PEARL HARBOR — The Pearl Harbor-based guided missile destroyer USS Russell is scheduled to depart Monday to join the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group.

The primary mission of the Russell is to destroy aircraft, missiles, submarines, surface ships and land targets.

The Navy says the USS Abraham Lincoln left its homeport of Everett, Wash., on March 13 for San Diego to pick up personnel and aircraft before deploying overseas.

In 2006, the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group returned home from a six-month deployment to the Arabian Gulf and Western Pacific.

CHARGE STANDS IN BOMB SCARE

BOSTON — A judge refused yesterday to dismiss a charge against an MIT student who created a bomb scare at Logan International Airport by wearing a blinking circuit board attached to her shirt.

Star Simpson, a 19-year-old electrical engineering and computer science student from Lahaina, Maui, was held at gunpoint and arrested by state troopers in September after airport security personnel became alarmed by the battery-powered device on her shirt.

Simpson's lawyer, Thomas Dwyer Jr., asked a judge last month to throw out a charge of possessing a hoax device, arguing that state law does not clearly define what a hoax device is. Dwyer also said Simpson had a First Amendment right to express herself by wearing the shirt.

But East Boston District Court Judge Paul Mahoney refused to dismiss the charge yesterday and set a May 23 trial date. The judge also merged the constitutional question with the criminal issue, Dwyer said.

Simpson will likely testify in her own defense, Dwyer said.

"There is no evidence of criminal intent," he said. "We're fairly confident of what the outcome will be."

Simpson did not talk in court or to reporters after the hearing.

HEART ATTACK MAY HAVE CAUSED CRASH

A 60-year-old man died early yesterday after the car he was driving smashed into a concrete wall in Moanalua.

Police said the Moanalua man may have suffered a heart attack before the accident.

He was driving a 2003 Honda SUV south-bound on Ala Aolani Street just before 3 a.m. when the car suddenly veered across the street and hit a wall fronting a residential driveway, police said.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Speed and alcohol did not appear to be factors in the crash, and police said the accident is being investigated as an unattended death, not a traffic fatality.

AKAKA, HIRONO LAUDED ON ANIMALS

WASHINGTON — Sen. Daniel Akaka and Rep. Mazie Hirono, both Hawai'i Democrats, received 100 percent ratings for their legislative advocacy on animal protection last year from the Humane Society of the United States and the Humane Society Legislative Fund.

"Senator Akaka and Representative Hirono have shown a deep commitment to animal welfare," Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society, said this week.

Akaka was cited for co-sponsoring Senate legislation to ban transporting, possessing, buying or selling horses for human consumption. He also sponsored a bill to prohibit using dogs and cats in research that come from dealers who traffic in stolen animals or those being given away.

Hirono was recognized for co-sponsoring a House version of the anti-horse-slaughter bill and another to require labeling of all fur products. She also voted for a bill that makes animal fighting a felony and another to ban the commercial sale and slaughter of wild horses and burros.

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai'i, received a 25 percent rating for co-sponsoring the horse-slaughter bill.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i, received an 83 percent rating for co-sponsoring the horse-slaughter prohibition bill and the fur-labeling bill, among others. He voted against legislation that would have prohibited federal funding that enables imports of sport-hunted polar bear trophies from Canada.