(NEW YORK) — Disgraced crypto executive Sam Bankman-Fried thought there was a “5% chance he would become president,” his ex-girlfriend testified Tuesday at his federal criminal trial.
Caroline Ellison, one of the government’s star witnesses, said she and the 31-year-old Bankman-Fried “started sleeping together on and off” in 2018 and dated in subsequent years.
During their relationship, Ellison said Bankman-Fried would describe his business, and political, ambitions.
Ellison also testified she committed crimes with Bankman-Fried. She pleaded guilty and is testifying pursuant to a cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors in New York, who have accused him, among other things, of illegally using FTX customer and investor money to cover speculative investments by his privately controlled hedge fund Alameda Research.
“He said that FTX would be a good source of capital and he set up the system that allowed Alameda to borrow from FTX,” Ellison said.
In the summer of 2021, Ellison became co-chief executive of Alameda Research, feeling “not particularly” equipped for the job, she testified Tuesday.
For big decisions, “I would always ultimately defer to Sam,” because he owned the company and set her compensation.
Bankman-Fried wanted to put some distance between himself and Alameda because some FTX customers expressed concern FTX and Alameda’s relationship was too close, Ellison said.
At the time, the two were “on a break” from their dating relationship, which she said resumed a few months later. The romantic relationship ended in 2022.
“I felt like he wasn’t paying much attention to me or spending much time with me in the relationship,” Ellison said.
As co-CEO, Ellison made an annual salary of $200,000 with bonuses twice a year ranging from $100,000 to $20 million. She was never given an equity stake in Alameda despite asking for it, she said.
Asked if FTX customers were told how their money was being put to use, Ellison responded, “Not to my knowledge.”
She estimated $10 billion to $20 billion in FTX money was transferred to Alameda.
“I was somewhat concerned because a lot of these loans seemed to be going to illiquid things,” Ellison testified, adding Bankman-Fried directed all lending and investing strategies.
Ellison said Bankman-Fried also used customer money to make political donations because he believed he would reap “very high returns in terms of influence” for relatively small amounts of money. She cited a $10 million donation to President Joe Biden that Bankman-Fried believed would bring “influence and recognition.”
FTX marketed itself as a safe, reliable cryptocurrency exchange, but Ellison testified it was not because transferring all that money to Alameda “meant those assets were at risk.”
Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to all counts. If convicted, he could face a sentence of up to 110 years in prison.
In an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in November 2022, Bankman-Fried denied knowing “there was any improper use of customer funds.”
“I really deeply wish that I had taken like a lot more responsibility for understanding what the details were of what was going on there,” Bankman-Fried said at the time. “A lot of people got hurt, and that’s on me.”
FTX marketed itself as a safe, reliable cryptocurrency exchange, but Ellison testified it was not because transferring all that money to Alameda “meant those assets were at risk.”
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump is on trial in New York in a $250 million lawsuit that could alter the personal fortune and real estate empire that helped propel Trump to the White House.
Trump, his sons Eric and Don Jr., and Trump Organization executives are accused by New York Attorney General Letitia James of engaging in a decade-long scheme in which they used “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” to inflate Trump’s net worth while lowering his tax burden. The former president has denied all wrongdoing and his attorneys have argued that Trump’s alleged inflated valuations were a product of his business skill.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Oct 10, 1:21 PM EDT
Weisselberg denies discussing financial statements with Trump
After initially evading the state’s question, ex-Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg denied that he ever met with Trump to discuss his financial statements.
“Did you ever meet with Donald Trump or Michael Cohen where there was discussion of the statement of financial condition before it was finalized?” state attorney Louis Solomon asked.
Weisselberg initially responded that he did not recall such a meeting happening, before answering more definitively.
“No. I don’t believe it happened,” Weisselberg said.
Judge Engoron, appearing skeptical of the answer, asked Weisselberg to confirm.
“Could it have happened, and you just don’t remember?” Engoron asked.
“I am saying it did not happen,” Weisselberg responded.
