By MARCEL HONORE/Honolulu Civil Beat

At least one cruise line has started charging its passengers Hawaiʻi’s tax on visitor stays and the new, landmark environmental “green fee” that goes with it, even though a court order currently bars local tax officials from collecting those dollars on cruise stays.

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That decision by Norwegian Cruise Lines comes as the cruise industry simultaneously tries to overturn in court the parts of Hawaiʻi’s new green fee law that require ships to pay the same transient accommodations tax as hotel and vacation rental owners. Federal appellate judges issued the injunction against the tax collections on cruise ships on New Year’s Eve, hours before they were to take effect.

Norwegian representatives say the company will refund its passengers if the industry ultimately prevails in court.

It’s not clear whether any of the other cruise lines that visit the islands are similarly charging their passengers the tax amid the court injunction, or if the cruise industry’s main trade group is offering guidance on how to handle the situation. Only two of the other major lines that stop in the islands’ ports responded this week to requests for comment.

Oceania Cruises said it doesn’t have the taxes attached to its next Hawaiʻi cruises, which will happen in October. A Royal Caribbean spokesperson referred questions on whether the company was charging passengers to the Cruise Line Industry Association, saying the matter was an industrywide issue.

However, the association took a different view.

“Decisions about how to handle potential charges during ongoing litigation are individual commercial decisions made by each cruise line,” a statement from the association said,

Mid-Cruise Sticker Shock

Dallas resident Don Yonce, who’s currently aboard Norwegian’s latest Hawaiʻi cruise, said the company first notified him via email in October that his cruise would tack on Hawaiʻi’s 14% state and county transient accommodations taxes, or TAT, for any time spent in port.

That email estimated Yonce would be charged $1,035 in TAT, based on the weeklong cost of his family’s cabin suite. Still, he was surprised to get an invoice during the interisland voyage Sunday that included that charge.

“We were under the impression that the injunction stopped this,” Yonce said Wednesday from Norwegian’s Pride of America. Guest service managers aboard the ship acknowledged to him and other passengers that the injunction stopped the state from collecting the tax, Yonce said, but they also told him they “were told by corporate to charge it anyway.”

The other passengers, he added, were similarly irked at seeing the extra charges.

In its lawsuit, the association representing Norwegian and other lines says the TAT will substantially increase the costs of Hawaiʻi-bound cruises, harming not just the cruise operators but also the local businesses that depend on the industry.

“I also think that Norwegian is hurting their case.” Yonce said Wednesday. “They’ve argued in court this (tax) does irreparable harm to their passengers and their suppliers and themselves, but then they’re collecting it anyway, right? You can’t have it both ways.”

Hawaiʻi state officials estimate the recent 0.75 percentage point increase to the transient accommodations tax, which created the nation’s first-ever green fee, will generate around $100 million a year to help shield Hawaiʻi’s environment from overtourism, wildfires and other natural disasters, and the growing impacts of climate change.

The cruise industry’s portion, Gov. Josh Green has said, represents about 10% of those green fee dollars.

The association’s lawsuit continues to play out in federal court. The next hearing, a scheduling conference, is slated for Jan. 26.

Yonce said this will likely be his family’s last cruise on Norwegian not because of the tax itself but rather how the company is handling the tax.

This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

By LAURA UNGAR

A new review of studies has found that taking Tylenol during pregnancy doesn’t increase the risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disabilities – adding to the growing body of research refuting claims made by the Trump administration.

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President Donald Trump last year promoted unproven ties between the painkiller and autism, telling pregnant women: “Don’t take Tylenol.”

The latest research review, published Friday in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynecology & Women’s Health, looked at 43 studies and concluded that the most rigorous ones, such as those that compare siblings, provide strong evidence that taking the drug commonly known as paracetamol outside of the U.S. does not cause autism, ADHD or intellectual disabilities.

It’s “safe to use in pregnancy,” said lead author Dr. Asma Khalil. “It remains … the first line of treatment that we would recommend if the pregnant woman has pain or fever.”

While some studies have raised the possibility of a link between autism risk and using Tylenol, also known as acetaminophen, during pregnancy, more haven’t found a connection.

A review published last year in BMJ said existing evidence doesn’t clearly link the drug’s use during pregnancy with autism or ADHD in offspring. A study published the previous year in the Journal of the American Medical Association also found it wasn’t associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability in an analysis looking at siblings.

But the White House has focused on research supporting a link.

One of the papers cited on its web page, published in BMC Environmental Health last year, analyzed results from 46 previous studies and found that they supported evidence of an association between Tylenol exposure during pregnancy and increased incidence of neurodevelopmental disorders. Researchers noted that the drug is still important for treating pain and fever during pregnancy, but said steps should be taken to limit its use.

Some health experts have raised concerns about that review and the way Trump administration officials portrayed it, pointing out that only a fraction of the studies focus on autism and that an association doesn’t prove cause and effect. Khalil, a fetal medicine specialist at St. George’s Hospital, London, said that review included some studies that were small and some that were prone to bias.

