2 held in kidnapping

Police did not rescue an alleged kidnapping victim from the trunk of a car where he sent desperate text cell phone messages to his mother.

The alleged kidnappers released the 17-year-old boy in Kalihi before patrol officers stopped them on Salt Lake Boulevard near Radford High School, police said.

An Oahu grand jury returned an indictment yesterday charging Bladesin-Isaiah Bailey, 19, of Salt Lake and Andrew Josiah Rodriguez, 18, of Aiea each with kidnapping and second-degree assault. Bail for each is $20,000.

Bailey and Rodriguez picked up the victim outside the 17-year-old's home on Kaahumanu Street Saturday while the teenager was smoking a cigarette, said Vickie Kapp, deputy prosecutor.

The three went to a park in Waiau, where Bailey punched the victim several times in the face, Kapp said. Then he and Rodriguez handcuffed the teenager and put him in the trunk and drove off, she said.

At the entrance to a trail, Bailey and Rodriguez put a bag over the victim's head and walked him down the trail, where they each punched the boy several times, Kapp said. They then released him with his hands still cuffed behind his back.

The teenager was able to get help from a neighbor.

Learn about the brain

Punahou School is hosting a two-day symposium aimed at helping Hawaii public and private school teachers understand the latest in neuroscience and apply it in their classrooms.

“;Brain-based Education: From Research to Practice,”; set for June 14-15, is designed for practicing educators and will include keynote presentations by Frank Kros, president of the Upside Down Organization and executive vice president of the Children's Guild, a provider of special-education services in Maryland.

Kros, an expert in brain-based learning, will address such topics as stress and the brain, aggressive and violent children, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and the neuroscience of the adolescent brain.

The cost is $50. Contact Casey Agena at 944-5737 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Space lights to appear

Weather permitting, the International Space Station and space shuttle Atlantis will make a spectacular pass across Hawaii skies tonight.

The shuttle is docked at the station, which will rise in the northwest at about 7:27 and reach maximum altitude just after 7:30 p.m. It will blink out of sight in the southeast at 7:33. The space station, 208 miles high, is traveling at roughly 4.6 miles per second with 12 people aboard.

NEIGHBOR ISLANDS

Invalid dies in Pahoa house fire

A late-night house fire in Pahoa killed a disabled person who was lying on a couch and could not escape, Big Island fire officials said yesterday.

Heavy smoke was pouring out of the single-story wooden home in Nanawale Estates when firefighters arrived at 11:25 p.m. Wednesday, nine minutes after receiving the alarm.

They found the victim, badly burned with no signs of life, on the couch in the living room, according to a news release from the Hawaii County Fire Department. Fire officials described the victim as an invalid who was unable to walk. They did not give the victim's name, age or gender.

The blaze was confined to the living room. Firefighters brought it under control within five minutes of arriving on the scene and put it out by 11:45 p.m.

Fire inspectors and county police are investigating the cause of the fire, which caused an estimated $125,000 in damage.