WASHINGTON (AP) — Investigators are trying to determine if a mysterious “Fallen Angel” who sent two threatening letters containing ricin last fall is responsible for the deadly poison that turned up in the Senate this week. The earlier typewritten letters addressed to the White House and Transportation Department warned that more ricin would be used unless new federal trucking regulations were scrapped. The change in 60-year-old rules governing how often truck drivers must rest went into effect Jan. 4. Three senior federal law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity Wednesday, said the FBI and Capitol Police Department were investigating the possibility that the same person or persons sent ricin-laced mail to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

(AP) - John Kerry’s chief rivals all but ceded three weekend elections to the high-striding presidential front-runner on Wednesday, covering their retreat with fresh claims that he is a flip-flopping Washington insider who would lead the party to defeat this fall. Southern natives John Edwards and Wesley Clark pointed their cash-strapped campaigns to next Tuesday’s elections in Tennessee and Virginia, gambling that they can survive to fight Kerry in Wisconsin Feb. 17. A third challenger, Howard Dean, also had his sights set on a Wisconsin showdown.

CAMERON — Two men were rescued after one wall of the 10-foot deep trench they were working in beside State Highway 36 in Cameron collapsed about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. Both men were treated and released after being flown to Scott and White Memorial Hospital in Temple.

LITTLE RIVER-ACADEMY — The last mountain lion killed in Bell County is said to have met his end near Holland when a farmer with a .22-caliber rifle shot the big cat in a chicken coop more than 40 years ago. Since then, area farmers and ranchers regularly report seeing mountain lions or “black panthers” on their property. Bell County trapper Gary Silvers estimates he receives 20 to 30 calls a year about mountain lion sightings or kills in a year. He remains adamantly skeptical.

FORT HOOD — Pfc. Michelle Loftus, 19, an Army medic wounded in July when her convoy came under attack near Baghdad International Airport in Iraq, said the trauma of her injuries was not the hardest part of the ordeal. “Of all the things I had to deal with, telling my parents I had been wounded in action was the hardest of all,” she said.

TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) — A senior U.S. commander said Wednesday that recent attacks in Iraq are the work of groups seeking to sabotage — or gain leverage in — a future independent Iraqi government that is due to take power by July. Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of Fort Hood’s 4th Infantry Division, also predicted that coalition forces would be able to crush the insurgency within a year, despite continued American losses since the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam Hussein.

BELTON

Temple High School football standouts Chris Barry, Julius Thomas, and Tony Troup will go separate ways when they head off to play in college

PLANO

(AP)

BELTON

BELTON