Congress surveying aides, former pages

Lawmakers, following a request from the House ethics committee, are surveying aides and former House pages to find out if any of them had knowledge of ex-Rep. Mark Foley’s inappropriate conduct toward male pages.

Charlie Keller, spokesman for Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla., said she contacted two pages before receiving the committee request and asked if they were aware of inappropriate behavior from Foley, any other lawmaker or staff members. Both said they were not.

Aides for other House members reported similar results Monday.

The ethics committee leaders, in a letter to all House members, asked them to contact current and former pages they sponsored to learn whether any of them had “inappropriate communications or interactions” with Foley or any other House member.

The ethics panel, formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, also directed lawmakers to cast a wide net and ask aides what they might have heard about improper approaches by Foley or others to pages before revelations about his sexually explicit Internet messages surfaced last month. Foley resigned Sept. 29.

Lower bar helps Army beat goal

The U.S. Army recruited more than 2,600 soldiers under new lower aptitude standards this year, helping the service beat its goal of 80,000 recruits in the throes of an unpopular war and mounting casualties.

The recruiting mark comes a year after the Army missed its recruitment target by the widest margin since 1979, which had triggered a boost in the number of recruiters, increased bonuses, and changes in standards.

The Army recruited 80,635 soldiers, roughly 7,000 more than last year. Of those, about 70,000 were first-time recruits who had never served before.

According to statistics, 3.8 percent of the first-time recruits scored below certain aptitude levels. In previous years, the Army had allowed only 2 percent of its recruits to have low aptitude scores. That limit was increased last year to 4 percent, the maximum allowed by the Defense Department.

ATLANTA

King Collection to be on display

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 78th birthday in January will feature a gift to the city: the first public viewing of more than 10,000 of his documents, notes and other personal items.

Pieces of the King Collection – from a term paper he wrote as a student at Atlanta’s Morehouse College to a draft of his “I Have A Dream” speech – will be on display at the Atlanta History Center.

This summer, Mayor Shirley Franklin led the effort to acquire the papers from New York-based Sotheby’s auction house, which had planned a public sale.

“The Martin Luther King Jr. Collection is home,” a beaming Franklin said Monday.

Morehouse College owns the papers. Archivists have been organizing the collection of hundreds of books with scribble-filled margins, sermons and writings.

ERIE, Pa.

Mother uses baby to hit boyfriend

A woman used her 4-week-old baby as a weapon in a domestic dispute, swinging the infant through the air and striking her boyfriend with the child, authorities said.

The boy was in serious but stable condition Monday. Chytoria Graham, 27, of Erie, was charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and simple assault. She was held Monday in the Erie County Jail in lieu of $75,000 bail.

The infant, whose name was not released, suffered a fractured skull and some bleeding in the brain, authorities said. His head hit Graham’s boyfriend, the baby’s father, police Lt. Dan Spizarny said.

Compiled from wire reports