Elizabeth Smart weds in Laie temple

Elizabeth Smart married her fiance Saturday at a Mormon temple in Hawaii.

A family spokesman said the Utah woman who was kidnapped 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.

House passes jobless insurance tax break

The state House voted on Monday to pass a bill that would spare businesses from an increase in the unemployment insurance tax.

The tax is scheduled to automatically increase to help finance a reserve used to pay unemployment benefits. The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations has estimated that the rate increase could cost businesses $300 more on average per employee.

The bill would keep the existing rate for another year.

House lawmakers have made the bill a priority and want the Legislature and Gov. Neil Abercrombie to take action by early March, before businesses have to pay the higher rate. The state Senate will now consider the bill.

Army Guard colonel to head Civil Defense

Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi announced Thursday that Hawaii Army National Guard Col. Benedict Fuata has been named Civil Defense administrator.

The 50-year old has served as commander of the Army Aviation Support Facility in Hilo since 1993, and is also the Guard’s logistics director.

Fuata, a resident of Mountain View, will replace Quince Mento, who retired Dec. 1.

He will assume the role in the coming weeks, and will take the reins from acting administrator John Drummond.

Kenoi said Fuata was chosen from a pool of outstanding finalists, and that he has "impressive credentials, both professionally and as a public servant."

Fire damages wood-interior warehouse

An abandoned warehouse in Pahala was badly damaged in a fire that began just before noon Thursday, the Hawaii County Fire Department reported.

Kau firefighters responded to the Pahala Mill off Maile Street and found smoke coming out of an unsecured doorway on the northwest corner of the building about 11:57 a.m., fire Capt. Neil Yoshioka said.

About one-third of the metal-framed structure, which measures about 40 feet by 30 feet, was destroyed. Firefighters found paper waste on the floor that caught fire, which went up a wall and extended into the rafters and ceiling, Yoshioka said. The exterior of the building is made of corrugated iron and the interior is wood, he said.

The fire was declared out at 1:15 p.m. No one was injured.