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Photo finish: On Friday, The Sunshine Blog was working its way through the latest press release from the newish Department of Law Enforcement (this one an update on enforcement of illegal fireworks transgressions) when we came upon the photos of two suspects the DLE had helpfully included at the end of the release.

These were not your father’s mugshots, to say the least.

In fact, they look so much like something someone would have pulled out of a photo album that The Blog had to ask the agency’s PIO, Wayne Ibarra, if the two guys had just handed over a photo they liked.

It turns out that the Department of Law Enforcement has aligned with that booking photos tend to make suspects look like, well, criminals. Those scary mugshots are generally taken when someone is at their worst — bloodshot eyes, mussed up hair, perhaps a bruise or two.

There’s also been a concern the past few years that mugshots reinforce racial biases. News organizations have generally abandoned the reader-beloved mugshot galleries but most will still publish individual booking photos to illustrate a story.

Ibarra, who is a criminal investigator doing double duty as the acting PIO, says his agency doesn’t want to create prejudice by releasing booking photos to reporters.

So now detectives tell people who are being arrested that they need to take their picture. When the suspect realizes it’s in place of the more traditional mugshot they’re generally happy to cooperate, he says.

Like these guys, who were arrested last month on felony charges stemming from alleged violations of the state’s fireworks control law. They allegedly sold illegal aerial fireworks to an undercover officer.

Recently, four deputy sheriffs were arrested for harassment relating to a couple of different incidents the department is still investigating. The DLE released pictures of them in the office. The Blog, who has developed a healthy cynicism over the decades, just presumed the DLE was just trying to save them from a notorious mugshot photo. Now it all makes sense.

Happily ever after: A Texas company called Age Reversal Unity has filed a lawsuit against the University of Hawaii and its affiliated community colleges, Chaminade University and Brigham Young University-Hawaii seeking to force the esteemed institutes of higher learning to start an undergraduate degree program in immortality.

Age Reversal Unity describes itself in the filing as a company “dedicated to the advancement of human immortality as a scientific and academic discipline.”

The lawsuit goes on to allege that: “Immortality, as evidenced by the biological phenomenon observed in the ‘immortal jellyfish’ (Turritopsis dohrnii), represents a pinnacle of evolutionary achievement and potential future for humanity.”

The Blog is not making this up and will post the lawsuit below to prove it. Spoiler alert: It’s a bit on the long side.

Basically, the company says that by refusing to establish a degree program in immortality the colleges are failing to fulfill their obligations to society and discriminating against the fundamental human right to life. Lots of other violations of constitutional clauses, too — equal protection, breach of public trust, due process yadda yadda yadda.

Now, The Blog is the first to want to live forever. But we’re thinking this lawsuit is going to cost some taxpayer cash for the public universities to get it to go away and some private funds for the others. Textbook case of waste of public money.

Perhaps this is a cause for the UH’s BFF Sen. Donna Kim to take on? After all, her role watchdogging the UH administration and its budget is never-ending, right?

Read the lawsuit here:

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss: And speaking of the University of Hawaii. The UH Board of Regents met Wednesday in the freshly renovated Bachman Hall on the Manoa campus, using the occasion to select leadership for the 2024–25 term that runs from July 1 to June 30, 2025.

And speaking of immortality, the regents are keeping Gabriel Lee in the top job. He has been serving as interim chair since March when the Hawaii State Senate rejected Alapaki Nahale-a for another term on the board.

Lee has insisted that he is not the pawn of the immortal Sen. Donna Kim, who orchestrated Nahale-a’s untimely departure and swears she’s never, ever tried to micromanage Hawaii’s premier institution of higher learning.

Regent Laurie Tochiki and Regent Laurel Loo were unanimously elected vice chairs. There’s also , law school student Joshua Faumuina.

The appointments come at a critical time, as the regents to review candidate materials for the next UH president. The first round of interviews is set for August.

‘Broken Trust’ now an audiobook: The most important tome in recent Hawaii history is now available in audio format, and it’s free. “Broken Trust: Greed, Mismanagement and Political Manipulation at America’s Largest Charitable Trust” can be heard .

The 2006 book, whose origins date to an essay in the now defunct Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1997, told a sordid tale of scandal involving the five trustees of the Bishop Estate. The powerful institution established by Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop in 1884 would later change its name to Kamehameha Schools.

Randy Roth, the retired University of Hawaii law professor who co-authored “Broken Trust,” tells The Blog that Kamehameha Schools itself provided the funding and expertise. And the audiobook is narrated by Louise Kealiiloma King Lanzilotti, daughter of the late federal judge Samuel P. King, Roth’s co-author.

Lanzilotti, host of Hawaii Public Radio’s Hawaiian music program “Kanikapila Sunday,” joined Roth and “The Conversation” host Catherine Cruz this past week . Here’s an excerpt from Roth:

“There was a price to pay that the trustees themselves were known as being very vindictive. You didn’t want to cross them. But they had their tentacles in the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch. And an awful lot of people who were in a position to see that things were not right, for whatever reason, chose not to cross these powerful people.”