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Molokai hospital grant enhances isle services
Molokai General Hospital has received a $470,000 four-year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop a community health services program.The grant matches funding provided by the Queen's Health System for Lamalama Ka 'Ili (Glowing with Health).
The program will facilitate management of chronic diseases common among the island's native Hawaiians, such as obesity, renal disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
It also will provide compassionate care and hospice services for people suffering from end-stage complications.
Molokai General Hospital, a subsidiary of The Queen's Health System, is a 30-bed rural health-care facility with the only emergency room and urgent-care clinic for the island's 7,000 residents and visitors.
Web site lets voters track campaign funds
Voters can track the sources of campaign contributions to politicians in Hawaii and across the country at a national nonprofit organization's new Web site offered by a national nonprofit organization.The Montana-based National Institute on Money in State Politics compiled the database from the 1998 elections. It lists more than 34,000 contributions totaling $18 million.
Some of the top contributors were construction businesses, with $2.1 million, and finance/real estate/insurance industries, with $1.6 million. Political parties gave $1.4 million to their candidates.
The national project sorted out 60 percent of the contributors by industry or profession.
Hawaii Elections Project expects to complete a project by July that will identify the "unknown" donors who accounted for the other 40 percent of donations reported in the national organization's data base, according to a release.
The National Institute on Money in State Politics Web site is http://www.followthemoney.org
Boeing secures Maui space-facility contract
The Air Force has awarded an $86 million contract to Boeing Co. to research and develop laser and electro optic technology at the Maui Space Surveillance System facility on Haleakala.Work on the five-year contract will be done by Rocketdyne Technical Services, a subsidiary of the Laser & Electro Optical Systems unit of Boeing.
The contract renews a partnership under way since 1990.
Geyser Gushes From Broken Pipe
Foodland earmarks $700,000 for schools
Foodland Super Market Ltd. is bestowing more than $700,000 worth of educational materials on 344 schools statewide.The computers, software and books are funded through its Shop for Better Education Program 2000, and money raised from Feb. 2 through March 28 is 55 percent more than in 1999.
Customers are encouraged to designate a school at checkout. Then every time they shop with the store's Maika'i card, they earn points for their favorite schools and themselves.
Punahou student goes to geography bee final
Glenn Shigetomi, 14, a Punahou eighth-grader, has a chance at a $25,000 scholarship, the grand prize in the May 23-24 National Geographic Bee.Knowledge of world geography made him the state winner and qualified him for national finals at National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Winners from 50 states, the District of Columbia, Pacific territories and Department of Defense schools will compete in preliminary rounds today.
In The Courts
'Baywatch Hawaii' gets its name back
The name "Baywatch Hawaii" once again belongs only to the television show.Federal Judge David Ezra yesterday issued a permanent injunction preventing Larry Rutkowski, a Pearl City man, from using the trade name.
Rutkowski had registered the name with the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs the day after Gov. Ben Cayetano announced that the television show was moving its filming to Hawaii.
Rutkowski had said that he intended to produce T-shirts and sports and water wear under the name.
Seth Reiss, attorney for Baywatch Production Co. of California, said Rutkowski was one of four Oahu entrepreneurs who registered the trade name with the state.
Ezra last year issued a temporary injunction against the four, and all except Rutkowski voluntarily agreed not to use the name, Reiss said.
Ezra also had ordered that all Baywatch titles be stricken from the state registry.
"Our client is very happy," Reiss said, because yesterday's judgment will prevent others "who might be inclined to profit from the Baywatch name."
'Weed and seed' drug dealer gets 15 years
A drug dealer arrested in the federal-state-city "weed and seed" enforcement campaign in Chinatown was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in federal prison without possibility of parole.U.S. District Judge Alan C. Kay found David Ayala, 36, subject to a greater term of imprisonment as a career criminal because of drug and burglary convictions in state courts. Ayala was convicted of distributing crack cocaine on Beretania and Smith streets. He was arrested in an undercover investigation by officers of the Department of Public Safety Narcotics Enforcement Division.
Ayala was the second dealer to get an enhanced sentence in the past month as a result of the "weed and seed" effort, said U.S. Attorney Steven Alm. On April 24, U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor sentenced Talatonu Tupuola, 40, to 15 years for selling crack cocaine at Sun Yat Sen Mall at Chinese Cultural Plaza.
The enforcement site encompasses downtown, Chinatown, Aala Park and Kalihi Palama, according to a news release.
Three guilty in shark fin-related robbery
A Circuit Court jury yesterday found three men guilty of second-degree robbery charges in a case involving the sale of shark fins.Truong Khanh Huu Le, 26, also known as Khanh Li or Khanh Le; Phong "Anthony" Ha, 26; Phuoc Quy "Kevin" Tran, 25, each were convicted of the robbery charge, which carries a 10-year maximum prison term. Ha and Tran also were charged with misdemeanor assault charges, but the jury acquitted them of those charges.
Sentencing was set for 8 a.m. July 24.
