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WASHINGTON -- Four months after the congressional page scandal rocked Capitol Hill and helped dash Republican hopes for holding their majorities in Congress, the House voted unanimously yesterday to expand the board that oversees the teenage interns and require that it meet regularly. The House voted 416-0 to reorganize the board so that it has three congressional members from each party, one parent of a page and one former page. The board would be responsible for oversight of the roughly 70 pages - usually 16-year-olds who spend a year running errands for members of Congress and their staffs while attending school in the nation's capital.

The Baltimore school board unanimously passed a $1.2 billion budget Monday that essentially remained intact since it was presented. The last budget of outgoing schools CEO Andrés Alonso includes cuts to per-pupil funding and high schools but retains spending power for principals and adds academic programs. The $793 million that would go to schools represents a 36 percent increase since 2008, when Alonso implemented the "Fair Student Funding" structure — which funds schools based on enrollment and gives principals autonomy over their budgets and hiring.

FREDERICK -- Starting this morning at 8, residents can come to Frederick's City Hall to look at 8,500 pages of documents as well as several videotapes and discs relating to a prostitution business. After losing an open-records fight, the city was required to make public the so-called "black book" of records that city police seized in a July 1999 raid. Rumors have run rampant over whose names might be included in the list of clients. The material can be viewed daily from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., city spokeswoman Nancy Gregg Poss said.

An article in the May 17, 1913, edition of The Argus commended a young girl for keeping her wits in an emergency situation. The presence of mind of 8-year-old Isabelle Smith , of Cedar Hill, near St. Denis, probably saved her life about 6 o'clock Saturday evening when, with her clothes a mass of flames, due to playing with a pile of burning railroad ties, she ran to a brook near by and plunged headlong into the water. Isabelle and several other girls of about her own age were playing near the railroad and were attracted by the burning pyre of ties.

THE CATALOG'S cover proclaimed "Products for Country Living." I live in the country, so I commenced browsing.The city-slick pages contained the usual conglomeration of upscale accessories for nouveau hillbillies like myself. There was an $85 computerized watering thingumajig; a $30 seed package entitled "Flower of Monet" (Never mind the birds and bees, give me Monet, honey); a "serious watering can" (at a serious price: $19.95 plus $3.95 for shipping and handling), tick removal kits ($9.95 plus)

Six county students, who will serve as pages at the 1994 General Assembly, were greeted Thursday at a breakfast attended by school officials and Harford legislators.The county sends five pages to Annapolis for the annual legislative session and picks one alternate in case a page is unable to perform his or her duties.Those duties include relaying messages about bills to legislators, conducting some research on proposed legislation and keeping track of bills."It is a very high honor to be selected," school Superintendent Ray R. Keech said to the pages.

Couch potatoes may be getting the best upper-body workouts these days, courtesy of some heavy reading of, quite literally, weighty subjects. Take, for instance, last month's Vogue, a letter carrier's nightmare weighing 5 pounds, 4 ounces. Vogue proudly announced that its fall fashion spectacular, weighing in at 832 pages, was its "biggest issue ever." October's 35th anniversary of Interview magazine, its largest issue at 384 pages, weighed less than half of Vogue, but its oversize format made it no less unwieldy than the fashion bible.

North Carroll High senior Meegan Lawson was summoned last week on the Senate floor to distribute information packets to 46 of the most influential men and women in Maryland.Lawson had no idea that the Montgomery County senator who paged her had handed her materials that would inflame the senator's colleagues.Lawson divided the packets -- geared toward defeating a bill thatwould have raised the speed limit to 65 mph on rural interstate highways -- among other student pages, including Westminster High senior Karen Walker.

In their first official appearance last week, the 1995 student pages ate breakfast with Harford County legislators.The next time they meet, the teen-agers may be making coffee for the lawmakers. But that will be only a small part of the duties the pages will perform while they're working in Annapolis during the 1995 General Assembly."Although it's a lot of fun, it's a lot of hard work," said Mary Catherine Adams, a 1992 Bel Air High School graduate and former student page. She shared her experiences with the five new pages and one alternate at the Tuesday morning meeting.

WASHINGTON -- Speaker Dennis Hastert yesterday became the first leader of the House of Representatives in a decade to testify before its ethics committee, fielding hours of questions about what he knew about former Rep. Mark Foley's inappropriate approaches to teenage pages and when he knew it. As public dismay over Republican leadership of Congress has risen, Hastert has faced increasing questions about whether he and other party leaders ignored or...

