Newswatch Star-Bulletin staff and wire service

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Arms disposal shuts snorkel site

WAILUKU » Federal and state officials tentatively plan to shut down the popular snorkeling area off Molokini island on Jan. 30 to dispose of munitions.

The ordnance, including a 250-pound bomb, 105 mm projectile and 5-inch rocket, were found during Navy surveys of the island completed in December 2006 and March 2007, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A Navy team plans to burn the bomb in place and detonate the projectile and rocket within the crater on Molokini.

A public meeting about the closure is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. on Wednesday at the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary office in Kihei.

The service said the disposal will take 10 hours or less. The Coast Guard will be establishing a safety zone from Sunday through Feb. 8.

The exact times of the closure are to be announced over marine band VHF channel 16.

The service said the ordnance disposal has been scheduled to avoid impacts to some 3,200 adult wedge-tailed shearwaters that nest on the island from March to mid-December. A smaller population of Bulwer's petrels also nest on the island, as well as great frigate birds and noddies.

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Galactic discovery has isle roots

An astronomer with local ties helped an international team make an original discovery: a pair of glowing rings lined up like a bull's eye, called a double Einstein ring.

The phenomenon is caused by gravitational lensing, which occurs when a massive galaxy in front of another, more distant galaxy bends the light like a magnifying glass. If two galaxies are exactly lined up, the light forms a circle, an Einstein ring, around the foreground galaxy.

Adam Bolton of the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy first observed the lens. Bolton is a member of the Sloan Lens Advanced Camera for Surveys, or SLACS, program, which made the discovery with the Hubble Space Telescope.

A double Einstein ring is created when three galaxies line up on the same sight line. The second galaxy forms a circle around the foreground galaxy, and a third, more distant galaxy lines up behind the first two, forming a second larger ring. The odds of seeing such a special alignment are 1-in-10,000.

In this case, the massive foreground galaxy is 3 billion light-years away. The inner ring and outer ring are multiple images of two galaxies that are 6 billion and 11 billion light-years away, respectively.

The SLACS program's observation can offer insight into dark matter, dark energy, the nature of distant galaxies and the curvature of the universe, a European Space Agency news release said.

The findings were reported earlier this month at the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas.

Police, Fire, Courts Star-Bulletin staff

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WAIKIKI

Pair charged with kidnapping

An Oahu grand jury has indicted two men on charges stemming from an alleged attempt to force a 20-year-old woman into prostitution.

Johnathan Payne was indicted Wednesday on charges of first-degree promotion of prostitution, kidnapping and two counts of being an accomplice to sexual assault.

Also indicted was La Shawn R. Adams on charges of kidnapping and third-degree assault.

The woman alleged she had gone to meet a friend at the Princess Kaiulani Hotel in Waikiki, and was held against her will in a hotel room Jan. 9-11 by three men. The woman said the men wanted her to be a prostitute, according to a police affidavit.

Police said the woman refused and asked the men to leave the room, but they held her captive instead. While being held, the woman was sexually assaulted, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office said.

2 teenage girls fight off attacker

Police charged a 24-year-old man Saturday who allegedly groped a 15-year-old girl at a Waikiki apartment complex earlier in the morning.

Rodney Selkar, of no local address, is accused of kidnapping, third-degree assault and third-degree sexual assault. He was arrested at 432 Pau St. and is being held at the Honolulu police cellblock in lieu of $30,000 bail.

The teenager was sleeping over at a friend's apartment on Pau Street. At about 4:45 a.m. she went to get a broom outside the apartment when the man, who is a former tenant and was allegedly intoxicated, approached and restrained her, police said.

Her friend, 14, intervened and the man allegedly hit her, police said. The girls broke away and called police from inside the home.

HONOLULU

Officer-victims bust alleged biter

A 36-year-old Chinatown man was arrested Saturday evening for allegedly biting an officer and assaulting another after they found him with an open liquor bottle.

At about 6:40 p.m. the man allegedly jaywalked, and a car nearly hit him. The man then allegedly flicked his cigarette into the car, and the driver reported it to nearby police officers.

Police officers found the man outside 1161 Maunakea St. allegedly with an open liquor bottle, and attempted to arrest him for that offense. He then became belligerent and combative, police said, and bit one officer's left arm and injured another officer.

They detained him and allegedly found drugs in his pocket. The man was arrested on suspicion of assaulting law enforcement officers, resisting arrest and drug violations.

CENTRAL OAHU

Van crash on H-1 badly hurts driver

A 35-year-old Waipahu man was critically injured yesterday morning after his van veered off the road and crashed into a guardrail on the H-1 freeway at the Waipahu offramp.

Police said the man, who is from the Crestview area, was traveling westbound when his 2001 Chevy van struck the guardrail at 6:50 a.m. He sustained extensive facial and bodily injuries, police said, and was transported to the Queen's Medical Center.

Speed and alcohol were not apparent factors, police said.

NEIGHBOR ISLANDS

Officials probe Kauai eatery blaze

The cause of a fire that led to $200,000 damage to a Kauai restaurant remains under investigation.

Firefighters responded to Kauai Pasta in Lihue on Friday at 5:33 a.m. and found flames coming from a side window, a Kauai County news release said. Firefighters broke several jalousies to attack the fire and broke through the front door. The fire was contained to the kitchen and extinguished within 10 minutes.

The restaurant sustained smoke and heat damage as well as damage to its contents.