The Temple school board is pleased with the performance of interim superintendent Dr. Dana Marable and would consider her as a possible candidate for the permanent position, according to board president Steve Wright. “If in fact we go to a search she will apply and she will get every consideration for a permanent position,” Wright said on Thursday.

Temple resident Andrea Marshall said the city´s tree giveaway was well-timed for her as she has plans to build a house for her parents on her treeless lot. “When I saw a brochure about the tree program I thought this was perfect,” she said.

The deadline for Bell County households to register for disaster assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency has come and gone. Monday was the final day for households to register for relief aid from storms and flooding between June 16 and Aug. 3.

WASHINGTON POST DESHTETEK, Iraq - The last three women left this tiny hamlet on Monday, carrying no more than their clothes and prayers. They joined 250 villagers who fled in the past two weeks, locking their homes and their yellow church and driving away on a desolate road scarred by war. Only 11 men remain, their lands separated from Turkey by a thin, emerald river winding through a fertile valley.

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. - When arson investigators went looking for the person who set a blaze that scorched 60 square miles and destroyed 21 homes, Linda Conner says she knew right where to send them. Minutes after the fire broke out, Conner said, she had raced up a hill toward the source of the flames. At the top, she saw a stunned-looking 10-year-old boy and his parents frantically trying to beat the flames down with towels.

Gov. Rick Perry announced at 1 p.m. today in Temple that he was giving Scott & White Cancer Research Institute $7.5 million to help accelerate research to find a cure for cancer. Dr. Arthur Frankel, director of Hematology/Oncology, and Dr. Alfred B. Knight, CEO and president, accepted the gift on behalf of Scott & White.

In its first game of the season, the Temple College men´s basketball team made only five 3-point shots, missed 14 free throws, committed 27 turnovers and got just 14 points from its two point guards. Coach Kirby Johnson can take solace in the fact that his Leopards still managed to win by 52 points.

BELTON - College Station A&M Consolidated is playoff bound. Belton is pretty much not. But when the teams meet at Tiger Field at 7:30 p.m. today, the Belton Tigers are going to pull out all the stops to end their season with an upset of the Consolidated Tigers in a District 13-5A game.

ROCKDALE - “I don´t think it matters what the ramifications are when we play each other. There´s a little extra hatred or fun. It´s just a good, old Texas high school rivalry. This is what it´s all about.” Those are the words of Rockdale coach Jeff Miller, and they paint a clear picture of one of the area´s biggest rivalries.

BELTON - Call it fate, providence or kismet. Either way, the fact is that Joel Munoz was in the right place at the right time when Lady Luck came calling. A soccer player who had never kicked a football heading into his freshman year of high school at Ferris, Munoz received a proposition that he made the most of.

LOS ANGELES - Joe Torre grew up in Brooklyn rooting against the Dodgers. Now, a half-century after they moved west, he´s their manager. Torre was hired by the Los Angeles Dodgers to succeed Grady Little on Thursday, taking the job two weeks after walking away from the New York Yankees.