Kenni Patrick, a student at St. Vincent Pallotti High School, served as a page for the North Carolina House of Representatives, in Raleigh, N.C. The daughter of Kenneth and Tanya Patrick, of Laurel, she was sponsored by Rep. Julia Howard (Republican-Davie, Forsyth). Pages spend a week at the General Assembly assisting members and their staff and learning about the structure of North Carolina government.

Bravo! With her latest proposals ("Mayor to propose new taxes on billboards, taxi rides," April 22) Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has joined with our governor in his tax policies. If it moves, tax it (taxis). If it stands still, tax it (billboards). Theodore W. Hirsh, Baltimore Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

An article in the April 19, 1913, edition of The Argus announced the return of familiar face on the rail cars . Not content with sitting on a slow-moving auto truck, Charles Bujac of Catonsville, one of the oldest motormen in the employ of the United Railways, is back again on the cars and will probably remain in that position for the rest of his active days. The lure of the old "Speeders" proved too strong for "Uncle Charlie," as he is known by all the men on the line, and so, to the great delight of his many co-laborers and friends, he may be seen traveling to and from Towson to Catonsville Junction on the back of a United States mail car. He is no longer guardian of the brakes which he so greatly loved, but rides on the back of the car in charge of the bell.

An article in the April 12, 1913, edition of The Argus reported on the surprising culprit after a church's interior was found damaged. What was at first supposed to be the work of vandals, bent on spite-work, at the Catonsville Presbyterian Church last week, when some of the carpet was ripped up and torn, the wires of a stereopticon machine cut and the doors badly mutilated, proved to be the work of a stray dog which was imprisoned in...

An article in the April 4, 1963, edition of the Herald Argus and Baltimore Countian reported on actions by area firefighters in rescuing three boys from a sticky situation. While hunting for frogs along the clay banks in a swampy area in the 1600 block Sulphur Spring road, Lansdowne, last Saturday morning, three boys became trapped waist deep in soft mud and clay. The victims, Ronald M. Trescott , 13, of Summit avenue, Glenn Piekaski , 12, and his brother, Carey A. Piekaski , 14, of Rehbaum avenue were rescued unharmed by 16 members of the Halethorpe Fire Department and Arbutus Volunteer Fire Department.

Opening Day is quickly approaching, and we're giving away a box of Topps Baseball 2013 Series 1 cards and a Dylan Bundy rookie card to one of our loyal readers. All you need to do to enter is "like" our Orioles Insider Facebook page and then enter your contact information for the contest. CLICK HERE to get started. We'll randomly choose a winner on April 8. In addition to having a chance to win the cards, you'll get breaking news, photos and feature stories sent out from our Orioles Insider Facebook page.

A pair of computer-animated, wandering eyes encourages young readers to look at Mona Kerby's Web site, "The Author Corner: Mid-Atlantic Authors."The site introduces middle school students to mid-Atlantic authors and illustrators of children's books. Kerby, an assistant professor of library science at Western Maryland College, is among them."I did this for the sheer love of it. When you've been a teacher for so long, you're always looking for ways to make students read," said Kerby, a teacher at Western Maryland College for three years.

Megan Novak had mixed emotions about her trip to Annapolis. She was assigned to work in the Senate chambers, but she didn't have any idea what to do or where to go. But things quickly changed for the C. Milton Wright High School senior. "At first it was nerve-wracking," said Novak, 17, one of 15 pages at the state capital two weeks ago. "But I knew that what I was doing was a privilege. I was able to get into any building that I wanted, and not many people can do that." Novak is one of 105 high school seniors throughout the state selected to work as pages for members of the Maryland General Assembly during the 2008 session.

Ed Reed doesn't want to say goodbye, but he does want to say thanks. The former Ravens safety took out a full page ad in the Sports section of today's Baltimore Sun  to deliver a message to the fans who have cheered him for more than a decade. The ad reads:    Ravens Nation, My eleven seasons in Baltimore were more than I would have ever imagined, which is why I have such deep love for you all. I will forever cherish my time with the Ravens and the chills that ran down my spine when I finally kissed the Lombardi Trophy.

I was frankly "flabbergasted" (and I haven't used that word in a long time!) when I viewed the opinion pages of the March 7 Columbia Flier. I counted nine letters in support of Ms. Maria Santo's extremely anti-abortion letter which appeared in the Feb. 28 edition of the Flier.  And how many letters taking the opposing pro-choice view appeared in the opinion pages of the March 7 Flier? None!  Zilch! Nada!  Imagine that! I'm left to assume that either 1) the editors at the Flier are "cherry-picking" the letters to the editor to push a particular bias or agenda on the abortion issue;  2)