The attorney general’s opening statement for the case included a portion of the deposition of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who claimed that Trump met with him and Weisselberg to direct them to increase his net worth, in order “to be higher on the Forbes list” of billionaires.
“Allen and I were tasked with taking the assets, increasing each of those asset classes in order to accommodate that eight-billion-dollar number [Trump requested],” Cohen said in the deposition.
Oct 10, 11:55 AM EDT
Weisselberg concedes Trump’s triplex is smaller than valuation
Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg testified that Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower is 10,996 square feet — which is a third the size that Trump claimed on financial documents.
In October 1994, Trump signed a document that certified his penthouse triplex is 10,996 square feet, but his statements of financial condition for several years beginning in 2012 listed the apartment as 30,000 square feet.
An attorney with the New York attorney general’s office showed the page with Trump’s signature to Weisselberg, who appeared to struggle to explain the discrepancy.
“It was always in my mind a de minimis asset on the statement of financial condition,” Weisselberg said. “I never even thought about the apartment.”
Louis Solomon of the attorney general’s office confronted Weisselberg with emails from Forbes magazine seeking clarity about the apartment’s size, as well as a letter signed by Weisselberg certifying the 30,000 square foot figure to the Trump Organization’s then-accountant, Mazars USA.
Weisselberg offered a lengthy take on the discrepancy, prompting Judge Arthur Engoron to intercede.
“Your role is to answer the questions, not to give speeches. Please just answer the questions,” Engoron said.
“Forbes was right, the triplex was actually only 10,996, right?” Solomon asked.
“Right,” Weisselberg finally conceded.
“I’ve been through quite a bit the last two years,” Weisselberg said at one point during the morning’s questioning. The former CFO moved to Florida following three months in jail after he pleaded guilty last year to criminal fraud charges and subsequently testified against the Trump Organization.
Oct 10, 9:47 AM EDT
Weisselberg to be questioned about valuations
Ex-Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg is expected to face questions this morning about his work valuing properties like Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower and Trump’s 40 Wall Street building, as well as the Trump Organization’s efforts to secure loans from banks and Weisselberg’s direct conversations with the former president.
Weisselberg is the second named defendant to testify in the ongoing civil trial.
Trump Organization controller and co-defendant Jeffrey McConney, who concluded his testimony on Friday, was deemed a hostile witness by Judge Arthur Engoron, giving the state more latitude in their questions.
Oct 10, 9:08 AM EDT
Ex-CFO Weisselberg last year pled guilty to tax fraud
Ex-Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg’s expected testimony this morning comes six months after he was released from New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex after pleading guilty last year to 15 felony charges related to a long-running scheme to avoid $1.7 million in taxes while working for the Trump Organization.
As a condition of his plea deal, Weisselberg testified last year in the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal trial of the Trump Organization itself.
“Are you embarrassed about what you did?” Trump Organization attorney Alan Futerfas asked Weisselberg during the criminal trial last November.
“More than you can imagine,” replied Weisselberg, who testified that Trump himself was unaware of his tax evasion scheme.
The Trump Organization was convicted and later paid a $1.6 million fine imposed by the judge overseeing the case.
Oct 10, 8:22 AM EDT
Ex-Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg expected to take stand
Former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg is expected to testify when former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud resumes this morning.
A named defendant in the case alongside Trump and his adult sons, Weisselberg allegedly supervised and approved the inflated valuations in Trump’s financial statements at the center of the state’s case, according to prosecutors.
He’s also alleged to have personally met with the former president each year between 2011 and 2016 to review and get approval for the fraudulent financial statements.
“Mr. Trump made known through Mr. Weisselberg that he wanted his net worth on the Statements to increase — a desire Mr. Weisselberg and others carried out year after year in their fraudulent preparation of the Statements,” New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote in her initial complaint.
(NEW YORK) — At least 11 Americans have been killed as the Israel-Hamas conflict continues, according to President Joe Biden.
