The 25-foot waves expected on O'ahu's North Shore didn't materialize yesterday, but people still found plenty of reason to head for the country. And even though wave faces on the North Shore reached "only" 18 to 20 feet, the awesome walls of water at Sunset Beach didn't disappoint.

The Marines, who pride themselves on being bold, want to build the state's largest photovoltaic solar farm and a biofuel electricity-producing plant on base, both of which would not only meet all of the Marines' power needs by 2015, but exceed them, officials said.

University of Hawai'i graduate student Nolan Kido says he's lucky "Granny" loves him. "She allows me to live in her basement so I can afford to eat," said Kido, 29, of 'Aiea, who is in his second year pursuing a doctorate in accounting at UH-Manoa.

A flagging economy, tight credit and rising tuition are teaching college students hard lessons these days. And their reward for surviving until graduation? A lean job market and plenty of debt.

Finance Factors is heavily invested in Mainland real estate that has declined sharply with the nation's slumping economy. Court documents in a now settled lawsuit by shareholders of the company's parent Finance Enterprises Ltd. also show the firm issued loans to company directors and their relatives in what one board member described as a "culture of illegality and self-dealing."

Francis Wong doesn't ask for anything for her family or herself this Christmas. The 70-year-old grandmother, who adopted a grandson and became a legal guardian for one grandniece and two grandnephews, wouldn't mind a larger car to carry her family of five and her wheelchair, but that's too much to ask of the community, Lani Davis, Wong's caseworker, said.

The Marines of the Two-Seven were not even supposed to deploy to Afghanistan. Their original destination was Iraq, and when they were sent here in April as a stopgap measure to help an overwhelmed NATO force, the plan had been to spend the time mentoring Afghan national police.

A Navy investigation has concluded that a sailor who died on the nuclear missile-carrying submarine USS Nebraska in September in waters off Hawai'i ignored posted warnings.

A 47-year-old Hilo man died yesterday while in the custody of Big Island police.

A 33-year-old North Kohala woman died early yesterday, hours after being struck by a car as she walked on Akoni Pule Highway, near the 24-mile marker.