National and State News-Friday, June 22nd

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senior administration officials tell The Associated Press that President Bush may be about ready to shut down the U-S prison camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They report a growing consensus for closing the camp, which has become notorious around the world.

BAGHDAD (AP) - Soldiers who are part of the newly beefed-up U-S military presence in Iraq are pressing an offensive against insurgents. The military reports 18 more suspected militants have been captured in raids targeting networks of bombers. Those bombs have been taking a heavy toll on Iraqis and Americans.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - Firefighters from all over the nation join the city of Charleston, South Carolina, today at a memorial service for nine firefighters killed in Monday's furniture store fire. Nine-one-one tapes indicate the blaze broke out in a smoke-break area behind the showroom. There's no indication a cigarette caused it.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER (AP) - NASA tries again today to land the space shuttle. Bad weather yesterday waved off attempts to land Atlantis in Florida. There are two opportunities at Florida's Kennedy Space Center today and three at the backup site in California. Atlantis is returning from a mission to the international space station.

TOKYO (AP) - A U-S military search team is trying to wrap up a loose end from history on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. Officials tell The Associated Press they're zeroing in on the cave
where a Marine combat photographer is thought to have been killed. He had filmed the famed raising of the American flag during World War Two.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Party leaders in the state House say they are hopeful a compromise deal is near on funding for the state's massive highway maintenance, bridge repair and mass transit needs. Floor debate over a pending Democratic proposal has been put off until Monday.
Democratic Majority Leader Bill DeWeese says negotiations over the weekend will focus on proposed changes to the makeup of the board that runs the Philadelphia area's transit system and on which new taxes and fees local municipalities will be allowed to impose to raise new money for transit. The framework for a potential compromise emerged last night after a Democratic plan designed to generate an annual 400 million dollars for highways and 500 million dollars for transit ran into staunch Republican opposition. The Democratic plan would add tolls to Interstate 80, require local governments to increase their share of transit costs and
borrow against the future value of Pennsylvania Turnpike toll revenues.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A House committee has endorsed a plan to move Pennsylvania's presidential primary up by ten weeks to February 12th. The bill would fix the date of Pennsylvania's general primary as the second Tuesday in February. Next year, that would include the nomination races for president as well as Congress and the state General Assembly.
The bill would reserve the third Tuesday in May for referendums in school districts that require voter approval for large property-tax increases. That's the same day that Pennsylvania holds
its primaries in non-presidential years.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The board of the company that operates the mid-Atlantic electricity grid is expected to vote today on whether to endorse two major new power transmission
lines. P-J-M Interconnection's board will be voting during a private meeting. One of the proposed new transmission lines would run from West Virginia to Maryland and the other would run from Pennsylvania to New Jersey.

AKRON, Ohio (AP) - An investigator says a Pennsylvania woman accused of hiring her lover to kill her husband exchanged at least 23 phone calls or text messages with him the day her husband was shot to death along the Ohio Turnpike. Forty-eight-year-old Donna Moonda of Hermitage faces the death penalty if she is convicted of hiring her lover, 25-year-old Damian Bradford, to kill her husband, Doctor Gulam Moonda, in May 2005. State Highway Patrol investigator Thomas Halligan used charts, maps and an overhead projector yesterday in federal court in Akron, Ohio, to detail the communications Donna Moonda had with Bradford. Bradford is from Monaca, Pennsylvania. He has pleaded guilty to shooting the doctor and is expected to be the prosecution's key witness against Donna Moonda.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia homicide detectives are investigating the slayings of five people in two shootings. A man and a woman are dead in a shooting in the Kensington
neighborhood of Philadelphia. Another woman was wounded in that attack yesterday. Two suspects are in custody. The afternoon slaying came after three men were shot dead on a single block in North Philadelphia. That happened before dawn yesterday. No arrests were immediately made.