The senior author of that review was Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, dean of the faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who noted in the paper that he served as an expert witness for plaintiffs in a case involving potential links between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and neurodevelopmental disorders. Baccarelli did not respond to an email seeking comment on his study.

Overall, Khalil said, research cited in the public debate showing small associations between acetaminophen and autism is vulnerable to confounding factors. For example, a pregnant woman might take Tylenol for fevers, and fever during pregnancy may raise the risk for autism. Research can also be affected by “recall bias,” such as when the mother of an autistic child doesn’t accurately remember how much of the drug she used during pregnancy after the fact, Khalil said.

When researchers prioritize the most rigorous study approaches – such as comparing siblings to account for the influence of things like genetics – “the association is not seen,” she said.

Genetics are the biggest risk factor for autism, experts say. Other risks include the age of the child’s father, preterm birth and whether the mother had health problems during pregnancy.

In a commentary published with the latest review, a group of researchers who weren’t involved — from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Children’s Hospital Colorado and elsewhere —cautioned that discouraging the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy could lead to inadequate pain or fever control. And that may hurt the baby as well as the mother. Untreated fever and infection in a pregnant woman poses “well-established risks to fetal survival and neurodevelopment,” they said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Twins added their second free agent of the offseason on Friday, agreeing to a two-year deal with catcher Victor Caratini, a source confirmed.

Caratini, 32, is a nine-year major league veteran who most recently played for the Houston Astros, hitting .259 with a .728 OPS in 114 games for Houston last year. He also hit a career-high 12 home runs and drove in a career-high 46 runs last season.

The Twins had a need at catcher this offseason with veteran Christian Vázquez hitting free agency himself after three seasons in Minnesota. During those three seasons, the Twins primarily employed an even timeshare between Ryan Jeffers and Vázquez. Now, Caratini and Jeffers — who is a free agent himself after the 2026 season — should split playing time.

The Twins also acquired catcher Alex Jackson, who has limited major league experience, in a minor swap with the Baltimore Orioles earlier this offseason.

While he is primarily a catcher, Caratini — who has played for the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres, Milwaukee Brewers and Astros — also has some experience at first base, appearing in 88 major league games there.

It’s the first contract of more than a year that the Twins have handed out since they extended starting pitcher Pablo López in April 2023. He also becomes the first free agent signed to more than a one-year deal since shortstop Carlos Correa earlier that year.

Caratini’s deal marks the second major league free agent the Twins have signed this offseason, joining first baseman Josh Bell, who signed a one-year deal with a mutual option worth a guaranteed $7 million. It’s been a relatively quiet offseason otherwise for the Twins, who still must make improvements to a bullpen that was dismantled at last season’s trade deadline.

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in Fort Myers, Fla., on Feb. 12, though this front office has often continued making additions to the roster after the beginning of spring training.

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CLARK, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey town whose former mayor was once heard denigrating Black people on secret recordings made by a whistleblower is now facing a state lawsuit that claims he and local police officials directed officers to keep minorities out of the community.

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The complaint, filed by state Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the office’s Division on Civil Rights, names former Clark Mayor Sal Bonaccorso, suspended town police chief Pedro Matos and the current police director Patrick Grady as defendants. It claims the town’s leaders “systematically discriminated against and harassed Black and other non-white motorists.”

Bonaccorso, a Republican, was the town’s mayor for about 25 years before he resigned in January 2025, just days after starting his seventh term in office. He had been easily reelected in November 2024 despite allegations of corruption. He left office after pleading guilty to using township resources to benefit his private landscaping business and forging signatures on permit applications for work his company performed in the area.

Bonaccorso did not respond to a voicemail message left Friday. When asked about the suit by NJ.com, he texted them back a two-word response, using an expletive to describe the suit.

In 2020, a police officer told officials he had secretly recorded Bonaccorso, Matos and another police official using racial slurs while referring to Blacks. The town agreed to pay $400,000 to settle the matter out of court, but the allegations later became public.

Clark Mayor Angel Albanese, a Republican who succeeded Bonaccorso, called the state’s lawsuit “frivolous” and accused Platkin of “playing politics” as his term as attorney general comes to an end. Charles Sciarra, an attorney for Matos, voiced similar views while noting the timing of the suit.

Matos has been on paid leave since the Union County Prosecutor’s Office seized control of the police department in July 2020. He has sued Clark to try to block the town from firing him, and those disciplinary proceedings remain active. The prosecutor’s oversight ended last March.

The lawsuit claims the town and its police leadership instituted a variety of discriminatory policing practices at the behest of Bonaccorso. Clark is a New York suburb, about 27 miles (43 kilometers) south of Manhattan.

According to an analysis cited by the attorney general’s office, Black people were stopped 3.7 times more often than white people in Clark between 2015 and 2020, and Hispanic people were stopped 2.2 times more often than white people.

While some of these racial disparities persisted to some extent even after the prosecutor’s oversight began, the data from 2020 to 2024 revealed some notable changes and improvements in policing practices that coincided with the reduction of some of these racial disparities, the attorney general’s office said.