NATION IN BRIEF

FBI Spied on Widow Of Martin Luther King

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ATLANTA -- Federal agents spied on the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for several years after his assassination in 1968, according to newly released documents that reveal the FBI worried about her following in the footsteps of the civil rights icon.

In memos that reveal Coretta Scott King being closely followed by the government, the FBI noted concern that she might attempt "to tie the anti-Vietnam movement to the civil rights movement."

Four years after Martin Luther King's death, the FBI closed its file on his wife, saying, "No information has come to the attention of Atlanta which indicates a propensity for violence or affiliation of subversive elements," according to a memorandum dated Nov. 30, 1972.

The documents were obtained by Houston television station KHOU in a story published on its Web site Thursday. Coretta King died in January 2006 at the age of 78.

The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, who served as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference -- which King co-founded in 1957 -- said the documents illustrate the FBI's pattern of "despicable and devious" behavior against the organization and those affiliated with it.

One memo shows that the FBI even read and reviewed King's 1969 book about her late husband, "My Life With Martin Luther King Jr." The agent made a point to say that her "selfless, magnanimous, decorous attitude is belied" by her "actual shrewd, calculating, businesslike activities."

In Tex., Getaway Driver Is Spared Execution

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HUNTSVILLE, Tex. -- Gov. Rick Perry (R) accepted a parole board recommendation to spare condemned inmate Kenneth Foster Jr., the getaway driver in a 1996 robbery attempt that ended in murder. He had been scheduled for execution within hours.

The sentence had drawn protests from death penalty opponents because Foster was not the shooter.

Foster was convicted of murder and sentenced to death under Texas's "law of parties," which makes non-triggermen equally accountable for a crime. Another condemned man was executed under the same statute earlier this year.

"After carefully considering the facts of this case . . . I believe the right and just decision is to commute Foster's sentence from the death penalty to life imprisonment," the governor said. "I am concerned about Texas law that allowed capital murder defendants to be tried simultaneously and it is an issue I think the Legislature should examine."

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? ORLANDO -- Former astronaut Lisa M. Nowak can remove an electronic monitoring bracelet from her ankle, a circuit court judge ruled ahead of her trial for allegedly attacking a romantic rival. Nowak, 44, argued that it was expensive, bulky and uncomfortable. Circuit Judge Marc L. Lubet said those factors did not matter but that Nowak had behaved well enough over the past seven months to earn release.

? SALT LAKE CITY -- Richard A. Gates, who led the government's investigation of the Sago mine tragedy in West Virginia, will direct a similar probe of the Utah mine collapse that trapped six men this month, officials said.

? CAPE CANAVERAL -- Space station crew members donned yellow construction helmets and used a robotic crane to move a passageway for visiting spaceships and connecting modules. The work was the most extensive tried by the station's resident crew without the help of visiting shuttle astronauts.

-- From News Services