“As we continue to account for the horrors of the appalling terrorist assault against Israel this weekend and the hundreds of innocent civilians who were murdered, we are seeing the immense scale and reach of this tragedy,” he said in a statement on Monday. “Sadly, we now know that at least 11 American citizens were among those killed — many of whom made a second home in Israel.”
The statement continued, “It’s heart-wrenching. These families have been torn apart by inexcusable hatred and violence…My heart goes out to every family impacted by the horrible events of the past few days.”
It’s currently unclear how many Americans are among those missing or might have been taken hostage, but Biden said in a statement on Monday that it’s “likely” American citizens are being held hostage by Hamas.
Here’s what we know about the U.S. victims so far:
Hayim Katsman, 32
The first American citizen identified is 32-year-old Hayim Katsman, who had been living in Israel, his mother told ABC News.
Hannah Katsman said she initially thought her son had been taken hostage, but later learned he had been killed when Hamas militants burst into his apartment.
She said he and a female neighbor were hiding in a closet when they were found. The neighbor was released but her son was shot dead and his body was found in his apartment, she said.
“[I’ve] been getting so many messages from people who worked with Hayim or who knew him, or who met him during their travels and how warm he was, how open,” Hannah Katsman told ABC News. “He was a very accepting person and [a] very loyal friend, good sense of humor. He took things in stride.”
According to the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, Hayim Katsman received his Ph.D. in 2021 with his research focusing on “the interrelations of religion and politics in the Middle-East, focusing on Israel/Palestine.”
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump is on trial in New York in a $250 million lawsuit that could alter the personal fortune and real estate empire that helped propel Trump to the White House.
Trump, his sons Eric and Don Jr., and Trump Organization executives are accused by New York Attorney General Letitia James of engaging in a decade-long scheme in which they used “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” to inflate Trump’s net worth while lowering his tax burden. The former president has denied all wrongdoing and his attorneys have argued that Trump’s alleged inflated valuations were a product of his business skill.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Oct 10, 11:55 AM EDT
Weisselberg concedes Trump’s triplex is smaller than valuation
Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg testified that Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower is 10,996 square feet — which is a third the size that Trump claimed on financial documents.
In October 1994, Trump signed a document that certified his penthouse triplex is 10,996 square feet, but his statements of financial condition for several years beginning in 2012 listed the apartment as 30,000 square feet.
An attorney with the New York attorney general’s office showed the page with Trump’s signature to Weisselberg, who appeared to struggle to explain the discrepancy.
“It was always in my mind a de minimis asset on the statement of financial condition,” Weisselberg said. “I never even thought about the apartment.”
Louis Solomon of the attorney general’s office confronted Weisselberg with emails from Forbes magazine seeking clarity about the apartment’s size, as well as a letter signed by Weisselberg certifying the 30,000 square foot figure to the Trump Organization’s then-accountant, Mazars USA.
Weisselberg offered a lengthy take on the discrepancy, prompting Judge Arthur Engoron to intercede.
“Your role is to answer the questions, not to give speeches. Please just answer the questions,” Engoron said.
“Forbes was right, the triplex was actually only 10,996, right?” Solomon asked.
“Right,” Weisselberg finally conceded.
“I’ve been through quite a bit the last two years,” Weisselberg said at one point during the morning’s questioning. The former CFO moved to Florida following three months in jail after he pleaded guilty last year to criminal fraud charges and subsequently testified against the Trump Organization.
Oct 10, 9:47 AM EDT
Weisselberg to be questioned about valuations
Ex-Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg is expected to face questions this morning about his work valuing properties like Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower and Trump’s 40 Wall Street building, as well as the Trump Organization’s efforts to secure loans from banks and Weisselberg’s direct conversations with the former president.
Weisselberg is the second named defendant to testify in the ongoing civil trial.
Trump Organization controller and co-defendant Jeffrey McConney, who concluded his testimony on Friday, was deemed a hostile witness by Judge Arthur Engoron, giving the state more latitude in their questions.
Oct 10, 9:08 AM EDT
Ex-CFO Weisselberg last year pled guilty to tax fraud
Ex-Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg’s expected testimony this morning comes six months after he was released from New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex after pleading guilty last year to 15 felony charges related to a long-running scheme to avoid $1.7 million in taxes while working for the Trump Organization.
