News from dookie

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois Sen. Barack Obama formally announced his presidential candidacy yesterday with an invocation of Abraham Lincoln and a call to end the war in Iraq and what he called "the smallness of our politics" that perpetuates so many of the problems the nation faces.

"I am ready to take up the cause," Sen. Barack Obama shouted to a cheering throng in Springfield, Ill., at shortly after 6 a.m. Hawai`i time yesterday.

LIHU`E, Kaua`i — A joint state Senate committee heard overwhelming testimony on Kaua`i yesterday — much of it from people wearing red shirts with anti-Superferry slogans — for requiring an environmental impact statement for the Hawai`i Superferry.

Ruben Ampon won`t soon forget the first day on his new job.

Residents who want to rid their neighborhoods of drug houses can`t always expect immediate results, but officials say they are successful in shutting down houses in about half of the reported cases.

"Plantain" — that was the word that won eighth-grader Andrew Zhou the Honolulu District Spelling Bee yesterday at Sacred Hearts Academy.

Halau Ku Mana Director Keola Nakanishi is asking the community for a "minor miracle" to help the small Manoa charter school build a campus in Makiki before July 1.

Tomorrow is Day 17 of the 60-day session.

Even as the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands continues its aggressive push to provide more lots to those now on a waiting list, a class-action lawsuit involving 2,700 Native Hawaiian claimants has been cleared to proceed by the Hawai`i Supreme Court. The lawsuit alleges breach of trust on the part of DHHL and involves a variety of claims from individuals and families who were on the list from 1959 through 1988.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved an average of $3,626 in assistance to owners of homes damaged in the Oct. 15 earthquakes off the Big Island.

An off-duty deputy sheriff who tried to subdue an armed robber at a trendy Kapi`olani Boulevard lounge was fatally wounded early yesterday, police said.

The military would spend $553 million on construction projects in Hawai`i next year under President Bush`s 2008 budget proposal now before Congress.

After decades of only marginal success at getting Native Hawaiians onto the land promised them, the Lingle administration points with pride to the nearly 2,300 residential leases it has awarded since taking office in December 2002.