HONOLULU — Knots of volunteers combed the streets of Chinatown yesterday armed with paintbrushes and trash bags. Their mission was to instill a sense of pride in a community beleaguered by drugs and crime and still trying to recover after media coverage of a blogger's video showing rats jumping among the fruit at one of the area's popular markets.

A unique experiment in community journalism launched three years ago called myAdvertiser.com ends today with the demise of The Honolulu Advertiser and its website. But while it lasted, myAdvertiser.com was the only place Hawai'i residents could self publish their own stories to promote community events and have them read by thousands of their neighbors.

Police evacuated an area of Kapolei early yesterday morning after a man armed with a gun barricaded himself inside a residence, police said. The incident began at 12:30 a.m. and ended around 10 a.m. with no one being injured, police said. It began as a domestic disturbance, said Capt. Kent Harada.