As a condition of his plea deal, Weisselberg testified last year in the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal trial of the Trump Organization itself.
“Are you embarrassed about what you did?” Trump Organization attorney Alan Futerfas asked Weisselberg during the criminal trial last November.
“More than you can imagine,” replied Weisselberg, who testified that Trump himself was unaware of his tax evasion scheme.
The Trump Organization was convicted and later paid a $1.6 million fine imposed by the judge overseeing the case.
Oct 10, 8:22 AM EDT
Ex-Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg expected to take stand
Former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg is expected to testify when former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud resumes this morning.
A named defendant in the case alongside Trump and his adult sons, Weisselberg allegedly supervised and approved the inflated valuations in Trump’s financial statements at the center of the state’s case, according to prosecutors.
He’s also alleged to have personally met with the former president each year between 2011 and 2016 to review and get approval for the fraudulent financial statements.
“Mr. Trump made known through Mr. Weisselberg that he wanted his net worth on the Statements to increase — a desire Mr. Weisselberg and others carried out year after year in their fraudulent preparation of the Statements,” New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote in her initial complaint.
(NEW YORK) — Beer lovers beware: Climate change could soon make the world’s most popular alcoholic drink much more bitter.
Climate change could soon be altering the quality of hops used to make beer which will then alter the flavor, according to a new study published Tuesday in Nature.
European beer-producing regions are projected to experience up to an 18% reduction in their yield of traditional aroma hops by 2050 and up to a 31% reduction in hop acids that are key for bitter flavoring, researchers found.
Beer is the world’s third most widely consumed beverage, after water and tea, and is the world’s most popular alcoholic drink, according to the paper.
Beer is typically made with water, malting barley and yeast for flavor, as well as hops, which contain compounds called alpha acids that give beer its unique bitter aroma and affect its quality.
The cultivation of high-quality aroma hops is restricted to a relatively select number of regions with suitable climate and environmental conditions — posing a risk that production could be affected by rising global temperatures.
Hops are considered a model crop in these regions, and it is “fairly difficult” to grow them elsewhere, Mirek Trnka, a bio climatologist at the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences and one of the authors of the paper, told ABC News.
The researchers collected data on beer hop yields and alpha content between 1971 and 2018 from 90% of European beer hop growing regions in Germany, Czechia and Slovenia, according to the study.
The association in variation in the quality of hops from year to year with rising temperatures was “quite significant,” with a downward trend in the data that coincided with warmer years, Trnka said.
The findings show that, compared to before 1994, the ripening of hops starts 20 days earlier, and hop production has declined by almost 0.2 tonnes, or about 200 kilograms, per hectare per year. In addition, hops’ alpha bitter content has decreased by about 0.6%, the research found.
After combining the past data with climate models, the researchers estimate that beer hops yields and alpha fold content will be reduced between 4% to 18% and 20% to 31%, respectively, by 2050.
The largest declines caused by rising temperatures and more frequent and severe droughts are expected to occur in the southern hop growing regions, such as Tettnang in southern Germany and Celje, Slovenia, according to the paper.
The quality of spring barley is also declining in many of the same regions, but farmers can easily compensate for rising temperatures by moving spring barley crops to higher elevations, Trnka said. By contrast, winter hops need to mature in the period of shortening day after the summer solstice, and they cannot avoid the increasing intensity of the summer heat, Trnka said.
Every year, beer makers are faced with different qualities of harvest for barley and malt and have to deal with the variation in the quality of hops — often mixing hops from different regions, Trnka said.
“They are quite clever in ways of avoiding consumers noting any major differences,” Trnka said. “Unlike wine, beer drinkers would like their Pilsner or Aryan beers to taste the same every year.”
However, if the quality of the ingredients is decreasing everywhere, adjusting the recipe year by year depending on how the harvest yields could become much more difficult. Farmers may be able to adapt, but it will take a tremendous amount of capital and investment, Trnka said.
