MADISON, Wisc. (Reuters) – Republican Governor Scott Walker on Monday gave absent Democratic lawmakers an ultimatum to return to Wisconsin within 24 hours and vote on a proposal to reduce the power of public sector unions or have the state would miss out on a huge debt restructuring.

Wisconsin Democrats meanwhile drew fresh support from President Barack Obama and a big union filed a legal complaint against the governor, as a poll suggested he would lose to his Democratic opponent if the 2010 election were held now.

Walker stepped up the pressure on 14 Senate Democrats who fled the state to avoid a vote on his bill. On Tuesday he will unveil a two-year state budget he said cuts $1 billion from funding to local governments and schools.

What began as one small state trying to rewrite the rules of labor relations has blown up into what could be the biggest confrontation with American labor unions since then-President Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981.

For the second time since the controversy erupted, President Obama weighed into the debate on Monday, criticizing the Wisconsin plan without mentioning it by name.

"I don't think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon," Obama told the nation's governors gathered in Washington.

"We're not going to attract the best teachers for our kids, for example, if they only make a fraction of what other professionals make," the president said.

In response, Walker said through his press secretary that Obama misunderstood the situation, and "most federal employees do not have collective bargaining for wages and benefits while our plan allows it for base pay ... the average federal worker pays twice as much for health insurance as what we are asking."

PROTESTERS SHIVER, STAY WARY OF DEALS

Some pro-union demonstrators continued to occupy the State Capitol building after refusing to leave the previous day, but Wisconsin authorities and police barred most protesters from entering the building on Monday, leaving hundreds massed outside in frigid temperatures.

The American Civil Liberties Union called the closing "presumptively unconstitutional" and urged the Wisconsin Department of Administration to reopen the Capitol Building to the general public.

Officials plan to restrict access again on Tuesday, the day Walker gives his budget address.

"There will be some limited access," said Cullen Werwie, press secretary to Walker. Detailed plans for access will be announced on Tuesday morning.

Hundreds of protesters had occupied the building from February 15, and many were allowed to camp on the marble floors overnight once again on Sunday, defying capitol police.

Walker's budget proposal brought out an estimated 70,000 protesters on Saturday, the biggest protest crowd in the capital since the Vietnam War, and a poll released on Monday suggested that if the 2010 election could be replayed the Wisconsin governor might lose.

The Public Policy Polling survey found Walker's Democratic opponent Tom Barrett now getting 52 percent and Walker 45. Walker won with 52 percent in November. The shift came mainly from union households.

Walker's proposal would require public sector employees to pay more for pensions and health care, strip some of their unions of bargaining rights except for wages up to the rate of inflation, and require yearly union recertification votes.

It was approved by the state Assembly last week but is stalled in the Senate because of the 14 Democrats' absence.

The proposal includes a restructuring of state debt Walker says would save $165 million. He said this deal was in doubt if the Democrats did not return and that could mean more painful and aggressive spending cuts in the very near future.

Under Walker's proposal, Wisconsin's general obligation bonds would be restructured and that would push debt service payments due by March 15 into future years.

Democrats criticized Walker's estimates, quoting a report from a state fiscal analyst saying the restructuring would add more than $42 million of interest payments over the long term.

Walker has said he hoped to delay sending layoff notices to state workers if the legislature makes progress on fixing the budget deficit, according to website wispolitics.com.

But to postpone the layoffs, Walker said it will be necessary that his budget repair bill, including the move to end collective bargaining, go into effect by April 1. There has been speculation he would send out layoff notices to more than 1,000 state workers if no progress was made soon.

In a complaint filed on Monday with a state employment commission, the Wisconsin State Employees Union (WSEU) accused Walker of unfair labor practices for refusing to bargain.

"Instead of trying to find real solutions to the challenges facing the state, the governor is attempting to dictate terms. This not only in ineffective, it's against the law," AFSCME Council 24 Executive Director Marty Beil said in a statement.

The union asked the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission to require the state to bargain with the WSEU and to extend the current contract until the matter is resolved.

(Additional reporting by Stefanie Carano in Madison and Wendell Marsh in Washington; Editing by Jerry Norton)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" movie star Jane Russell, who became a controversial Hollywood sex symbol, died on Monday at the age of 89, her family said.

Russell, best known as the buxom star of 1940s and 1950s movie, died of respiratory failure at her home in Santa Maria, central California, her family said.

"Jane Russell passed away peacefully today at home surrounded by her children at her bedside," Russell's son Buck Waterfield said in a statement.

