Around the Nation

CALIFORNIA

Schwarzenegger may raise taxes

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hinted that raising taxes may be unavoidable, acknowledging that he is under extreme pressure to offset a $14 billion budget shortfall.

Mr. Schwarzenegger has opposed raising taxes. His first official act after taking office was to roll back the much-criticized $4 billion increase in the car tax.

In interviews Tuesday, Mr. Schwarzenegger did not rule out a tax increase, but said an increase would punish ordinary Californians for the state’s mistake of overspending.

CONNECTICUT

Southbound lanes of Interstate 95 reopen

BRIDGEPORT — The section of Interstate 95 that was shut down a week ago after a fiery tanker crash was fully reopened in time for yesterday morning’s commute.

Crews had worked Tuesday and throughout the night to pave a temporary bridge to replace an overpass that was destroyed by the crash.

The section of I-95 — the main highway between New York and Boston — was heavily damaged when a tanker truck carrying heating oil struck a concrete barrier March 25 and burst into flames. The fire burned for two hours at temperatures hot enough to cause the structural steel in the overpass to sag.

ALASKA

Dog saves family in mobile-home fire

ANCHORAGE — Had it not been for Bricky’s barking, Erica Porter and her two young daughters might not be alive.

On Tuesday morning, Miss Porter, 17, was napping with her 1-month-old and 14-month-old in a back bedroom of her rented mobile home when Bricky, a tiny female Brussels griffon, began barking wildly, she said.

Miss Porter rushed to the living room and found flames reaching through a door that led to the garage.

“I ran back to the back and got my daughters and their blankets and the car seat,” Miss Porter said. She escaped out a side door and ran to a neighbor’s to call 911.

But Bricky herself didn’t make it. Her body was found in a back bedroom, fire officials said.

COLORADO

400-acre wildfire forces evacuations

FORT COLLINS — A wildfire that has grown to 400 acres forced authorities to order evacuations of eight homes yesterday and put residents of a dozen more on alert.

Embers from a small yard fire are thought to have started the blaze Tuesday. Helicopters and 40 firefighters are battling the state’s first big wildfire of the season, and more fire crews and air tankers have been ordered to the scene west of Fort Collins.

Warm, dry weather has left trees and grass susceptible to wildfires, and temperatures of nearly 80 degrees with strong winds were forecast yesterday.

FLORIDA

Man sues airline for giving him liquor

MIAMI — A man who fell on an escalator at a Florida airport after drinking on a flight has filed suit against USAirways for not having warned him of the dangers of in-flight alcohol consumption, local media reported.

Floyd Schuler, 61, filed suit in Fort Myers, seeking damages of at least $15,000, the Naples Daily News reported.

“US Airways failed to warn [Mr. Schuler] and its other passengers of the increased effect that consumption of alcoholic beverages has on airline passengers who consume alcoholic beverages while in flight and while flying at night,” according to the lawsuit.

ILLINOIS

City agrees to pay in wrongful conviction

CHICAGO — City officials approved a $1.2 million settlement for a man who spent 111/2 years in prison for a murder he could not have committed because he was in police custody at the time.

Miguel Castillo, 49, whose conviction was overturned in 2000, sued the city and three police officers he accused of framing him and beating him.

He had been sentenced to 48 years in prison for the 1988 killing. After his conviction was overturned, prosecutors dropped the charges against him, and he was pardoned last year by Gov. George Ryan.

The City Council’s Finance Committee voted unanimously Monday to settle the lawsuit, even though city officials denied that Mr. Castillo was framed.

KENTUCKY

Group wants changesin Methodist trials

WILMORE — United Methodists who oppose ordaining homosexual clerics are accusing a jury in a church trial of ignoring the denomination’s law by acquitting a lesbian pastor and want church leaders to take action at an upcoming national meeting.

Good News, a group just outside Lexington that represents evangelical Methodists, is asking for a review by the Judicial Council — the denomination’s top court — of the church trial and verdict in the case of the Rev. Karen Dammann. Good News also wants changes that would “close loopholes” in judicial proceedings.

In March, a jury of 13 Methodist pastors acquitted Miss Dammann of violating a church ban on ordaining “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals.”

NEBRASKA

Boy locked in safe rescued after hour

KEARNEY — A 14-month-old boy spent about an hour locked in an enormous safe that his parents had converted into his nursery.

“It seemed like five hours,” said the boy’s mother, Elizabeth Bond. “I was panicked.”

Dustin and Elizabeth Bond moved their family into the house two months ago. The Bonds said when they bought the house, the previous owner told them the safe’s lock was disabled.

The 8-foot-by-10-foot safe has a ventilation system and the lights are controlled from the outside. In a stroke of luck, locksmith Lee Rowedder got the door open using a combination that is commonly coded into safes like the one in the Bonds’ house.

MICHIGAN

Bomb scare grounds 4 Northwest flights

ROMULUS — Four Northwest Airlines flights were temporarily grounded in a bomb scare, the Detroit News reported yesterday.

Three of the grounded domestic flights had connections to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, officials said.

Searches of the planes, passengers and luggage came up empty, and after about five hours, the flights continued, federal officials said.

Unlike earlier security mistakes that brought airports to a standstill in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks, Tuesday’s scare raised barely a ripple through the rest of Detroit Metro.

Passengers of other flights were unaware of the hubbub, and authorities did not disclose details of the bomb threat.

