HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii’s land board rejected the Army’s environmental impact statement to retain land on the Big Island used for live-fire training, a vote some Native Hawaiian leaders say reflects a growing distrust of the U.S. military in the islands.
The state Board of Land and Natural Resources voted Friday after members considered voluminous written testimony and listened to hours of oral comments, including from many in the Native Hawaiian community citing environmental destruction and cultural desecration.
The Army calls the Pohakuloa Training Area the “premier” combat training grounds in the Pacific theater for all U.S. ground forces, including the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force.
Board Chair Dawn Chang later called the vote “one of the hardest decisions that I have had to make.”
Chang said the decision was based on the adequacy of the environmental review and not about the merits of whether the Army should not conduct training in Hawaii. No decision has been made on the Army's long-term lease request. The Army’s lease for 23,000 acres (9,308 hectares) is set to expire in 2029.
What happens next is up to the Army, Chang said.
The Army, noting that the environmental impact statement was created with community input, said in a statement that it was observing a 30-day waiting period. After that, the Army will determine how much land it will seek to retain.
The vote was a “pleasant surprise” to activists who are concerned that military training in Hawaii harms island aquifers, sensitive wildlife and ancient Hawaiian burials, said Healani Sonoda-Pale, a Native Hawaiian activist. It was unexpected because of the military's economic stronghold on Hawaii, she said.
“Friday's vote is a real shift,” Sonoda-Pale told The Associated Press Monday. “I think the shift here happened because of the Red Hill spill. The military lost a lot of trust and respect."
In 2021, jet fuel leaked into the Navy water system serving 93,000 people on and around the Pearl Harbor base. It sickened thousands in military housing and heightened concerns about leaks at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility.
The military eventually agreed to drain the tanks, amid state orders and protests from Native Hawaiians and other Hawaii residents worried about the threat posed to Honolulu’s water supply. The tanks sit above an aquifer supplying water to 400,000 people in urban Honolulu.
“U.S. Army Hawai'i understands and deeply respects the concerns expressed by community members, cultural practitioners, and environmental advocates regarding the Army’s presence and activities at Pōhakuloa Training Area,” Lt. Col. Tim Alvarado, U.S. Army Garrison Pōhakuloa commander, said in a statement. “We recognize that past actions have caused harm and eroded trust, and we continue to seek a balance with consideration for the cultural and environmental significance of this land.”
The U.S. Army is seeking to return nearly 3,300 acres (1,335 hectares) of leased lands back to the state and retain 19,700 acres (7,972 hectares) to sustain training, the Army statement said.
Hawaii's congressional delegation issued a joint statement saying they “believe there can be a path forward that accounts for the critical importance of Hawaii’s role in our country’s national security strategy and fundamentally respects and responds to the needs of the people of Hawaii.”
In a statement, Gov. Josh Green acknowledged the rejected environmental impact statement presents challenges but doesn't end the conversation: "This is a time for collaboration, not division, as we seek balanced solutions that honor both our heritage and our future.”
FILE - In this photo released by the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force conducts an airdrop during Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC) at Pohakuloa Training Area, Hawaii, Nov. 4, 2023. (Spc. Abreanna Goodrich/U.S. Army via AP, File)
In this photo provided by the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, people gather in an overflow area outside a state building in Honolulu, Friday, May 9, 2025, to watch a land board meeting about an environmental impact statement for an Army training site. (Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources via AP)
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powellsaid Sunday the Department of Justice has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.
The move represents an unprecedented escalation in President Donald Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he's repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.
The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project Trump has criticized as excessive.
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London’s murder rate fell in 2025 to its lowest level in decades, officials said Monday. Mayor Sadiq Khan said the figures disprove claims spread by President Trump and others on the political right that crime is out of control in Britain’s capital.
Police recorded 97 homicides in London in 2025, down from 109 in 2024 and the fewest since 2014. The Metropolitan Police force says the rate by population is the lowest since comparable records began in 1997, at 1.1 homicides for every 100,000 people.
That compares to 1.6 per 100,000 in Paris, 2.8 in New York and 3.2 in Berlin, the force said.
“There are some politicians and commentators who’ve been spamming social media with an endless stream of distortions and untruths, painting an image of a dystopian London,” Khan told The Associated Press. “And nothing could be further from the truth.”
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The Democratic Party regained the partisanship edge when independents were asked whether they lean more toward the Democratic or Republican Party in a new Gallup poll.
Nearly half, 47%, of U.S. adults now identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 42% are Republicans or lean Republican.
This is an indication of how Americans are feeling about their political affiliations, and it may not be reflected in voters’ actual registration.
Independents appear to be driven by their unhappiness with the party in power. That’s a dynamic that could be good for Democrats for now, but it doesn’t promise lasting loyalty. Attitudes toward the party haven’t gotten warmer, suggesting the Democrats’ gains are probably more related to independents’ sour views of President Trump.
