Wounds

Investigators have matched the brand and caliber of shell casings from a Colorado parolee's gunfight with north Texas authorities to those found at the home of Colorado's prisons chief, who was killed earlier this week. Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, died after he was critically wounded by deputies at the end of a high-speed chase Thursday in Texas. Hornady 9-millimeter casings were found at the Texas scene, the same type found at the home of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements, according to an application for a warrant to search the car filed by officials in Wise County, Texas.

HOUSTON - Authorities were investigating whether a man involved in a high-speed chase and shootout in north Texas on Thursday was linked to the killing of Colorado's prisons chief. The man was driving a black Cadillac with Colorado plates - a vehicle similar to one seen outside the home of Tom Clements, executive director of Colorado's Department of Corrections, before Clements was shot to death Tuesday night. Authorities did not release the suspected gunman's identity, but the Denver Post and the Associated Press reported that he was Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, a parolee and a member of a white supremacist prison gang.

WILLITS, Calif. - We've heard a lot in this post-Newtown moment about how California leads the nation in gun laws. But you probably haven't heard the unlikely story of Brandon Maxfield, a quadriplegic 26-year-old who helped drive a notorious segment of California's gun industry toward extinction. "It wouldn't have happened without him," said Garen Wintemute, a UC Davis professor of emergency medicine whose anti-gun advocacy has made him a firearms industry nemesis. In 1994, at the age of 7, Brandon was accidentally shot through the neck with a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol.

BUENOS AIRES - The man who is now Pope Francis was a young Jesuit leader, not long out of seminary, when Argentina's military junta unleashed a reign of terror that became known as the "dirty war. " That was more than 30 years ago, but the reaction to the naming of the first Argentine pope shows that the wounds have not yet healed. Many Argentines were still stunned Thursday that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, had become the first pope from the Americas.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - A 22-year-old Palestinian college student died Thursday of wounds suffered when he was shot in the head with a rubber-coated bullet by Israeli soldiers two weeks ago.   Muhammad Asfour of the village of Aboud, 13 miles northwest of Ramallah, was taking part in a demonstration in his village when he was hit in the face by the bullet, which fractured his skull, news agencies reported. He was first taken to Rafidia Hospital in the northern West Bank city of Nablus and later transferred to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, where he was pronounced dead Thursday morning.

Two young children and a woman were shot and killed and another child was found critically injured inside a northeast Denver home Wednesday morning, authorities said. When police arrived at the home, they found three bodies, Denver police spokesman Matt Murray said. The dead children were younger than 10, he said. Murray, who wouldn't confirm whether the dead woman was the children's mother, said a third child was hospitalized and is in "critical condition after surgery. " Asked if they were investigating the shootings as either a domestic-violence incident or a murder-suicide, police declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

LONDON -- Two videos were released Monday showing Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai speaking publicly for the first time since she was shot by the Taliban in October for campaigning for female education. The first , recorded by a public relations company on Jan. 22, days before the 15-year-old underwent complex cranial and auricular reconstruction surgery at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, features Malala announcing the launch of a special fund for girls' education in Pakistan.

MOSCOW -- An Armenian presidential candidate was wounded in a shooting attack Thursday night that disrupted campaigning in the former Soviet republic less than three weeks before the election. Paruyr Hayrikyan of the moderate opposition National Self-Determination Union party was about to enter his house in Yerevan, the capital, about midnight when a stranger approached him from behind, a party spokesman said. The 63-year-old politician was fired at twice as he turned to face his attacker.

A 14-year-old student at an Atlanta middle school has been shot in the head and one person has been taken into custody, according to media reports from the scene. In addition to the wounded student, a teacher sustained minor injuries in the incident but was not shot. The teacher was treated at Price Middle School, the site of the shooting. According to Atlanta Fire Capt. Marian McDaniel, the shooting victim was taken to Grady Hospital. There was no immediate information on the student's condition, she told the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON - Chuck Hagel, who was twice wounded as an enlisted soldier in Vietnam, came under withering attack Thursday as he battled former Republican colleagues in the Senate who sharply questioned whether he should be secretary of Defense. In a daylong confirmation hearing notable for its raw emotion, Hagel was challenged to explain - and often to retract - earlier comments critical of Israel, his onetime skepticism of the nuclear threat from Iran, and perhaps most memorably, whether he could name a single "dumb" action the Senate had taken under pressure from the pro-Israel lobby.