Deputy Prosecutor Maurice Arrisgado said the defendants attacked Adam Siu, a Hawaii Pacific University student, after he bought shark fins directly from fishermen at the piers.
Siu had served as a broker in securing shark fins from the defendants for a client in Hong Kong, he said.
But the client declined to continue to buy shark fins from the defendants after finding the initial shipment of shark fins unsatisfactory.
Siu was beaten and robbed of $2,000 about 1 p.m. Sept. 8 after he received an anonymous call asking him to go to Pier 17 to look at shark fins for sale, Arrisgado said.
Bond set at $25,000 each for 7 sting defendants
Seven suspects in last week's roundup of 32 people on federal gambling and money-laundering charges were ordered released yesterday.Magistrate Barry Kurren ordered each be released on a $25,000 bond. The seven also pleaded not guilty and were scheduled for trials in July.
Federal agents and police arrested 32 people last week as result of a three-year undercover investigation that involved a police officer posing as a "corrupt" officer.
In his undercover role, the officer received 233 bribery payments totaling $311,731 from August 1997 through May this year for advance warning of gambling raids.
Accused kidnapper released on bond
A former Maui woman, who is accused of kidnapping her adopted daughters and fleeing Hawaii, was released on a $55,000 signature bond.Federal Magistrate Barry Kurren allowed Mary Lou French's release provided she secures a $50,000 property bond in three weeks.
Kurren ordered that French, 55, not contact her former husband, James French, who is the former director of the Maui Symphony Orchestra, or their two daughters.
French was arrested in Panama recently and returned to Hawaii where she was indicted on four counts of international parental kidnapping. The indictments said she took her daughters, Emily, 5, and Sarah, 4, from Hawaii to Costa Rica and then Panama.
The girls were returned to James French earlier this month.
Gateway officer pleads no contest in tax case
Conklin Nakamura has entered a no contest plea for failing to file annual general excise tax returns for Gateway Hospitality Limited Partnership for 1996, 1997 and 1998.Nakamura is vice president, secretary and director of Gateway Management Corp., parent organization of Gateway Hospitality Limited Partnership.
The tourism industry firm had more than $1 million in gross profit in those three years which resulted in more than $57,000 in general excise tax, penalties and interest.
Nakamura's plea was accepted last Tuesday by Circuit Judge John C. Bryant Jr., who sentenced Nakamura to pay a $7,500 fine for not filing general excise returns for those years.
Bryant also accepted Nakamura's motion for a deferred acceptance of no contest plea and placed him on probation for a year.
Corrections
The April Fool's tsunami hit the Big Island in 1946. A story Friday included an incorrect year.
Police, Fire, Courts
By Star-Bulletin staffHonolulu Police Department Crimestoppers
Teen slain at Ewa came from the Philippines
The teen-ager shot and killed Saturday night at a house party in Ewa Village has been identified by the medical examiner's office as Robert A. Rodemio.Rodemio, 18, is a native of the Philippines who moved to Hawaii a few months ago, said his friend, Richard Robellos, who drove him to the party. His parents still live in the Philippines, Robellos said. He lived at a friend's house on Kopke Street in Kalihi and attended Farrington High School.
Police said Rodemio was shot after a fight broke out at the party. A 19-year-old man, who was stabbed and beaten remains hospitalized. No arrests were made as of this morning.
Van hits Hawaii Kai garage; two men hurt
Police arrested a 43-year-old man this morning after his van hit a parked pickup truck, two cars and two homes in Hawaii Kai.He was driving a 1999 Mazda MPV van and struck a parked pickup truck and the garage at 6608 Hawaii Kai Dr. at 4:46 a.m., police said. That truck and home are owned by a police sergeant.
The suspect's van then slammed into the home next door at 6612 Hawaii Kai Drive. The suspect and his passenger were not seriously injured.
The driver, who lived a few blocks away from the crash scene, was arrested for driving under the influence of drugs.
"It was not a good day for this driver," said an officer.
No residents, who were asleep inside the homes, were injured.
Doctors says tot's injury was result of abuse
Doctors have determined the severe head injuries of a 2-year-old boy were caused by abuse.The toddler, who has a fractured skull, was in critical condition this morning at Kapiolani Hospital.
The toddler was admitted to the hospital Thursday with severe head injuries.
His 31-year-old mother, a visitor from Singapore, told police the child was injured after falling from a bed at their Ilikai Hotel room.
Police expect to make an arrest in the case soon.
$8,500 Pokemon cards stolen from Hilo store
HILO -- About $8,500 in Pokemon cards and similar items were stolen from KD's Gifts and Crafts in downtown Hilo over the weekend, police said.The most valuable item stolen in the Saturday night or Sunday morning burglary was a black binder with 1,000 rare Pokemon trading cards, they said.
Other items included Pokemon, Digimon, and Neo cards, a Pokemon backpack, and a T-shirt dress.
Anyone with information is asked to call Big Island police at 935-3311 or CrimeStoppers at 961-8300.
