Highway lanes will be closed for road work
Alternating lane closures in both directions are planned this week on Mamalahoa Highway between mile markers 27 and 31, in the vicinity of Makalei, for guardrail installation and pavement striping work, according to the state Department of Transportation.
Crews will be working from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday unless otherwise noted. Crews will not work on Monday in observance of the Presidents Day holiday. Road work is weather permitting.
Lane closures may snarl Waimea traffic
Alternating single lane closures are planned this week on Mamalahoa Highway, between Mana Road and Puu Nani Drive, in Waimea for pavement repairs, according to the Hawaii County Department of Public Works.
William C. Loeffler Construction Inc. crews will be working from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. Road work is weather permitting.
Lane closure continues on Palani Road
The mauka-bound lane of Palani Road from Queen Kaahumanu Highway to Henry Street will remain closed this week.
Because of the closure, motorists cannot make a right or left turn from Queen Kaahumanu Highway onto Palani Road, according to the Hawaii County Department of Public Works. Motorists also cannot turn left off Henry Street onto Palani Road.
Beginning 6 p.m. Friday through 6 p.m. Saturday, both mauka- and makai-bound lanes of Palani Road will be closed between the highway and Henry Street, according to the department. Emergency vehicles will have access.
After Saturday, only the mauka-bound lane will remain closed through March 23, according to the department.
Governor attends U.S.-China Economic Trade meetings
Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie was in Los Angeles Friday for United States and China economic trade meetings.
The U.S.-China Economic Trade and Trade Cooperation Forum and Signing Ceremony capped Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States.
Abercrombie traveled to California for the meetings at the request of Vice President Joe Biden and California Gov. Jerry Brown.
The forum is intended to encourage more Chinese investment in the United States. Abercrombie said he would also use the trip to expand business and visitor industry relationships for Hawaii.
Department of Business and Economic Development and Tourism Director Richard Lim and Hawaii Tourism Authority President Mike McCartney also attended the meetings with the governor.
Miss America visits children at Kapiolani
HONOLULU — Children who are patients at a Honolulu hospital will be teaching Miss America a bit about the islands.
Reigning Miss America Laura Kaeppeler will visit Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children Saturday. The children will teach her how to make lei and join in a hula lesson from Miss Hawaii Lauren Cheape.
Miss America is raising funds and awareness for the hospital and other Children’s Miracle Network hospitals nationwide.
Woman from Japan on Hawaii honeymoon dies in crash
HONOLULU — Authorities say a woman from Japan who was on her honeymoon in Hawaii is dead and her husband hospitalized after the couple crashed the motorcycle they were riding.
The couple’s rented motorcycle crashed into a guardrail on Kamehameha Highway in Kaaawa around 12:15 p.m. Friday.
A supervisor with the Department of Emergency Medical Services said the newlyweds were not wearing helmets.
The woman died after being taken to a hospital, while the man was listed in critical condition.
Their names and hometowns have not been released, but officials say they were both 27 years old.
Locklear confirmed to lead Pacific Command
HONOLULU — Navy Adm. Samuel Locklear will be the U.S. military’s next leader in the Asia-Pacific region.
U.S. Pacific Command spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Bill Clinton said Friday the U.S. Senate had confirmed Locklear’s nomination to head the command, which has its headquarters near Honolulu.
In confirmation hearings earlier this month, Locklear said he wants improved military ties with China but noted that China must be committed to open exchanges.
He told the Senate Armed Services Committee that China’s military buildup is a source of strategic uncertainty. He described the current military relationship as “cooperative but competitive.”
Locklear currently is chief of U.S. naval forces in Europe and Africa, and commander of Allied Joint Forces Command in Naples, Italy. He commanded U.S. and NATO-led operations in Libya that eventually toppled Moammar Gadhafi.
Nun to be sainted for work at leprosy colony
HONOLULU — A nun who spent decades caring for patients segregated on the Kalaupapa leprosy colony on Molokai will be canonized a saint later this year, the Vatican has announced.
Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday that Mother Marianne Cope will be made a saint during a canonization ceremony Oct. 21.
Beginning in the 1880s, Cope spent more than 30 years caring for patients suffering from leprosy, church officials said. Leprosy, or Hansen’s Disease, is a bacterial infection that causes severe and disfiguring damage to skin, eyes and nerves.
Cope was known for demanding money from the government to help the leprosy patients, and is credited with having a school built and teaching women and girls to sew and garden.
The Kalaupapa settlement is now a National Historic Park. The government has spent more than $1 million restoring parts of the peninsula associated with Cope’s work, including a chapel, nuns’ living quarters and walking paths.
Cope died at the colony of natural causes in 1918 and was buried there.
The announcement that Cope will be made a U.S. saint came at the end of a ceremony Saturday to make 22 new cardinals.
The Vatican also announced that Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk Indian who spent most of her life in what is now upstate New York, and five others also will be canonized Oct. 21.
Elizabeth Smart marries at Oahu temple
SALT LAKE CITY — Elizabeth Smart married her fiance Saturday at a Mormon temple in Hawaii.
A family spokesman said the Utah woman who was kidnapped at knifepoint at age 14 and held captive for nine months married Matthew Gilmour on Oahu’s North Shore.
The 24-year-old Smart is a senior at Brigham Young University. She met Gilmour, of Aberdeen, Scotland, while doing Mormon missionary work in Paris.
The couple wed at the Laie Hawaii Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in front of a small group of family members, spokesman Chris Thomas said in a statement. The group then celebrated at a private reception and luau.
“The bride and groom were beaming as they left the LDS Temple,” Thomas said.
Smart and Gilmour got engaged last month and made plans to wed this summer. However, Smart opted to move up the ceremony because of the media attention her engagement was getting, Thomas said.
“She decided, about a week ago, the best way to avoid significant distraction was to change her wedding plans and to get married in an unscheduled ceremony outside of Utah,” he said. Thomas added the couple will go on an extended honeymoon in an undisclosed location.
Onetime itinerant street preacher Brian David Mitchell was convicted in 2010 of Smart’s 2002 kidnapping and sexual assault. He is serving a life prison sentence.
By local and wire sources