National and State News-Tuesday, June 26th

CAPITOL HILL (AP) - President Bush's Iraq policy has lost a key Republican backer. Indiana Senator Richard Lugar says current Iraq strategy is not working and that the military's role needs shrinking. Lugar says the costs of staying the course outweigh the benefits.

CAPITOL HILL (AP) - There's a big test in the Senate today for the White House-backed immigration reform compromise. Supporters need 60 votes to keep the bill moving. Critics say it doesn't do enough for border security and amounts to amnesty for (m) millions of illegal immigrants.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - She smiled, she waved and then disappeared inside her parents' S-U-V to a storm of photographers' flashbulbs. Hotel heiress Paris Hilton was released from the Los Angeles County jail this morning after serving about three weeks. Hilton violated
probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.

MEYERS, Calif. (AP) - Many hotels have offered free rooms to families fleeing a raging wildfire near Lake Tahoe in California. Forestry officials say it could be Sunday before it's contained.
The blaze has destroyed more than 200 buildings and forced hundreds of residents to flee.

CANTON, Ohio (AP) - The Ohio police officer accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend made his first court appearance Monday in Canton. Bobby Cutts Junior was ordered held on five (m) million dollars' bond. Cutts showed no expression as a judge reviewed his case.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - House Democrats are pushing for a plan to pump hundreds of (m) millions of dollars annually into mass transit and to fix potholed roadways and crumbling bridges. The proposal's linchpin is the addition of tolls to some 300 miles of Interstate 80.
The multifaceted proposal is being pressed as a companion to the state budget legislation.
The sponsor, Majority Whip Keith McCall, says it would require more money from counties and municipalities in order to get a larger state transit subsidy. But it would also give them new taxing authority to generate that greater matching share. The plan's goal is to bring in about 720 (M) million dollars in new highway, bridge and transit funding next year, an amount that
would rise to about one billion dollars by 2016-17. Tolls on Interstate-80 would begin in 2010.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Senators have carved loopholes into legislation to ban smoking in many public and work places in Pennsylvania. After two hours of debate, they voted 29-to-21 to insert partial or complete exemptions for slot-machine parlors, private clubs, bars and cigar bars. That vote sets up the newly changed bill for a final vote as early as today. Debate on the bill revolved around protecting public health versus preserving individual liberties. Opponents of the exemptions criticized them as watering down the legislation. It would also upend the smoking ban put in place last year in Philadelphia, which banned smoking in casinos, restaurants and most bars.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The Philadelphia fire marshal says last week's seven-alarm fire in a vacant warehouse was arson. The building in the city's Kensington neighborhood was up for
sheriff's sale. It was caught in a dispute between two city-run agencies. One wanted the building torn down and the other was trying to get a developer to fix it up. Six families lost their homes. About 150 people required help from the Red Cross.

STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP) - A former Monroe County Prison inmate testified that she repeatedly had sex with two guards and became pregnant while serving a stint for disorderly conduct. The woman testified yesterday during the preliminary hearings of 34-year-old Dana Simpson Senior of Tobyhanna and 40-year-old Richard Chilmaza of East Stroudsburg.
A judge upheld institutional sexual assault and other charges against the defendants, who declined comment. They are among six former guards charged in the case, which led
to the resignation of David Keenhold as warden of the 332-bed facility. Keenhold plans to leave as soon as a replacement is found.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Lane Bryant, the women's plus-size clothing retailer based in Columbus, is getting a new leader. Bensalem, -based parent company Charming Shoppes
announced that Lorna Nagler is leaving the company to pursue other interests. She had been Lane Bryant's president since 2004. LuAnn Via now will oversee Lane Bryant and Charming Shoppes' new lingerie business as group divisional president. She'll be Lane Bryant's fourth president since suburban Philadelphia-based Charming Shoppes acquired it from Limited Brands in 2001. Via had been president of Charming Shoppes' Catherines Plus Sizes division.
The company operates 24-hundred stores under the Lane Bryant, Catherines, Fashion Bug and Petite Sophisticate Outlet names.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Critics of The Barnes Foundation's plan to move its world-class art gallery to downtown Philadelphia say the relocation has little do with boosting the foundation's finances. Rather, they say the city just wants its hands on the multibillion-dollar trove of Cezannes, Picassos, Renoirs and van Goghs. The Barnes Foundation has long claimed financial hardship as justification for breaking the will of its late founder and moving the art collection to Philadelphia. Nearly five years after they first proposed a downtown Philadelphia location, Barnes officials last week rejected a 50 (M) million dollar offer to keep the gallery in Lower Merion Township, saying it came far too late to be taken seriously. Montgomery County officials say they will take the Barnes to court in a last-ditch effort to prevent the move.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A federal judge threw out a murderer's death sentence after concluding the Philadelphia man had ineffective counsel and that the jury had been given improper instructions. The judge also ordered a hearing on whether the trial lawyer for 47-year-old Kelvin Morris had a conflict of interest. If the judge finds a conflict of interest, he could overturn Morris' conviction and order a new trial. Morris was sentenced to death in 1987 for fatally shooting Robert McDonald Junior, the manager of a Pep Boys auto-parts store in West Philadelphia. Thirty-four-year-old McDonald of Upper Darby was investigating a broken storefront window when he was shot during a robbery attempt.