Negotiator says spear rest will be here this year
Hawaii's sacred ki'i aumakua still isn't back, but the ancient spear rest is at least inching its way home from Rhode Island after almost 200 years.A month ago, native Hawaiians negotiating with the mayor of Providence, R.I., thought a compromise would be reached within days to bring back the wooden artifact.
It's believed to contain the spirit of an ancient warrior chief and to be vital to religious practices.
But Linda Delaney, a negotiator and former land officer for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, said a proposed settlement is now passing through various government agencies and citizens' groups for review and approval. It will eventually end up in a federal court in Rhode Island for final approval.
Court date set for comedian who faces gambling charges
Comedian Mel Cabang has been rescheduled to appear in federal court Monday to answer charges that he allegedly ran a sports betting operation and filed false income tax returns."He has every intention to address the charges," Pamela Tamashiro, his court-appointed attorney, said yesterday after a hearing in which he and five others were to be arraigned.
Federal officials have alleged that Cabang ran the operation out of his Kamaole Street home in Kalama Valley from 1991 to 1995, and that it was one of the largest in the state with daily profits of $300 to $500 during football and basketball seasons.
Tamashiro said Cabang was out of town when a penal summons was issued April 8 and returned to Honolulu late Tuesday.
She said Cabang was concerned about the charges, but that she hadn't discussed a defense with him.
Tamashiro said she was contacted Tuesday by federal court to represent Cabang, who still needs to qualify for public assistance for an attorney.
A federal grand jury April 8 indicted Cabang on 77 criminal counts, including conspiring to operate and operating a sports bookmaking organization, filing false income tax returns from 1991 to 1995, money laundering and using a telephone to further a gambling operation.
The government alleged that Cabang reported his income for the five years of his operation as $112,517 but should have reported $602,476.
Doctors sue auto insurers, arguing default on payments
More than 200 health-care providers have filed a lawsuit alleging automobile no-fault insurance carriers failed to compensate them fully for services to patients from 1993-97.During that 60-month period, the state no-fault law limited what providers could charge for services and required them to bill the insurance carriers.
The companies were given 30 days to submit any billing disputes to the insurance commissioner for independent review.
If they did not do that, the law presumed the bill would be paid in full.
The suit filed yesterday in Circuit Court by attorney Guy Sibilla alleges that, rather than submit disputed billings for review, the carriers downgraded the codings used to describe the services to reduce their payments to providers.
"Thousands of bills were not submitted to the insurance commissioner," Sibilla said.
"During the five years that this process of submitting treatment care to the insurance commissioner was in effect, there were 22,000 challenges filed by insurance companies to doctors willing to give more care.
"Of the 22,000, there were only 660 challenges (taken to the insurance commissioner). So we know the carriers were aware of the process but decided they didn't want to take these billing dispute matters to the insurance commissioner.
"They just cut the bills and got away with it for a long time."
Tim Dayton, general manager of GEICO insurance company in Hawaii, says the allegations are absurd.
Abandoned nets are Waianae cleanup target
It's cleanup time tomorrow in waters off Waianae.The state Department of Land and Natural Resources joins with fishermen, divers, high school students and others to remove three large abandoned nets from offshore reefs.
The ghost nets are destroying marine life, the department says.
These fishing or cargo nets will be removed in an afternoon effort. In recent times the state Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement has retrieved several miles' worth of abandoned nets in Oahu waters.
Last December, 4,000 feet of net was removed from the West Loch of Pearl Harbor, and in January, 2,500 feet was removed.
Small antelopes join zoo's savanna exhibit
A pair of small klipspringer antelopes has joined the population of African savanna animals at Honolulu Zoo.The two are a male purchased from the Dallas Zoo, where he was born in February 1997, and a female born in Dallas in 1995, now on loan to Honolulu from the Philadelphia Zoo.
'Remember Waco' rally to be held tomorrow
A group called Hawaii Committee for Waco Justice plans to hold a demonstration at the Kuhio Federal Building at 4 p.m. tomorrow."Remember Waco, April 19, 1993" will review events leading to a fire that took at least 75 lives after federal agents took steps to close the operation of the Branch Davidians, who were led by David Koresh. A 51-day confrontation between the Branch Davidians and federal forces near Waco, Texas, ended with the apparent mass suicide of dozens of members, including Koresh.
Debate will pit skeptic vs. 'faithful' physicist
Victor Stenger, a University of Hawaii astronomy and physics professor known as the "Debunker of the Paranormal," will debate a South African physicist and Christian known as the "Defender of Faith" at 7 p.m. tomorrow in Bilger Auditorium 152 at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.Stenger, author of "Physics and Psychics," has been unsuccessfully sued by psychics four times. Lawrence Alberts, a distinguished Fellow of the British Institute of Physics, wrote "Christianity and the Enquiring Mind."
Alberts, past vice chairman of the atomic energy board and past chairman of the South African Academy of Science and Arts, also will present a lecture called "To an Unknown God" 7 p.m. Saturday at Bilger Auditorium 152.
Both events, sponsored by Hawaii Youth for Christ, are free and open to the public. For more information, call 836-0600.
See expanded coverage in today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
See our [Search] [Info] section for subscription information.
Police/Fire
By Star-Bulletin staffHorse flips onto man in Waianae, killing him
A 45-year-old man died yesterday when his horse flipped on top of him in Waianae.The man was practicing "dally roping" with his horse on Puuhulu Road at 4 p.m., police said. At one point, the horse flipped, pinning the man to the ground.
The man was taken to Waianae Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m.
Police arrest two men in separate sex assaults
Police yesterday arrested a 29-year-old Waikiki man in the rape of a visitor from Japan.The woman, 21, met the man on the beach and agreed to have dinner and sing karaoke with him, police said. She later went back to his Ala Wai Boulevard apartment.
At the apartment, the man allegedly refused to let her leave and raped her at 3 a.m., police said.
He was booked for first-degree sexual assault.
In an unrelated case, police arrested an Aiea Heights man in connection with last month's rape of a woman at Dole Community Park.
The 39-year-old man is a former boyfriend of the 34-year-old woman, police said. On March 30, the man reportedly took the woman to the park, hit her, removed her clothes and raped her.
Makaloa Street blaze set by apartment stove
A stove that was left on caused a 20th-floor apartment fire yesterday at 1655 Makaloa St.No one was hurt in the 8:13 a.m. blaze, which did an estimated $60,000 worth of damage to the building and $10,000 to contents.
Firefighters brought the fire in Unit 2012 under control at 8:15 and extinguished it at 8:27.
Maui man faces charges on child pornography
WAILUKU -- A 20-year-old Pukalani man was being held for allegedly distributing child pornography over the Internet.Bail for Joshua Knepper was set at $30,000.
Knepper is charged with 30 counts of second-degree promotion of child abuse for the alleged distribution of pornography.
See expanded coverage in today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
See our [Search] [Info] section for subscription information.
