HONOLULU — The leader of a Hawaiian pro-sovereignty group that broke into a historic palace once home to royalty said he planned to chain himself to the throne but couldn’t find it because he had never been in the palace before.
Police arrested 23 people during the stunt, in which members of the Kingdom of Hawaii locked the gates to the Iolani Palace on Friday.
Palace officials said three locks, including those securing the throne room, were damaged. No artifacts were damaged or stolen, officials said.
The leader, 67-year-old James Kimo Akahi of Haiku, claims he is the rightful king of the islands.
California: Air base fire burns 230 homes
The military says a wind-whipped fire at a Travis Air Force Base damaged at least 230 vacant homes, but the houses and duplexes were slated for demolition anyway. The blaze started as a grass fire Saturday and quickly spread to a development that once housed service members. The blaze scorched more than 10 acres of the base, about 40 miles southwest of Sacramento.
Texas: Body belongs to abducted clerk
A body found in a remote area was identified as the clerk whose abduction from a store in the North Texas town of Scotland was recorded by security cameras, authorities said Sunday. Mindy Daffern, 46, had been missing since Friday. Surveillance camera videotape showed her being confronted at gunpoint by an unmasked man who walked her outside the store. A man suspected in the abduction Wallace Bowman Jr., 30, of Bowie, led investigators to the body Saturday, the county sheriff said.
China: Americans’ Bibles confiscated
A group of American Christians who had 315 Bibles confiscated by Chinese officials when they arrived in Kunming is refusing to leave the airport until they get the books back, their leader said today. He and three other members of Vision Beyond Borders, based in Sheridan, Wyo., spent Sunday night at the airport after customs officers took the Bibles from their checked luggage. In China, Bibles are printed under the supervision of the Communist government. The officially atheistic country allows them to be used only in government-sanctioned churches and in some big hotels catering to foreigners.
Mexico: Gunmen kill 13 at party
Mexican authorities say gunmen killed 13 people, including a 1-year-old, at a family party in Creel in the border state of Chihuahua. State prosecutors said in a statement Sunday that most of the victims were members of a single family. Witnesses told police that gunmen in three pickup trucks, wearing ski masks and dressed in black, fired on a crowd outside a dance hall.
Afghanistan: Police blanket Kabul
The Afghan police ordered 7,000 officers onto the streets of Kabul to guard against attacks on senior leaders during Independence Day celebrations today. Even the location of the celebration of Afghanistan’s 89th anniversary of independence from Britain was kept secret and will be closed to the public to try to minimize the risk insurgents could again disrupt a national commemoration.
Iran: Two-stage rocket tested
Iran has test launched a rocket it plans to use to carry a research satellite into orbit, state television reported Sunday. Saturday’s test of the two-stage rocket, called the Safir-e Omid, or Ambassador of Peace, was successful, state TV said, broadcasting images of the nighttime launch.
Israel: To release 200 Palestinians
Israel’s Cabinet on Sunday approved the release of about 200 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israeli security officials must still approve the list of prisoners to be freed under Sunday’s decision. But a Cabinet official said the release would likely include two Palestinians involved in deadly attacks on Israelis.
From Herald news services
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