The results of this study show that climate change has the ability to affect people on a wide scale of issues, Trnka said.
Europe is among the regions of the world facing unprecedented increases in average temperatures in recent years, Trnka said. Copernicus, Europe’s climate change service, announced last week that 2023 is on track to become the warmest year on record, with Europe being one of the continents affected the most, according to the report.
Traditional beer hops farming practices will need to adapt in order to combat the negative effects of climate change and continue producing good quality beer, the researchers said.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump is on trial in New York in a $250 million lawsuit that could alter the personal fortune and real estate empire that helped propel Trump to the White House.
Trump, his sons Eric and Don Jr., and Trump Organization executives are accused by New York Attorney General Letitia James of engaging in a decade-long scheme in which they used “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” to inflate Trump’s net worth while lowering his tax burden. The former president has denied all wrongdoing and his attorneys have argued that Trump’s alleged inflated valuations were a product of his business skill.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 10, 8:22 AM EDT
Ex-Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg expected to take stand
Former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg is expected to testify when former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud resumes this morning.
A named defendant in the case alongside Trump and his adult sons, Weisselberg allegedly supervised and approved the inflated valuations in Trump’s financial statements at the center of the state’s case, according to prosecutors.
He’s also alleged to have personally met with the former president each year between 2011 and 2016 to review and get approval for the fraudulent financial statements.
“Mr. Trump made known through Mr. Weisselberg that he wanted his net worth on the Statements to increase — a desire Mr. Weisselberg and others carried out year after year in their fraudulent preparation of the Statements,” New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote in her initial complaint.
(ROCKLAND HARBOR, Maine) — One person is dead and three people have been injured when a mast broke on a schooner in Rockland Harbor, Maine, and fell onto the deck of the vessel.
Thirty-three people were aboard the Grace Bailey, a 118-foot schooner that was approximately one mile east of Rockland Harbor in Maine, when the New England Command Center received a call for help around 10 a.m. Monday “requesting assistance after their mast reportedly broke and fell onto the deck causing head and back injuries to four people,” according to a statement from the United States Coast Guard.
Coast Guard watchstanders immediately dispatched a Coast Guard Station Rockland 47-foot motor lifeboat (MLB) to the scene of the accident.
“The MLB crew arrived on scene and transferred a woman from the Grace Bailey to Rockland Harbor where she was transferred to awaiting EMS and pronounced deceased,” the U.S. Coast Guard said. “The MLB crew returned to the Grace Bailey with two EMS personnel to retrieve the three remaining injured people. The three people were transferred to EMS at Rockland Harbor and taken to Pen Bay Medical Center in Rockport.”
The medical conditions of the three injured people are currently unknown.
“In this time of sorrow, we offer our deepest condolences to the grieving family, and our most heartfelt wishes for a swift recovery to those harmed,” said said Capt. Amy Florentino, the Coast Guard Sector Northern New England commander. “Our investigation aims to identify causative factors that led to this tragic incident.”
Commercial salvage personnel responded following the accident and towed the Grace Bailey to Rockport Harbor where officials will continue their investigation into the schooner’s demasting.
Vermont State Police released this photo of Honoree Fleming amid their investigation into her death. — Vermont State Police
(CASTLETON, Vt.) — A retired university dean who was married to Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Ron Powers was found shot to death on a Vermont trail, police said, as a manhunt is underway for the suspect.
Honoree Fleming, 77, was found dead on a rail trail Thursday in Castleton, Vermont State Police said. She died from a gunshot to the head, and the medical examiner determined the manner of death a homicide, police said.
Fleming, who lived in the town, was a retired Dean of Education and “beloved teacher” at Vermont State University Castleton Campus, the university said.
“Honoree was a part of the Castleton family and was beloved by faculty, staff, and students,” the university said in a statement. “This is an unbelievable tragedy for the Castleton campus and for all of Vermont State University. Honoree will be deeply missed.”
