The next stop for the Health and Bioscience District in its quest to begin imposing an ad valorem tax will be with Temple voters if the city council sets a local option election date. The council is considering such a measure during its regular meeting beginning at 5 p.m. today in the Municipal Building.

BELTON - When Don Screws, 74, of Belton lost his home to fire on New Year´s Day, he never dreamed he would be living in the pump house on his property nearly a year later. Screws has many of the comforts of home inside the 10-by-10-foot masonry enclosure - a TV set, mini-refrigerator, electric radiator, shelving, coat hangers and clothing.

Funeral arrangements are pending for a local man who friends and family consider a true American hero. Michael Romain, 48, wasn´t a soldier anymore, but he did give his life for his country.

A Belton horse owner´s bay stallion has won a world championship in the senior category for heading - a roping event - at the American Quarter Horse Association´s World Show this November. Melissa Miller´s 9-year-old quarter horse, Roo Star, was also named most valuable roping horse and won super horse for accumulating most points at the Oklahoma City show.

MUSCAT, Oman - Ordered to get inside and stay down, Oregon tourist Clyde Thornburg heard the pirates´ rifle shots hit the side of the luxury cruise liner - “Pop! Pop! Pop!” - then felt the ship speed up to escape. At this port north of the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden, passengers told The on Wednesday they had been warned of the danger even before they embarked, and the crew used a device that blasted painful high-decibel sound waves to keep the marauders at bay.

GATESVILLE – Megan Lewis-Grant testified today in her capital murder trial in 52nd State District Court. Ms. Lewis-Grant is accused of offering her former boyfriend Social Security death benefits that her children would receive upon her husband´s death.

COPPERAS COVE - It may have seemed like an eternity for that ball to come down. Less than 20 seconds to play, the Copperas Cove Bulldawgs and the Houston Cy-Ridge Wildcats deadlocked at 48 in what had been one of the best playoff games both teams´ fans had ever seen.

Considering that the Temple College Lady Leopards hadn´t played a game in two weeks and had hardly practiced during that time, their game against the Lon Morris Bearcats - who had done both during the Thanksgiving break after controlling the first meeting between the teams in Jacksonville - shouldn´t have been even close. But it was still a disappointment when Lon Morris put in the final shot at the buzzer to down the Lady Leopards 57-55 at TC Gym on Wednesday, because the Lady Leopards know they let this one get away.

The Temple College men´s basketball team hadn´t played since last Monday, so the Leopards wanted to get in a good game Wednesday night. And the Houston Blaze, coached by former longtime Houston Rockets player Robert Reid, certainly gave them one.

Mary Hardin-Baylor and Washington & Jefferson (Pa.) first met on the football field in 2004, when the Crusaders were relative postseason unknowns and decisive underdogs to a Presidents team that boasted of two Stagg Bowl appearances and five NCAA Division III national semifinal trips in its program´s history. But UMHB - strengthened by a disheartening regular-season loss to its biggest rival - continued its playoff roll by flattening W&J on the way to the national title game.