Kansas City powder

KANSAS CITY — The Kansas City area dealt with two scares on Wednesday, with a suspicious white powder found in an Internal Revenue Service mailroom, and what authorities called a pipe bomb — filled with fireworks sparklers — found in the Liberty, Mo., City Hall.

A letter containing a white powder and a note mentioning anthrax forced federal authorities to shut down the mailroom of the Kansas City IRS headquarters. The letter was sealed and sent to a lab in Jefferson City for further testing, said FBI spokesman Bob Herndon.

"We do not think this is going to be anthrax or any other biological agent, but we have to treat this to the Nth degree," Herndon said, adding that a field test found the substance likely to be talcum powder.