprofit LA Alliance in 2022, agreeing to create 12,915 homeless shelter beds or other housing opportunities, while also clearing thousands of encampments.
Since then, the LA Alliance has repeatedly accused the city of failing to comply with the terms of the settlement agreement.
Gibson Dunn was retained by the city a week before a federal judge called a seven-day hearing to determine whether he should take authority over the city’s homelessness programs from Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council. Alliance lawyers said during those proceedings that they wanted Bass and two council members to testify.
The judge later declined to put Los Angeles’ homelessness programs into receivership, even as he concluded that the city failed to adhere to the settlement.
Theane Evangelis, a Gibson Dunn attorney who led the firm’s LA Alliance team, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto has praised Gibson Dunn’s work in the LA Alliance case, saying the firm helped the city retain control over its homelessness programs while also keeping Bass and the two council members off the stand.
She commended the firm — which secured a landmark Supreme Court ruling that upheld laws prohibiting homeless people from camping in public spaces — for getting up to speed on the settlement, mastering a complex set of policy matters within a week.
Faced with lingering criticism from council members, Feldstein Soto agreed to help with the cost of the Gibson Dunn contract, committing $1 million from her office’s budget. The council has also tapped $4 million from the city’s “unappropriated balance,” an account for funds that have not yet been allocated.
On Thursday, Matthew D. Umhofer, an attorney who represents LA Alliance, called the Gibson Dunn contract increase “predictable.”
“It’s a taxpayer-funded debacle designed to help city officials avoid being held accountable for their failures on homelessness,” Umhofer said in a statement. “The amount will keep going up as long as the City is more interested in ending oversight than ending homelessness.”
Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez has signed into law a reform bill that will pave the way for increased privatisation in the South American country’s nationalised oil sector, fulfilling a key demand from her United States counterpart, Donald Trump.
On Thursday, Rodriguez held a signing ceremony with a group of state oil workers. She hailed the reform as a positive step for Venezuela’s economy.
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“We’re talking about the future. We are talking about the country that we are going to give to our children,” Rodriguez said.
The ceremony came within hours of the National Assembly – dominated by members of Rodriguez’s United Socialist Party – passing the reform.
“Only good things will come after the suffering,” said Jorge Rodriguez, the assembly’s head and brother of the interim president.
Since the US military’s abduction of Venezuela’s former leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores on January 3, the Trump administration has sought to pressure President Rodriguez to open the country’s oil sector to outside investment.
Trump has even warned that Rodriguez could “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro”, should she fail to comply with his demands.
Thursday’s legislation will give private firms control over the sale and production of Venezuelan oil.
It would also require legal disputes to be resolved outside of Venezuelan courts, a change long sought by foreign companies, who argue that the judicial system in the country is dominated by the ruling socialist party.
The bill would also cap royalties collected by the government at 30 percent.
While Rodriguez signed the reform law, the Trump administration simultaneously announced it would loosen some sanctions restricting the sale of Venezuelan oil.
The Department of the Treasury said it would allow limited transactions by the country’s government and the state oil company PDVSA that were “necessary to the lifting, exportation, reexportation, sale, resale, supply, storage, marketing, purchase, delivery, or transportation of Venezuelan-origin oil, including the refining of such oil, by an established US entity”.
Previously, all of Venezuela’s oil sector was subject to sweeping US sanctions imposed in 2019, under Trump’s first term as president.
Thursday’s suite of changes is designed to make Venezuela’s oil market more appealing to outside petroleum firms, many of whom remain wary of investing in the country.
Under Maduro, Venezuela experienced waves of political repression and economic instability, and much of his government remains intact, though Maduro himself is currently awaiting trial in a New York prison.
His abduction resulted in dozens of deaths, and critics have accused the US of violating Venezuelan sovereignty.
Venezuela nationalised its oil sector in the 1970s, and in 2007, Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, pushed the government to increase its control and expropriate foreign-held assets.
Following Maduro’s abduction, Trump administration officials have said that the US will decide to whom and under what conditions Venezuelan oil is sold, with proceeds deposited into a US-controlled bank account.
Concerns about the legality of such measures or the sovereignty of Venezuela have been waved aside by Trump and his allies, who previously asserted that Venezuelan oil should “belong” to the US.
KATIE PRICE’S new mother in law has broken her silence on the star’s secret marriage to her son.
The former glamour model announced her engagement to Lee Andrews on Friday before the pair tied the knot in a shock ceremony in Dubai.
Now Lee’s mum Trisha has spoken out for the first time and revealed she knew the two were going to be getting hitched.
The clairvoyant from Nottingham told the Mirror: “As long as they are happy I am happy.
“There’s a lot of lies going around about Lee and that’s made me really upset. He’s not been married twice. I just want to defend my son, but I can’t say much more until I know everything.
“He did tell me that the wedding was happening. He spoke to me and if he is happy, I am happy – he’s my son, and that’s all that matters.”
Speaking about her new famous daughter-in-law, Trisha continued: “Of course, I know who Katie is.
“I’ve always been very neutral about her. Everyone deserves a chance, you should never judge anyone in life.”
She joked: “You can ask what it’s like to have a famous daughter-in-law, but she’s got a famous mother-in-law!”
On Friday, the reality star took to her Instagram stories to share a series of engagement pictures, sending fans into a frenzy.
In one photo, the mum-of-five was seen standing beside rose petals that were arranged to read ‘will you marry me’ before she showcased her huge diamond engagement ring.
However, just 48 hours later, she announced the pair had tied the knot in a quickie ceremony in Dubai, a move which has reportedly left her closest family and friends shocked.
In the pictures, the 47-year-old was seen beaming from ear to ear and locking lips with her new husband shortly after the ceremony.
Katie was seen in a cut-out, white bodycon dress while Lee wore white linen trousers and a taupe shirt.
The leggy dress displayed the reality TV legend’s toned abs and tattoos as she showed off her huge diamond ring.
The Sun understands Katie’s family were not aware of the wedding taking place and were not given prior warning it was happening.
An onlooker said: “Katie and Lee had no one with them when they got married. It was just the two of them.
“Katie couldn’t stop smiling, she seemed so taken with Lee. They said their vows and then kissed, it was sweet to watch.”
An officiator was seen in front of the pair reading from a script as they stood together in the sunshine saying their vows.
A family friend added: “Kate’s family are dumbstruck. To see she had got engaged after flying to Dubai – literally just after she had arrived was crazy.
“The fact she has now married him the following day is even more shocking.”
“No one knows who Lee is, they know nothing about him. Kate’s mum, her children, no one knew about the wedding.
“She has a lot of questions to answer when she comes home.”
The Sun understands Katie and Lee met just over a week ago.
They were introduced on social media and spent time talking before Lee invited Katie to fly out to Dubai to meet him.
He put on an extravagant proposal, with Katie branding him her “Richard Gere”.