Prior to joining Castleton, Fleming was a faculty member at Trinity College, Middlebury College and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Fleming was the wife of Powers, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author, the university said. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1973 for his critical writing about television in 1972 while a TV and radio columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Powers said in a Facebook post Friday night that Fleming was walking “along her favorite trail near the college” when she was shot.
“I am still in shock,” he wrote. “Those of you who knew her know that she was beautifully named. I have never known a more sterling heart and soul than hers. She has taken far more than half my own heart and soul with her.”
The suspect in the fatal shooting is at large and considered armed and dangerous, police said.
Investigators are asking the public to review home and business surveillance systems to help track the suspect, Vermont State Police said on Friday.
Officers responded to a report of a deceased woman on the rail trail in Castleton around 4:30 p.m. ET Thursday, police said.
A witness reported hearing gunshots and seeing a possible suspect headed northbound on the rail trail in the direction of the Castleton campus, police said.
The suspect is described by police as being a white man, approximately 5’10” with short red hair. He was last seen wearing a dark-colored T-shirt and carrying a black backpack, police said.
There were no witnesses to the crime itself, Maj. Daniel Trudeau with the Vermont State Police told reporters on Friday.
Residents were urged by police to “remain vigilant” amid the search for the suspect.
“The suspect is in all likelihood armed and dangerous, so should be treated as such,” Trudeau said.
State police are asking the public and businesses in the Castleton area to review their surveillance systems for the suspect, from early afternoon into the evening hours on Thursday.
“We have no idea where this gentleman suspect took off,” Trudeau said.
He added, “We’re relying on the public to really help us here … We really need a good first clue.”
The Vermont State Police said Fleming started walking on the trail around 4 p.m. and was wearing a white-and-blue striped shirt, black pants and black sneakers. Police released an image of her on Saturday while asking anyone who saw her walking to contact them.
The Castleton campus closed Friday and a shelter-in-place order is in effect for those on campus due to the ongoing investigation, the university said.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Vermont State Police at 802-773-9101.
West Maui began reopening Sunday to visitors just two months after a wildfire devastated the town of Lahaina.
The reopening did not come without outrage from some residents, many of whom signed a petition to delay the reopening as families continue to struggle to “find shelter, provide for their children’s education, and cope with emotional trauma,” according to the petition.
Homes have been flattened and are completely inhabitable. Businesses have been decimated. Some loved ones remain unaccounted for and residents have been grieving the loss of 97 people who died in the tragedy.
The petition has received more than 10,000 signatures.
The fact that tourism is resuming so soon around the outskirts of a town made unrecognizable by the wildfires has reignited an ongoing debate about Hawaii’s reliance on tourism.
“There is just not a lot of activities like there usually is for these people to do, so a lot of people are wondering, why do they want to come here?” said Jordan Ruidas, a community organizer and resident.
Tourism is the No. 1 driver of that state’s economy, according to Hawaii Tourism Authority, and businesses across the island have been impacted by the lack of visitors since the Aug. 8 wildfires.
But some residents link tourism and its historical links to colonialism with many of the issues plaguing the Islands, including lack of access to clean water, the housing crisis, and pollution and destruction of Hawaiian lands.
“It’s a great business for Hawaii, but the difficult thing for us here is that there is not a street, a community, a county. There’s nowhere that you can hide from tourism in Hawaii,” said Susie Pu, a hotel manager on Maui.
She continued, “The most important thing is that we find a balance between the Hawaiian culture and tourism. Hawaiian people need to be benefiting from tourism equally. And I do not see that.”
Hawaii before tourism
Hawaii didn’t always rely on tourism as its main source of income.
According to research from the University of Hawaii, Hawaiian society was self-sustaining and run in cooperative, extended ohana — or family — that each manned subdivisions of land.
Native Hawaiians were recorded to have been living “well above subsistence levels, with extensive time available for cultural activities, sports, and games” before their long period of isolation from outsiders came to an end, the University of Hawaii found.
Contact with the outside world in the 1770s changed Hawaii drastically. Deaths caused a massive wave of fatalities, leading to a 90% decline in the Native Hawaiian population, according to research from the National Academy of Medicine.