Russell, who later in life was the "full-figured girl" in television bra ads, was at her best in comedies that, subtly or not, spoofed her sexpot image and focused on her figure.

Multimillionaire producer-industrialist Howard Hughes discovered Russell and put her in her first movie, "The Outlaw," which stuck her with the sexpot image based on her bosom, the bra for which reportedly was size 38-D.

In the photos, the sultry Russell languished on a bed of straw, looking petulant as her tight-fitting peasant blouse slipped off one shoulder. Censors held up "The Outlaw" for almost three years before a limited release in 1943.

"Except for comedy, I went nowhere in the acting department," Russell said in her autobiography. "The truth is that, more often than not, I've been unhappy about the pictures I've been in."

The promotional material was so striking that in one poll Russell was voted "favorite actress" before the voters had even seen her act. Reviews of "The Outlaw" and many of her films were less kind, with one critic calling her "the queen of motionless pictures."

In 1978, she made headlines by being jailed for four days for drunken driving and began her successful battle against alcoholism.

At the age of 60, Russell's figure once again gained the attention of millions -- this time on television screens advertising a brand of bras for "full-figured" women.

Russell once told an interviewer that "Christians have bosoms, too, you know," and in her autobiography she talked about the conflict between her religious faith and her image. She also expressed regret over her extra-marital affairs, her divorce and her alcoholism.

Russell was born June 21, 1921, in Bemidji, Minnesota, and grew up in Southern California's San Fernando Valley.

Bob Hope, who once introduced the actress as "the two and only Miss Russell," teamed with her in 1948 in the Western spoof "The Paleface," which led to a sequel.

In 1953 Russell paired with Marilyn Monroe in her biggest hit, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." "Jane tried to convert me (to religion) and I tried to introduce her to Freud," Monroe said.

Russell also had a hit with Clark Gable in "The Tall Men" in 1955. But many of her movies were quickly forgotten.

In 1952, however, as a dance hall girl in "Montana Belle," Russell sang, which led to a career singing in nightclubs and on television.

By her own account, Russell's marriage to football hero Bob Waterfield was tempestuous. They had no biological children, due to an inept back-alley abortion Russell underwent in her youth, and instead adopted three children.

She divorced Waterfield after 25 years and married actor Roger Barrett but he died three months later. In 1971, Russell married John Peoples, a retired Air Force colonel who died in 1999.

LUBBOCK, Texas (Reuters) – Calmer winds on Monday allowed an airborne assault on West Texas wildfires that destroyed dozens of homes and a dog kennel and forced hundreds of residents to evacuate.

The 50-mile-per-hour winds whipping up the blazes that scorched 120,000 acres of bone-dry grasslands subsided and helicopters and tanker planes supported firefighters on the ground employing trucks and bulldozers. But it may take days to gain control of the several separate fires, authorities said.

"It just takes so long get around those larger fires," the Texas Forest Service's Tom Spencer said.

Fires destroyed 80 homes, many around Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle, the Forest Service said. Evacuations emptied a nursing home in Colorado City and a hospital in San Angelo, and the town of Matador.

"It's just overwhelming, I just panicked," said a woman in the town of 700 who lost her home to the flames.

A 40,000-acre fire licking at the town 80 miles northeast of Lubbock was about 75 percent under control, and Matador reopened to residents on Monday, said John Gonzalez of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

One sheriff's deputy was injured in the Amarillo area, and an unknown number of dogs perished in a kennel fire as firefighters attempted a rescue.

"They stayed as long as they could, and then they just had to open up the kennels," Amarillo Fire Captain Wes Hall said.

Authorities have not determined the cause of the blazes, but the National Weather Service warned tinder-dry conditions would continue through Thursday. Dry conditions in central and southern Texas raised the fire risks there.

A 5-year-old girl died on Sunday in a highway traffic accident near Midland blamed on blinding smoke. Authorities closed a 60-mile stretch of smoke-choked Interstate highway 20 between Odessa and Big Spring, after several pile-ups.

Major fires were reported in five West Texas counties, and a mandatory evacuation order was in place in the panhandle.

Rescue workers drove down dusty back roads to ensure residents were out of the way of the fast-moving flames, said Jim Meador, an official in Motley County.

"The immediate concern right now is the homes that are out in the county, in rural areas, to make sure them folks are all right," Meador said.

(Reporting by Elliott Blackburn in Lubbock and Jim Forsyth in San Antonio; Editing by Andrew Stern and Jerry Norton)