Amish school to be torn down

The Amish school where a gunman shot 10 girls last week, killing five of them, is expected to be demolished today, a fire department official said.

“Tomorrow morning the school is going to be torn down,” said Mike Hart, a spokesman for the Bart Fire Company.

Private contractors are scheduled to start demolishing the school before dawn and will haul the debris to a landfill.

The West Nickel Mines Amish School has been boarded up since Oct. 2, when gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV stormed the one-room schoolhouse. Roberts, who had come armed with a shotgun, rifle, handgun and a stun gun, killed himself.

Washington

Page supervisors are questioned

House officials who directly supervise teenage congressional pages were questioned Wednesday by ethics committee investigators probing the handling of former Rep. Mark Foley’s inappropriate messages to pages.

The internal investigators spoke privately with Peggy Sampson, who supervises House pages sponsored by Republican lawmakers, and her Democratic counterpart, Wren Ivester. The high schoolers attend classes at Congress’ page school and perform errands for lawmakers.

By starting with those closest to the pages, investigators can learn what the youngsters might have told the supervisors about Foley, R-Fla., and whether they reported any inappropriate conduct to higher House officials.

Until now, there has been no evidence that any Democratic lawmaker or employee knew about Foley’s conduct.

Investigators planned to question Foley’s former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, today. He says he took action in 2002 or 2003 when he learned of Foley’s inappropriate approaches to pages.

Fordham has emerged as a key figure because he said he brought the allegations to House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s chief of staff, Scott Palmer. Fordham has said he subsequently learned that Palmer spoke with Foley.