The Hawaiian Kingdom and monarchy were formed during this period of change, adopting Western political strategies to settle disputes between competing Hawaiian states. The Islands also became integrated into the global market, losing its past self-sustaining system.
This drastic social, economic, and political change was marked by a shift to sugar production when a treaty with the U.S. exempted sugar firms on the island from high tariffs.
“The story of sugar is really, really important because in a lot of ways it was the wealthy and powerful corporations that promoted sugar to the kingdom that really were responsible for seeking markets in the United States,” Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwoʻole Osorio, the dean of the Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, said.
“That’s all a part of the story of not just the rise, but the fall of the [Hawaiian] kingdom,” said Osorio.
As production expanded, American corporations producing sugar on the Islands sought to keep prices high and labor costs lower, hiring cheaper immigrant labor and lobbying for an immigration policy that would allow them to do so, historians say.
“While sugar did actually generate a great deal of income, most of that income really acted to sort of replace Native Hawaiians in the country,” said Osorio.
Efforts to expand sugar production and house waves of imported labor pushed Native Hawaiians from their land, home, and island.
Throughout this time, laborers were organizing against low wages and poor benefits, and “the sugar companies began to lose a little bit of control. Everybody can sort of see that in the future, sugar is not going to be as profitable as it once was,” according to Osorio.
However, World War II and the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 put labor rights efforts to a halt.
It wasn’t until the late 1940s that workers began to make real concessions — getting better benefits and salaries.
“Sugar companies really basically are looking at an industry that’s not nearly as conducive to profits as it once was. Plus, in the post-war world, there’s also new competition from places like the Philippines,” Osorio added.
By the 1970s, more and more plantations were shutting down and they were moving toward using their lands for a tourist economy.
“Tourism would not exist at the scale that it exists today if it weren’t for the takeover,” Osorio said.
Vulnerability in tourism reliance
Following the wildfires on the West side, occupancy at the oceanfront condo resort Hana Kai Maui on the other side of the island was impacted almost immediately.
“We have always operated at a really high occupancy, almost like 95% year round. The day of the fires or the day after the fires, it was just such a downward slide,” Pu said.
“We lost hundreds of 1000s of dollars in reservations over about a one-week period. And we’re only a 17-unit business so it was a lot. We’re recovering,” she added.
Noah Drazkowski, who was born and raised in West Maui and owns a local business, told ABC News in a previous interview that he’s been grieving alongside his community while looking for ways to keep his local business afloat.
“The majority of our income is from tourists, tourism, and I wish that we could say that we can survive on only the local community support,” said Drazkowski.
Some business owners are torn about the future of tourism in Maui.
In 2022 alone, Hawaii saw nearly 10 million visitors, according to the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism. In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Islands saw roughly 2.7 million.
Now, approximately 70% of every dollar is generated directly or indirectly by the visitor industry, according to the Maui Economic Development Board.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how life in Hawaii could be without “overtourism,” Osorio said.
“We started really seeing what happens to beaches and what happens to the ocean and what happens to mountain trails, hiking trails when they are free of so many people,” said Osorio. “The quality of life in so many ways improves not [just for the people] but for other species that have depended on this environment for a long time.”
Pu added: “We want tourists in Hawaii, but we also want to be able to live peacefully here and we want our forests to remain intact.”
The impacts of tourism
Being a popular tourist destination comes with its challenges.
The Aloha State is experiencing one of the worst housing crises in America, with some of the highest housing costs in the nation and the fourth-highest rate of homelessness per capita in the country, according to the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The U.S. has acknowledged its historical responsibility for causing this housing crisis among Native Hawaiians through its 1921 Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, a reparations policy that set aside land for Native communities after the violent displacement and removal of Native Hawaiians.
Parts of Maui have also been under a water conservation notice in recent years, as an intense drought and dry conditions limit the region’s access to water. With hotels and resorts taking up their share of the water, some locals wish that water would be directed toward residents, especially following the deadly wildfire in which firefighters in Lahaina claimed that their hoses ran dry.
