National and State News-Thursday, May 17th

CAPITOL HILL (AP) - The stage will be set today for another round of high-stakes bargaining between congressional Democrats and the White House. The Senate has scheduled a vote on a resolution supporting the troops. It comes after Democrats opposed to the war failed in their bid to cut off Iraq war funding.

BAGHDAD (AP) - The U-S ambassador in Iraq says he's ready to sit down with Iranian negotiators "anytime they like." Iran's foreign minister tells reporters in Pakistan talks about Iraq's security will begin May 28th. The U-S has accused Iran of providing bombs to
militants in Iraq. Tehran denies it.

MIAMI (AP) - Testimony resumes today in Miami at the trial of terror suspect Jose Padilla. One of the prosecution witnesses will be a man sentenced to ten years in prison after pleading guilty to attending al-Qaida camps. He's expected to say Padilla attended one of the same camps.

LITTLE EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) - There's some welcome rain in New Jersey, where firefighters believe they're getting the upper hand on a wildfire that's charred 22 square miles north of Atlantic City. It's 70-percent contained and could be declared under control today.

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A whale of a rescue effort is under way in California's Sacramento River. Biologists are playing the underwater sounds of humpback whales to lure what are believed to be a mother and her calf back toward the ocean. They apparently
got sidetracked during their northward migration.

LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) - A Lancaster County police chief investigating the stabbing deaths of a couple and their teenage son says authorities have "promising" leads in the case. But Manheim Township police are still asking for the public's help in solving Saturday's slayings.
Police chief Neil Harkins says the killer may be injured, possibly with a hand injury. He says the killer may have lied about his or her whereabouts from one a-m to three a-m on Saturday.
That's when Thomas and Lisa Haines and their teenage son, Kevin, were slain.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Just a month ago, Michael Nutter was near the bottom of voter polls in the Philadelphia mayor's race. Yet in Tuesday's election, he won the Democratic nomination with a 12 percentage point lead over the second-place finisher. Randall Miller is a political analyst at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. He says voter frustration with the
"character and direction of the city" apparently worked in Nutter's favor. Nutter pushed for ethics reform legislation in City Council. He was portrayed there and in his political ads as the opposite of Mayor John Street. Miller says Nutter also likely benefited from refusing to back
down when rivals criticized his plan for police to use "stop-and-frisk" tactics to fight crime.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Allegheny County Judge Ron Folino is the Democratic Party's pick for the second nomination for Superior Court. Earlier, Allegheny County lawyer Christine Donohue clinched the other nomination. The Republican nominees are Allegheny County Judge Cheryl Allen and Dauphin County Judge Bruce Bratton. The Democratic and Republican parties each get to nominate two candidates for the pair of open seats.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - For the third time in less than a decade, a proposal to give local school districts the option of lowering residential property taxes -- with a catch -- has fallen flat.
Voters across Pennsylvania overwhelmingly rejected ballot questions asking them to pay a higher local income tax in exchange for lower property taxes. The tax shifts were an option presented by Governor Ed Rendell and state lawmakers to deliver bigger property tax cuts than the state's new slots parlors have promised to deliver as early as next year. Thomas Gentzel of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association says the results show that the property-tax problem can't be solved locally.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - The trial of a McKeesport man charged with sex crimes involving a runaway is postponed. Thomas Hose was due in an Allegheny County courtroom yesterday
to face sex charges involving Tanya Kach. The girl said she was secretly living in Hose's suburban Pittsburgh home for more than a decade. Hose's lawyer said his client is anxious and as recently as two weeks ago wanted to kill himself. Hose was originally supposed to stand trial in February, but that was delayed when he stabbed himself. He's been in a state mental hospital since then. Hose was charged after Kach told a convenience store owner last March that she was on a missing persons Web site. Kach then told police she had been living in Hose's house since she ran away from home ten years earlier.