WASHINGTON - Suddenly the Federal Reserve is everybody's punching bag. Strip the Fed of its bank regulation powers, some in Congress are demanding. Get probing audits of its behind-the-scenes operations, others say.

More than 100 million years ago, an ancient sea covered much of Texas. And thanks to countless crustaceans that died, settled to the ocean floor and were subsequently buried in sediment, Central Texas now sits on a rich limestone belt. But it took a process called lithification - heat and pressure below the ancient ocean - to transform the sediment to rock. Next a series of earthquakes and mountain-building events brought the calcium carbonate up from the seabed to within man's reach. Eons later, the eroding forces of wind and rain had further exposed the rock, so when Texas pioneers settled the area in the mid-1800s they found fieldstone to build their chimneys and stone walls.

More than a half-century before celebrities such as Christie Brinkley and Muhammad Ali appeared wearing white moustaches in magazine ads, Temple had sprouted dozens of dairies that kept local hospitals, cafes and families supplied with fresh milk. "At one time, there were 38 Grade A raw dairies in Temple - the Keaton Boys, the Champs, Krumnow, Doyle Cole, Wilburn Dairy, Waters Dairy and the Fowler Boys," said Bill Gorden, son of a Temple dairy pioneer. "Everybody that had more than one cow had a dairy."

WASHINGTON - Moderate Senate Democrats threatened Sunday to scuttle health-care legislation if their demands aren't met, while more liberal members warned their party leaders not to bend. The dispute among Democrats foretells of a rowdy floor debate next month on legislation that would extend health care coverage to roughly 31 million Americans. Republicans have already made clear they aren't supporting the bill.