Politicians have been under pressure from some residents to look for a way to diversify the economy and for land to be given back to the Native Hawaiian population. As tourism comes back toward the disaster area, the conversation around tourism is unlikely to settle down.
“Our desire is to provide for ourselves so that we can properly feed ourselves, so that we can actually have places to live, so that we can protect the lands from misuse,” said Osorio.
(OHIO) — Legislation that incentivizes gun owners in Ohio to secure their weapons is getting major support from gun control advocates and gun rights groups alike.
One of the bill’s sponsors told ABC News that he hopes that it can spur a bigger discussion both in the state and country on safe storage and safety protections for firearms.
Ohio’s HB 186, which was introduced in the state’s House of Representatives in May, would waive the state’s 5.75% sales and use tax on firearm safety devices.
State Rep. Darnell T. Brewer, who co-sponsored the bill, told ABC News that sales tax exemption would apply to numerous products already being sold in firearm shops from as low as a $30 gun lock to as high as $800 for storage lockers with biometric locks.
“It’s a little nudge and urge to gun owners to lock up and secure their guns,” he said.
HB 186 defines a “firearm safety device” as “A device that, when installed on a firearm, is designed to prevent the firearm from being operated without first deactivating the device,” and “A gun safe, gun case, lockbox, or other device that is designed to prevent access to a firearm unless an individual uses a key, a combination, biometric data, or other similar means.”
Brewer, who is not a gun owner, said that he’s been looking to find common sense solutions to gun violence and one of the most common calls he has gotten from constituents, law enforcement, non-profits and other groups is that guns are left unsecured.
That has led not only to more gun thefts, which are used in shootings, but also accidental shootings and suicides, according to Brewer.
“If these devices had been safely stored, or if these owners had a safety device, these instances wouldn’t have happened,” he said.
The representative said he has supported state bills in the past that mandated safe storage, including one that was introduced this session that mandates trigger locks for firearm sales, but none of them passed due to opposition from gun rights groups who contended it violated their second amendment rights.
That’s when Brewer said he and other leaders decided to think about a different approach.
The representative said it was hard to argue against a bill that focused on the costs of safe storage,
“What we are saying is ‘Give [gun buyers] the opportunity to have a sales tax free device so they can buy it with less hassle,'” Brewer said.
Brewer’s intentions have already sparked interest in both gun rights supporters and gun control supporters.
Representatives from the Ohio-based Buckeye Firearms Association, National Rifle Association, Moms Demand Action and Sandy Hook Promise all provided testimony in support of the bill during a Sept. 26 hearing in the Ways and Means committee hearing.
“Whether it’s a mass shooting, a suicide, an unintentional shooting, or a homicide, we must collectively do something as a society to encourage people to safely secure their firearms. HB186 is something that will encourage people to do this, and maybe something we can all agree on that makes sense,” Michelle Lee Heym, a Moms Demand Action volunteer, testified.
“This straightforward legislation does not include any mandates and recognizes that the government should not be placing additional cost barriers on citizens who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights, and who wish to safely store their firearms,” John Webber, an NRA representative, said in his testimony.
Paul Kemp, the co-founder of the grassroots group Gun Owners for Responsible Gun Ownership, told ABC News he was surprised that the gun rights groups have expressed support for the Ohio bill.
“I suspect one of the reasons they would support is that it provides business opportunities for firearms dealers,” he said. “They’re not going to the point of supporting a mandate outright.”
Kemp, who helped push Oregon’s safe storage law two years ago, said HB 186 is a good start to get more guns safely stored, but more importantly, it will spark a bigger conversation about the benefits of safe storage.
Brewer said that’s his hope for the bill as it moves forward.
There is no date yet as to when it will be voted in the committee and advanced to the full house, but the representative said the conversation that the bill has started will get more people to think about storing their weapons.
“We can find a solution. If the NRA and Moms Demand Action agree on this bill, what else can they agree on? There are many common sense solutions we can agree to,” he said.