That comes a day after President Trump threatened the Caribbean island in the wake of the U.S. attack on Venezuela.
Díaz-Canel posted a flurry of brief statements on X after Trump suggested Cuba “make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” He did not say what kind of deal.
Díaz-Canel wrote that for “relations between the U.S. and Cuba to progress, they must be based on international law rather than hostility, threats, and economic coercion.”
The island’s communist government has said U.S. sanctions cost the country more than $7.5 billion between March 2024 and February 2025.
Díaz-Canel added: “We have always been willing to hold a serious and responsible dialogue with the various US governments, including the current one, on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect, principles of International Law, and mutual benefit without interference in internal affairs and with full respect for our independence.”
Cuba’s president stressed on X that “there are no talks with the U.S. government, except for technical contacts in the area of migration.”
About 8 in 10 U.S. adults said the Federal Reserve Board should be independent of political control, according to Marquette/SSRS polling from September, while roughly 2 in 10 said the president should have more influence over setting interest rates and monetary policy. There was bipartisan consensus that the Fed should remain independent. About 9 in 10 Democrats and about two-thirds of Republicans said the Fed should not be subjected to political control.
That poll found about 3 in 10 Americans said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in The Federal Reserve Board. Nearly half — 45% — had some confidence, and roughly one-quarter had “very little” confidence or “none at all.”
Stocks are falling on Wall Street after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Department of Justice had served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony about the Fed’s building renovations.
The S&P 500 fell 0.3% in early trading Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 384 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%.
Powell characterized the threat of criminal charges as pretexts to undermine the Fed’s independence in setting interest rates, its main tool for fighting inflation. The threat is the latest escalation in President Trump’s feud with the Fed.
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She says she had “a very good conversation” with Trump on Monday morning about topics including “security with respect to our sovereignties.”
Last week, Sheinbaum had said she was seeking a conversation with Trump or U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the U.S. president made comments in an interview that he was ready to confront drug cartels on the ground and repeated the accusation that cartels were running Mexico.
Trump’s offers of using U.S. forces against Mexican cartels took on a new weight after the Trump administration deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Sheinbaum was expected to share more about their conversation later Monday.
A leader of the Canadian government is visiting China this week for the first time in nearly a decade, a bid to rebuild his country’s fractured relations with the world’s second-largest economy — and reduce Canada’s dependence on the United States, its neighbor and until recently one of its most supportive and unswerving allies.
The push by Prime Minster Mark Carney, who arrives Wednesday, is part of a major rethink as ties sour with the United States — the world’s No. 1 economy and long the largest trading partner for Canada by far.
Carney aims to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports in the next decade in the face of President Trump’s tariffs and the American leader’s musing that Canada could become “the 51st state.”
▶ Read more about relations between Canada and China
The comment by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson came in response to a question at a regular daily briefing. President Trump has said he would like to make a deal to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous region of NATO ally Denmark, to prevent Russia or China from taking it over.
Tensions have grown between Washington, Denmark and Greenland this month as Trump and his administration push the issue and the White House considers a range of options, including military force, to acquire the vast Arctic island.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO.
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Trump said Sunday that he is “inclined” to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after its top executive was skeptical about oil investment efforts in the country after the toppling of former President Nicolás Maduro.
“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One as he departed West Palm Beach, Florida. “They’re playing too cute.”
During a meeting Friday with oil executives, Trump tried to assuage the concerns of the companies and said they would be dealing directly with the U.S., rather than the Venezuelan government.
Some, however, weren’t convinced.
“If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” said Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company.
An ExxonMobil spokesperson did not immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment.
▶ Read more about Trump’s comments on ExxonMobil
Trump’s motorcade took a different route than usual to the airport as he was departing Florida on Sunday due to a “suspicious object,” according to the White House.
The object, which the White House did not describe, was discovered during security sweeps in advance of Trump’s arrival at Palm Beach International Airport.
“A further investigation was warranted and the presidential motorcade route was adjusted accordingly,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Sunday.
The president, when asked about the package by reporters, said, “I know nothing about it.”
Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman for U.S. Secret Service, said the secondary route was taken just as a precaution and that “that is standard protocol.”
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Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no direct reaction to Trump’s comments, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran, insisted “the situation has come under total control” in fiery remarks that blamed Israel and the U.S. for the violence, without offering evidence.
▶ Read more about the possible negotiations and follow live updates
Fed Chair Powell said Sunday the DOJ has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.
The move represents an unprecedented escalation in Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he has repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.
The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project that Trump has criticized as excessive.
Powell on Sunday cast off what has up to this point been a restrained approach to Trump’s criticisms and personal insults, which he has mostly ignored. Instead, Powell issued a video statement in which he bluntly characterized the threat of criminal charges as simple “pretexts” to undermine the Fed’s independence when it comes to setting interest rates.
▶ Read more about the subpoenas
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