MINNESOTA

Teen in beating death to be tried as adult

MINNEAPOLIS — A teenager should stand trial as an adult in the beating death of a legally blind man, the Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled.

In its opinion, the court affirmed Cass County District Judge John Smith’s decision to certify Jesse Royal Tapio, now 18, as an adult to face charges in the killing of Darrell Bisson in 2002.

Mr. Bisson, 48, an albino who was legally blind since birth, was bludgeoned with an ax handle on the night of Nov. 29, 2002, while walking his dog.

Mr. Tapio and George Boswell, both 16 at the time, and Darryl Johnson, then 17, were charged with murder. Witnesses said they saw the three shoving and punching Mr. Bisson and saw Mr. Tapio beat him with an ax handle that Mr. Bisson carried for protection.

The attack happened shortly after the boys left a party, where there was alcohol, cocaine, marijuana and other drugs.

NEVADA

Jury backs execution for double killing

LAS VEGAS — A jury recommended yesterday the death sentence for a man convicted of killing two women and wounding a third by shooting all three in the head in the desert.

Alfonso “Slinkey” Blake, 34, had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Under Nevada law, the judge has little discretion once the jury recommends the death penalty. Blake would be the 85th person on Nevada’s death row. The same jury convicted Blake last week for the March 5, 2003, shootings.

Prosecutors said Blake was enraged with the women because they decided against moving into his home. Blake planned to live off their earnings as strippers, prosecutors said.

NEW MEXICO

Scientists track down radiation reports

ALBUQUERQUE — David Mercer never knows when he’ll get his next 2 a.m. phone call that someone’s Geiger counter is clicking.

The Los Alamos scientist spends about a week each month on call, helping U.S. customs inspectors, the FBI and the Department of Energy identify mysterious sources of radiation. The goal is to protect the country from terrorists who might bring in a nuclear weapon.

Mr. Mercer and a group of about 50 scientists from Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories all spend time on call answering radiation questions from various agencies. It’s something they volunteer for, outside their regular scientific jobs at the labs.

The scientists are part of two programs started after the September 11 attacks to protect the United States from terrorists.

The first started in January 2002 and is called the radiological triage program. It supports the FBI, Department of Defense, police, fire and other agencies.

The second started in August 2003 and is called the secondary reachback program. It supports the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection lab, which in turn supports frontline customs officers.

NEW YORK

Doctors say they fear partial-birth law

NEW YORK — Lawyers fighting a federal ban on partial-birth abortion are putting doctors on the stand who say they fear being prosecuted or losing what is sometimes their safest alternative.

The doctors testifying at three closely watched trials across the nation say they disagree with many of the conclusions reached by legislators who passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act before President Bush signed it into law in November.

Government lawyers say the law protects fetuses from pain during abortion procedures that usually involve crushing the soft skull or draining brain tissue to shrink the fetus to a size in which it can be pulled from the body, usually in the second trimester.

Doctors, though, say the procedures decrease the frequency of surgical instrument insertions into a woman, eliminate the dangers that parts of a broken fetus might be left behind and give couples an intact fetus to grieve over.

OHIO

Police chief accused of assaulting teen

WARREN — A part-time police chief has been suspended after a lawsuit accused him of assaulting a teenager by paddling the boy as part of a crime-diversion program for a speeding ticket.

Carol Woolf of Vienna said she initially agreed to let her 16-year-old son be paddled, then refused to have him return for 14 more sessions because of the welts he suffered.

James Martin was suspended as part-time police chief of Fowler Township and also as a full-time police officer in nearby Howland Township, pending investigations by state officials and the FBI. No charges have been filed.

Howland Township disciplined the officer more than a decade ago after he admitted paddling about 20 juveniles.

OKLAHOMA

Witness ties drill bit to Nichols’ home

McALESTER — A drill bit found in Terry Nichols’ home was used to drill a hole in a lock at a quarry where explosives like those used in the Oklahoma City bombing were stolen, a witness testified yesterday at Nichols’ state murder trial.

James Cadigan, a retired FBI tool-mark examiner, is the latest witness to be questioned by prosecutors seeking to link Nichols to the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 persons.

Mr. Cadigan said the one-quarter-inch drill bit made the same distinctive markings as those found in a drilled hole in a padlock found at a Martin Marietta quarry near Marion, Kan., where detonation cord and blasting caps were stolen less than seven months before the bombing.

FBI Agent Thomas Brown of Wichita, Kan., testified that he seized a cordless drill from Nichols’ basement in Kansas during a search three days after the bombing. The quarry was 25 miles from Nichols’ home in Herington, Kan.

TEXAS

Pharmacist refuses birth-control order

DALLAS — A Texas woman plans to file a complaint against a pharmacist who refused to fill her prescription for birth-control pills because of moral objections.

Julee Lacey said a new pharmacist at her local CVS pharmacy in North Richland Hills refused to refill her prescription last Sunday, the Dallas Morning News reported.

According to her account in the News, the pharmacist said, “I’m sorry, but I personally do not believe in birth control, so I will not fill your prescription.”

A CVS spokesman told KXAS-TV that a pharmacist who won’t file a prescription because of moral beliefs should ask another pharmacist to do it or refer the customer to another store.

The Texas State Board of Pharmacy said pharmacists may decline to file prescriptions if the drugs might harm patients, but not on moral grounds.