Argentina: Hawaii doctor nabbed for billing fraud (AP)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – A psychiatrist who has spent a lifetime traveling the world, meeting famous people and giving spiritual awareness lectures has been arrested in Argentina on charges of falsely billing $1 million in health insurance claims in Hawaii, authorities said Tuesday.

Dr. Carlos Livio Warter, 61, was arrested Monday afternoon at his home in a wealthy Buenos Aires neighborhood, where he had been working as a psychiatrist and leading seminars based on his latest book, "Pathways to the Soul."

He was hospitalized at the Fleni Clinic after fainting, said Osvaldo Magnoli, chief of fugitives investigations for Interpol in Argentina. His health was not at risk, and upon his release he would be detained in a federal prison to await extradition proceedings, Magnoli added.

A Chilean-born naturalized U.S. citizen, Warter traveled regularly between Argentina, Chile and Hawaii, FBI special agent Tom Simon said in Honolulu.

Simon said FBI agents working out of the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires were coordinating with their Argentine counterparts on the extradition.

Warter says on his website that he has spent 30 years "journeying between the fields of western medicine and the deep exploration of spiritual practices from around the world," doing his residency at Harvard University's Children's Hospital and later lecturing at Esalen Institute.

He has written dozens of books in Spanish and English, and his site shows photos of him meeting with world leaders from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the Dalai Lama, Pope John Paul II, Brazilian soccer legend Pele and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. The site says his non-profit groups include the World Health Foundation for Development and Peace, Heartnet International and Gota de Miel (Drop of Honey), which aids orphanages in Latin America.

A federal grand jury indictment accuses Warter of knowingly sending about $1 million in inflated bills to Medicaid, the Hawaii Medical Service Association and TRICARE, a federally funded program that provides care to military personnel. It alleges he overbilled for sessions that didn't last as long as he claimed, and even billed for sessions when he wasn't physically in the state of Hawaii, pocketing more than $530,000 that he wasn't completely entitled to.

In addition to the federal indictment, Warter was charged in August 2009 with 37 state felonies accusing him of medicare fraud, each punishable by up to five years in prison. This February he surrendered his medical license for failure to comply with professional conduct laws, said Connie Cabral, director of the Hawaii Medical Board.

Argentine police said Warter, who is married and has four children, has been living for more than a year in Argentina. A woman answering his phone in Buenos Aires refused to comment Tuesday.

Jim Carter, listed by Warter as a U.S. contact for his seminars, said the arrest "has got me flabbergasted."

"Everything I've done with him has been on the up and up, and he's made a big positive impact on my life. I'm sure a lot of other people will say the same thing," said Carter, who lives in the Lansing, Mich., area and began following Warter's advice years ago.

"His day job is psycotherapy and the other stuff he does is life coaching, with a spiritual bent," Carter said. "A lot of his work is showing people how their ego is interfering, and to get that out of the way so their essence can grow."

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Associated Press writers Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires and Jennifer Kelleher and Mark Niesse in Honolulu contributed to this report.

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Ex-congressman Ed Case jumps into Hawaii Senate race

In a statement posted Sunday on his campaign website, Case said his own polling shows he would prevail against Lingle.

"I know I can serve Hawaii and our country well in the U.S. Senate, know we can mount a solid statewide campaign (and) know we have a good chance of prevailing," Case said.

Case was first elected to the U.S. House in 2002 but gave up his seat to mount an upstart, intraparty primary bid Akaka. Case lost that race and dropped out of a race last year for a special election in the 1st Congressional District.

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4 dead in Hawaii warehouse accident, fire

4 dead in Hawaii fireworks storage explosion, official says By the CNN Wire Staff STORY HIGHLIGHTSNEW: Two bodies are recovered after explosion, fireFour people are killed in accident, a spokeswoman for the mayor says The explosion occurred at a warehouse in an industrial area near Honolulu (CNN) -- An explosion at a Hawaii storage facility that housed fireworks left four people dead Friday, the Honolulu Police Department said.

The incident occurred around 9 a.m. (3 p.m. ET) Friday at a Waikele facility, police said in a statement.

The storage unit was being used by a licensed explosives company that was contracted to stabilize and destroy fireworks that had been seized as evidence, police said.

"This incident is a tragic reminder of how dangerous fireworks can be, even when handled by experts," police said.

Fire and police personnel, along with agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, were on the scene in an industrial section outside of the city, said Louise McCoy, a spokeswoman for the mayor's office.

A fire was still burning hours later, she said.

Three men in their 20s and a man in his 50s died, police said. Two other men in their 20s were injured, one critically.

Two bodies had been recovered, police said, adding the fire must burn out before they can enter the unit to recover the others.

CNN's Greg Morrison contributed to this report.

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Hawaii may get Japan tsunami trash

Researchers: Hawaii may get hit with trash from Japan's tsunami By Brian Walker, CNN STORY HIGHLIGHTSResearchers create a simulation of how the trash will move in the Pacific OceanTrash should begin washing up on beaches in Hawaii within a year, the simulation showsIt will then hit parts of Canada, Oregon, Washington and California in 2014, the simulation showsRELATED TOPICSJapanHawaiiGreat Pacific Garbage Patch (CNN) -- The Hawaiian islands may get a new and unwelcome addition in coming months -- a giant new island of debris floating in from Japan.

Researchers in Hawaii have created a simulation showing exactly how the houses, tires, chemicals and trees washed to sea by the March 11 tsunami will float across the Pacific and eventually hit the U.S. coast.

The team, led by Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner at the International Pacific Research Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa have spent years preparing computer models by following real world observations of floating buoys, according to a statement.

The first wave should begin washing up on beaches in Hawaii within a year, the simulation shows.

After it passes Hawaii it should begin hitting beaches stretching from Vancouver down through Oregon, Washington and to the tip of Baja California in 2014, before bouncing back toward Hawaii for a second impact.

That second impact five years from now could be even more concentrated and harmful to Hawaii's beaches and reefs, the researchers found.

The flotsam and trash eventually makes its way into what's called the North Pacific Garbage Patch, a sort of circulating whirlpool of garbage hundreds of miles in diameter.

There it eventually decomposes and breaks up in collisions over many years.

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