Former U.S. Rep. Jim Talent should be Missouri's next U.S. senator in about three weeks or less, Secretary of State Matt Blunt told reporters Wednesday afternoon. Talent beat incumbent Sen. Jean Carnahan by 23,531 votes in a special election Tuesday, for the right to complete the final four years of the six-year term originally won by Carnahan's late-husband, former Gov. Mel Carnahan; he had died in a plane crash three weeks earlier. Because Talent's selection Tuesday was in a special election, Blunt said, both U.S. Senate rules and Missouri law say he should take the seat as soon as the...