Inmates run over, kill prison guard

Two inmates working in a prison field overpowered a female guard Monday and killed her when they ran her over in a stolen pickup truck as they fled, prison officials said.

One of the prisoners, John Ray Falk, was recaptured within the hour. The second, Jerry Martin, was found several hours later hiding in a tree after a manhunt that included a police helicopter, officers on horseback and bloodhounds.

Martin and Falk were working outside the Wynne Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice just north of Huntsville when they overpowered the officer about 10:30 a.m. along Interstate 45, took her weapons and stole a Huntsville city truck that was nearby, corrections department spokesman Jason Clark said.

WASHINGTON

Ex-lawmaker gets heart transplant

Retired Congressman Charlie Wilson, the subject of an upcoming movie starring Tom Hanks, received a new heart in transplant surgery at a Houston hospital Monday, his former chief of staff said.

“He’s got the heart of a 30-year-old,” Charlie Schnabel Jr. said by telephone late Monday.

Wilson, 74, represented Texas’ 2nd district in the House from 1973-96. Schnabel, who worked as Wilson’s chief of staff, said he was told by someone who was at the hospital for the surgery that it was a success.

Hanks stars in the film “Charlie Wilson’s War,” based on a book by George Crile that chronicles Wilson’s efforts to arm Afghani mujahedeen, then called “freedom fighters,” during their war against the Soviet Union.

Wilson was known as “Good Time Charlie” when he was in Washington for his penchant for parties, gorgeous women and lots of mischief during his nearly 24 years in the House.

HARRISBURG, Pa.

N-plant fires firm over relaxed detail

Exelon Corp. said Monday it will end its contract with a company that provides security at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in south-central Pennsylvania after security officers were caught on videotape nodding off or sleeping on the job.

Video footage taken by another worker two to six months ago showed the Wackenhut Corp. guards napping while sitting on chairs in a “ready room,” which is used as a break room, Exelon Generation Chief Operating Officer Chris Crane said in a statement.

Wackenhut’s senior vice president, Marc Shapiro, said officials considered the apparent lapses in attentiveness at Peach Bottom “an anomaly.”