Sunshine

After standing still for several wedding photos, Lisa Ley, 11, can't resist the lure of the mild, sunny weather. She was being playful with the help of a tree in the Azalea Garden near the Art Museum. The weather will be unseasonably warm for several more days. Today's high could reach the record of 73.

Gary Abraham and Davy Harwi work on a garden they've grown on what was a vacant lot in the 1600 block of Wallace Street. If nothing else it, the hibiscus seem to be benefitting from the seemingly unrelenting sun. Bet there's more on the way.

The annual RiverBlues festival opened in perfect weather yesterday at Penn's Landing, drawing thousands to savor the blues and the sunshine. The two-day festival ends today, running from noon to 10 p.m. Nearly 20 performances are scheduled, including the Staple Singers, Magic Slim, Popa Chubby, and, at 8:30 tonight, Little Feat.

Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantees of those practiced in our own country. . . .There are those who say to you, "We are rushing this issue of human rights. " I say we are 172 years late. There are those who say, "This issue of civil rights is an infringement on states' rights. " The time has arrived for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.

After she ignited a furor a year ago with charges that her ex-cop husband had been misusing money meant for terminally ill children, Helene Sample, the former wife of Sunshine Foundation President Bill Sample, moved to Port Orange, Fla. In a conversation with a Daily News reporter Wednesday, the former executive vice president of Sunshine said she was happy. Her son was living with her in their newly redecorated house. She had old and new friends nearby and a new man in her life.

Hovering somewhere between soft-core porn and chick lit, Sunshine is really just a string of mindless clich?s. This long one-act launches New City Stage's season of three plays by William Mastrosimone - the next is his famous play Extremities, with the same actress, Ginger Dayle, in the lead; if Sunshine is anything to judge by, there are grim times ahead. Sunshine is the nickname of a peep-show worker, the woman behind the glass who does whatever the men on the other side of the glass want her to do - except leave the booth and actually have sex with them.

The early word on "Sunshine Cleaning" is that it's a derivative indie/quirky in the "Little Miss Sunshine" mode. It's produced by the same people, it's got the "Sunshine" brand right there in the title, and it's got Alan Arkin as the kooky grandpa. But it's not fair to dismiss Sunshine as a retread of "Little Miss Sunshine. " Because it's also a retread of the my-sister's-a-nightmare-in-black-eyeliner movie (see "Rachel Getting Married"). So it's every overhyped indie you've seen, and maybe didn't like, and yet it's often quite likable.

What do you get when you mix one part pain with an equal part of sunshine? Maybe - just maybe - you get some sanity in Philadelphia's city budget-making process. For years, Wilson Goode has pretended he is the best manager of any city in the country. He has implied that all he needed was a little more money and a little more time, and the city's problems would disappear. Well, those days are gone. In an almost unprecedented series of open meetings, the sun is finally shining on the full scope of the city's problems.

"He's my sunshine," are the heartfelt words Tyron's foster mother uses to describe his nature. "He's very loving and in tune with himself. "He can sit quietly, for long periods of time, drawing or reading," she continues, "or he'll be outside playing basketball, football, dodge ball, baseball and kickball. He plays hard and sleeps well. " Tyron, 10, has made a happy adjustment in this foster home after living in a number of other places. Despite neglect and deprivation in his background, he is progressing well emotionally with the help of a therapist.

Members of the Perkasie Borough Council violated the state Sunshine Act last month because of "an innocent mistake," a Bucks County grand jury concluded in a report released Thursday. The elected officials will not be held liable for the violation because they had been advised incorrectly by Borough Manager Daniel Olpere and Solicitor Nathan Fox, county District Attorney David Heckler said. "This was nothing but an innocent mistake," Heckler said, although "the solicitor and a manager as experienced as Mr. Olpere should have known better," Only elected officials can be penalized for violations, with fines of $100 to $1,000 per person for a first offense, Heckler said at a news conference in his Doylestown office.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Four weeks ago, Pennsylvania State University's board of trustees met hurriedly to fire longtime football coach Joe Paterno, accept president Graham B. Spanier's resignation, and name provost Rodney Erickson as the university's new president. But questions arose about whether the board had complied with the state's Sunshine Act, because there was no evidence of required public votes on the matters. So the executive committee - nine of the 32 board members - decided to hold a brief telephone conference call Friday morning to resolve questions and formally approve those three major decisions.

1. Oh happy day! It's time for the part of college football that you all love - the release of the first Bowl Championship Series standings of the season on Sunday. The number of unbeaten teams is at a robust 13 entering Saturday's action, but unless there are any shockers during the day, the top three, in some order, will be Oklahoma, Louisiana State, and Alabama. The initial standings are a lousy predictor. In the 13 years of the BCS, only once - Texas and Southern California in 2005 - have the top two teams in the first week reached the national championship game.

The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office is poring over a pile of lively e-mails that Evesham Township officials sent to one another in the spring after residents began questioning a helipad project proposed by a politically connected insurance firm. Robert Bernardi, the county's top law enforcement official, is trying to determine whether the private chat among the mayor, Township Council members, town manager, clerk, and solicitor via smartphones and laptops was a discussion that should have been aired at a public meeting.

POINT PLEASANT BEACH, N.J. - Warm sunshine, hot rock-and-roll, and cold beer got the holiday weekend started in New Jersey - all before 8 a.m. By the time the day was over, a daredevil had ridden a motorcycle over the Atlantic City Boardwalk to the third floor of a casino, business people had marched into the surf clutching briefcases in Ocean City, and other more traditional rituals - such as sitting in traffic, firing up the barbecue, and...

OSAMA BIN LADEN, in death as in life, is affecting U.S. politics. The ballsy mission to gun down and grab the notorious al Qaeda founder boosts Barack Obama at a time that the president needs it. It provides a positive political push on at least three levels. First, the carefully planned hit, carried out in secrecy near an elite military academy described as the West Point of Pakistan (does anyone think Pakistan wasn't helping hide this guy?), counters suggestions that the president tends to be tentative, soft or unprepared.

It's game day, and the boys from New Port Richey are geared up for some fun in the sun. They're headed to Clearwater to catch the ball game. They can't wait to get to Bright House Field to see the Fightin' Phils do their thing. They've been making the near hourlong trip for more than five years. Heading south on U.S. Route 19, the senior posse is traveling in luxury in a big, old Caddy driven by the newest member of the carpool. As usual, they arrive about three hours before game time.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - This is why pennants aren't won in December, why world championships aren't won in January. This is why even the most sturdy-looking rosters in February and March are subject to the whims and caprice of fate that can impact everything that happens after that. Chase Utley stood and talked in the leftfield corner of a nearly deserted Bright House Field for 8 minutes yesterday morning. The buses taking the players who were traveling to Lakeland for the scheduled exhibition game against the Detroit Tigers had long since departed.