State Rep. Denny Coffman, who had urged House leaders against quickly moving a gay marriage bill in special session, said Thursday that he now favors a special session.

Deep beneath Fukushima's crippled nuclear power station, a massive underground reservoir of contaminated water that began spilling from the plant's reactors after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has been creeping slowly toward the Pacific. Now, 2 1/2 years later, experts fear it is about to reach the ocean and greatly worsen what is fast becoming a new crisis at Fukushima: the inability to contain vast quantities of radioactive water.

The man at the center of 2012′s general election disaster will not get a $36,000 pay hike. The Hawaii Salary Commission, an independent appointed board that recently OK’d pay hikes for the state’s executive, judicial and legislative branches, decided Wednesday against increasing Chief Election Officer Scott Nago‘s salary to $116,000 a year. He earns $80,000.

Two Hawaii Island conservation projects are getting a financial boost from the federal government.