LOCAL
» Fire destroyed a Palolo house Monday, killing Julia Rezentes, 91, and companion Bobby Souza. Rezentes had eight children, 34 grandchildren, 73 great-grandchildren and 31 great-great-grandchildren. Witnesses said the three-bedroom, wooden home on Lai Road was quickly engulfed in flames just after sunrise.
» Hawaii public school students saw gains in math scores, while reading proficiency remained steady, Department of Education testing results released Friday show. Fifty-four percent tested as proficient in math — a 6 percentage-point gain from 2010 — and 66 percent were proficient in reading. But fewer schools made "adequate yearly progress" under stricter No Child Left Behind benchmarks.
» Grocery options in Hawaii Kai are down to Safeway and Costco after the Hawaii Kai Foodland closed last Sunday after 48 years in business. A Walgreen’s will open there next year, sharing the 33,000-square-foot space with an undisclosed tenant.
» It was lights, cameras and prayers for the "Hawaii Five-0" ohana as work began on the second season with an early-morning blessing Monday. Everyone gathered on the show’s headquarters set, which had been moved from the downtown post office to the "Five-0" studio at the old Honolulu Advertiser building while the CBS show was on a three-month hiatus. Hugs and handshakes were the order of the day as a gallery of news cameras clicked to document the return of the show’s main players: Alex O’Loughlin, Scott Caan, Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park. The new season will premiere Sept. 19.
» The Kahuku Wind Farm may soon have a big brother. Boston-based First Wind LLC is moving ahead with plans to build a second wind project on former sugar cane land northeast of Haleiwa. The new project is double the size of the Kahuku plant and could be generating power as soon as next year.
MAINLAND
» The White House and congressional leaders struggled throughout the week to avert an unprecedented national default, racing to beat a critical Aug. 2 deadline. Numerous officials have cautioned that a default will occur if the $14.3 trillion debt limit is not increased, warning also of a calamitous effect on a national economy laboring to recover from the worst recession in decades. President Barack Obama is pushing a combination of spending cuts and tax increases that has met stiff resistance from Republicans.
» Astronauts hauled supplies and performed other tasks aboard the linked Atlantis and International Space Station on the final shuttle flight — the 135th in 30 years of shuttle missions. Atlantis was said by NASA to be performing smoothly, and last Sunday’s docking proved to be flawless. Atlantis will return to Earth on Thursday, then it and the other space shuttles will become museum displays.
WORLD
» News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch was scrambling to contain the damage after a phone-hacking scandal that forced him to shut down the tabloid News of the World in London, scuttled his bid for lucrative TV broadcaster BSkyB, knocked billions off the value of News Corp. and claimed the jobs of two key aides. Prime Minister David Cameron has appointed a judge to conduct an inquiry into criminal activity at the News of the World and in the British media as he tries to distance the government from the scandal.
THE NEXT WEEK: JULY 17-23
Local
» Tuesday: State Reapportionment Commission will continue discussion regarding permanent residents and whom to include or exclude when redrawing political boundaries, 2 p.m. at state Capitol Room 329.
» Wednesday: The Charter School Governance, Accountability and Authority Task Force will hold its first meeting, 10 a.m. in state Capitol Room 225.
» Thursday: State lawmakers will hold a town hall meeting on the redevelopment of Kam Drive-In into a residential-business area, as well as other issues in Aiea and Pearl City, 7-8:30 p.m. at Pearl Ridge Elementary School.
» Also this week: Hawaii’s June unemployment data will be released.
Mainland
» The National Association of Area Agencies on Aging is hosting its 36th annual national conference this week in Washington. The meeting will address the potential impact of the federal budget cuts on America’s rapidly aging population.
THE WEEK IN HISTORY
SUNDAY
In 1981, 114 people were killed when a pair of suspended walkways above the lobby of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel collapsed, landing one atop the other, during a tea dance.
MONDAY
In 1969, a car driven by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha’s Vineyard; his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned.
TUESDAY
In 1961, TWA became the first airline to begin showing regularly scheduled
in-flight movies as it presented "By Love Possessed," starring Lana Turner, to its first-class passengers.
WEDNESDAY
In 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon after landing their lunar module.
THURSDAY
In 1861, during the Civil War, the first Battle of Bull Run was fought at Manassas, Va., resulting in a Confederate victory.
FRIDAY
In 1934, bank robber John Dillinger was shot to death by federal agents outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater, where he had just seen the Clark Gable movie "Manhattan Melodrama."
SATURDAY
In 1829, William Austin Burt received a patent for his "typographer," a forerunner of the typewriter.
