• The Queen's Medical Center recently honored its student and adult Kokua Po'okela Award volunteers of the year. They are: Tori Miyagi, a senior at Hawaii Baptist Academy; Suzanne Nakoa, a volunteer since February 2005.

Things seemed to settle down after the political excitement of recent months, but there was still plenty of fodder for our "flASHback" on the week's news that amused and confused:

SUPPORT FOR SENIORS, donate necessities (toiletries, blankets, paper towels etc.) noon-2:30 p.m., Ala Moana Center, centerstage; or until Nov. 28 at any Aloha Pacific Federal Credit Union, The Chamber of Commerce or Aloha United Way; sponsored by Aloha United Way's Society of Young Leaders. 543-2203.

Yesterday, 200 Marines from Headquarters Battalion at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kane'ohe hiked 5.2 miles carrying a total of 2,500 pounds of canned goods and other food donations for the base's Operation Harvest.

Isaac Jesse Waipulani Ho'opi'i could not even pick up his beloved Martin guitar after he carried eight people from the wreckage of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon and helped seven more to safety.

A winter storm expected to reach the Islands today will shower the state with periods of heavy rainfall throughout the weekend, posing a threat of flooding, especially on O'ahu and Kaua'i.

A Circuit Court judge has dismissed Internet author Andy Martin's lawsuit seeking to obtain a copy of President-elect Barack Obama's Hawai'i birth certificate.

The city's Emergency Services Department yesterday dedicated its new paramedic facility in Wahiawa.

Kamehameha Schools is seeking to remake 29 acres of its Kaka'ako holdings into a dense, largely residential community, under a conceptual master plan soon to be filed with the state.

Australian surfing celebrity Koby Abberton received a three-day sentence yesterday for brawling with an off-duty police officer outside a Honolulu restaurant. Abberton, a 30-year-old member of the Bra Boys gang, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor assault charge, taking responsibility for actions he previously denied when he pleaded not guilty this summer.