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Newswatch
Star-Bulletin staff
and wire service
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Ammunition discovery shuts road
The discovery of an old piece of ammunition at a Manoa residence forced police to close off a road for several hours yesterday until it was removed.
At about 9:30 a.m., police received the call and closed Pamoa Road.
Officials called in an Army explosive ordnance disposal team to handle the round. Police said the projectile was inert.
Sgt. 1st Class David Gillespie, spokesman for the disposal team, said the residents had moved in and were cleaning up when they found something in the trash can.
A police liutenant told KITV the piece was 9 1/2 inches long.
It was not clear how the bomb squad disposed of the ordnance. Police reopened Pamoa Road at about 3 p.m.
Kahoolawe ordnance blasts set
WAILUKU » The state commission that manages Kahoolawe is warning the public that there will be explosive ordnance disposal occurring on the island during the day for four days starting tomorrow.
The Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission said it also has requested "restricted airspace" during the period of the operation between 7 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. from tomorrow through Friday.
A Navy explosive ordnance team will be disposing of about 65 pounds of raw explosives.
Commission spokeswoman Ellen Pelissero said erosion occurs on the island, sometimes causing ordnance to surface.
Military exercises and the bombing of the island occurred for nearly 50 years until it was halted in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush.
Isle astronomers map dark matter
HILO » The mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the material in the universe finally can be mapped, although not actually seen.
Astronomers using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea have created the most detailed picture yet of the invisible material by observing the effects of its gravity on light.
A summary of the study was released last week in the online version of Astronomy and Astrophysics, telescope officials said.
A previous study of the effects of dark matter's gravity on light from distant galaxies gave only a "glimpse" of the material, officials said in 2000. The new study gives "a real grasp of the big picture," said Christian Veillet, director of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.
In a series of observations, the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope looked at 2 million galaxies in an area 300 times the size of the moon.
The clue was an orderly arrangement of the way elongated distant galaxies appear in observations. Without gravity the directions of the elongation would be random.
With gravity the elongations lined up with the location of enormously long strands of dark matter, said Veillet. Astronomers "saw" structures so huge that light takes 270 million years to cross them.
Governor funds library repairs
Gov. Linda Lingle has released $320,000 to repair public libraries on the Big Island, Maui and Oahu that were damaged by the October 2006 earthquake.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has appropriated an additional $151,174 to the repair project. Repairs are expected to begin in December and be completed in March 2009.
Libraries to undergo repairs include:
» Big Island: Hilo Public Library, Mountain View Public and School Library, Thelma Parker Memorial Public and School Library.
» Maui: Kihei Public Library, Lahaina Public Library, Wailuku Public Library.
» Oahu: Hawaii State Library, Kaneohe Public Library, McCully-Moiliili Public Library, Salt Lake-Moanalua Public Library.
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Police, Fire, Courts
Star-Bulletin staff
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NEIGHBOR ISLANDS
Brush fire burns in forest reserve
Big Island firefighters are attempting to extinguish a brush fire that has burned at least 20 acres in the Hakalau Forest Reserve since Saturday afternoon.
At about 2:50 p.m., firefighters arrived at the scene to see that two brush fires had merged and formed one fire that was not accessible by ground units. The cause of the fire is suspicious and under investigation, firefighters said.
Fire helicopters dropped water on the fire, which spread to the forest reserve and prevented ground units from using trucks and hand tools to extinguish the blaze.
Four engines from the Hawaii County Fire Department and two units from the military helped to extinguish the blaze.
2 die in separate traffic accidents
Two men died over the weekend in separate traffic accidents on the neighbor islands.
On the Big Island, a 47-year-old Hilo man was killed after crashing his Harley-Davidson motorcycle near the intersection of Railroad Avenue and Lama Street in Hilo.
Police identified the man as Clayton K. Fukuhara.
At about 11:30 Saturday night, Fukuhara failed to stop at a stop sign on Lama Street and crashed in a driveway across the street, police said. He was not wearing a helmet.
He was pronounced dead yesterday morning at Hilo Medical Center.
Fukuhara was the eighth traffic fatality on the Big Island this year.
In Maalaea, Maui, a 34-year-old Wailuku man died Saturday night after his car slammed into a utility pole.
At about 11:30 p.m., police said, the car was heading Wailuku-bound on North Kihei Road when the man lost control of his four-door Honda Accord, which veered off the right shoulder lane and struck a utility pole.
The man died at the scene, police said. A 41-year-old man who was in the front passenger seat was transported to Maui Memorial Medical Center in critical condition.
Police are investigating the fourth traffic collision death in Maui this year, as compared with two the same time last year. They have yet to release the driver's name, pending family notification.
Leeward Oahu
Machete, car used in alleged attack
Police arrested a 32-year-old Ewa Beach man Saturday afternoon for allegedly terrorizing three people by brandishing a machete while chasing them with his vehicle.
According to police, the man allegedly hit a 30-year-old woman in the face with a towel during one incident. The woman left with a 58-year-old man and 59-year-old woman.
The man then allegedly chased them using his vehicle, overtaking them on three separate occasions while brandishing a machete, police said.
The man was located later at his home on Kulana Place and arrested on suspicion of first-degree terroristic threatening and abuse of a household member.
Exhausted hiker airlifted to safety
Firefighters airlifted a man in his 50s or 60s suffering from exhaustion off the Waianae Mountains yesterday.
The man was hiking with his son when he became too exhausted to continue, so his son called for help, said Honolulu Fire Department Capt. Robert Main.
"He just suffered from heat exhaustion and a little bit dehydration," Main said.
A fire helicopter took him to Kaneaki Park and turned him over to paramedics.
