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Progressive Insurance has reached a settlement with the family of Kaitlynn Fisher, days after her brother's online rant against the company unleashed a torrent of backlash on social media. Fisher's family will receive a payment in the "tens of thousands," according to its attorney, Allen W. Cohen of Annapolis. "It's exactly how much we asked for," he said. The settlement prevents Cohen from filing a complaint with the Maryland Insurance Commissioner, he said, and the payment is separate from the judgment rendered by a jury in Baltimore Circuit Court last week awarding the Fishers $760,000.

Public Safety Secretary Gary D. Maynard wants one or two more years to correct his mistakes running Maryland's correctional organization ("State, former inmate settle over jail beatings," May 2). He is a great example of a public service employee who has worked his entire adult career being paid by taxpayer dollars working in or running agencies that do not have frequent audits or hold employees responsible for their actions. Joe Heming Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

On Thursday, the day the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, a 47-year-old Baltimore woman went to the drugstore, and pulled out her debit card to pay for a prescription refill. But she didn't have enough money in the account to cover the $425 charge. So she asked the pharmacist and staff for a favor. "I asked them to break up the prescription to give me one-third," says the woman, who would not allow her name to be published because she didn't want to disclose her medical conditions.

For the second time in three weeks, a somewhat surprising loss dropped Maryland out of the top five in the latest Rating Percentage Index list - also known as RPI - released by the NCAA Monday evening. Friday's 13-6 setback to unranked Virginia (7-8) caused the Terps (9-3) to slip from No. 3 in RPI to No. 7. Maryland encountered a similar fall after losing to Johns Hopkins, 7-4, on April 13 and slipping from No. 4 to No. 8. Perhaps the only positive outcome from the loss to the Cavaliers was their move up to No. 20, which gives the Terps a fourth top 20 victory.

In freshman economics they taught us that there is no such thing as a free lunch. It was a lesson we have taken to heart and to the bank on many occasions.The folks at Computer Associates have come up with a variation on the free lunch axiom: Free software.Kiplinger's CA-Simply Money is simply free (except for a $6.95 mailing charge) to the first million callers.So what do you get for nothing?What you get is a very powerful personal financial program that makes good use of Windows 3.1. In this program icons are easily identifiable.

I'VE BEEN told that it's extermely important for adult children to pay close attention to basic paperwork when they inherit an IRA from a parent. Why must they be so careful? - B.T., Baltimore In the best cases, IRAs pass seamlessly from generation to generation. But snafus occur sometimes and, when they do, it's often because of a failure to correctly "retitle" the existing account. To see what can go wrong, and why retitling is so important, let's review a hypothetical case. Let's say an accountholder died in March 2004, leaving a $100,000 IRA to his daughter.

MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blaketold Baltimore lawmakers Friday morning that any shift of the state's teacher pension costs to local governments must take into account the relative wealth of the jurisdiction -- saying the failure to do so is her "biggest disappointment" with Gov.Martin O'Malley's plan for a 50-50 split. The mayor said she would prefer not to see any shift of pension costs from the state, which now pays 100 percent of the tab, to the 23 counties and Baltimore. However, she said she understood that the state faces its own budget challenges and that the change has been coming a long time.

New York -- It's time to rethink your checking account. An account that made sense when banks were paying 5 percent on daily balances may be a loser now that rates are so low. The average yield on interest-paying checking accounts has dropped to 2.25 percent, less than half what they paid a year ago, according to the Bank Rate Monitor. At commercial banks around the country, it's 2.18; at S&Ls, it's 2.33.Unable to promote high rates any more, banks are turning to ads for so-called free checking accounts.

It was the most notorious open secret of a civil war rife with atrocity and cover-up: the reported army massacre of an entire hamlet in El Salvador, airily denied by the army and cynically papered over by U.S. officials determined not to let the excesses of their military wards undermine the crusade to stop communism in Central America.Despite newspaper accounts and eyewitness testimony, it took a decade for the full facts to emerge about what happened at El Mozote in December 1981.The story of that tortuous process makes Mark Danner's meticulous reconstruction of this war crime and its aftermath as instructive as it is horrifying to read.

Re: Ending Candy Thomson's outdoor column. I cannot believe how shortsighted the Baltimore Sun is to end Candy's column and blog. Her column was essential reading for those who care about our incredible natural resources. She shined light on those who broke the law and abused the bay's bounty, and held elected officials accountable for their stewardship (or lack thereof). Her column educated, inspired and amused. How could you take that away? John Surrick, Annapolis

In Baltimore County, like much of Maryland, tax revenues have flat-lined. State aid for such things as road resurfacing is not much better. County workers won't be receiving cost-of-living increases for the fifth year in a row. Yet amid all this austerity, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz last week proposed a budget that finances new schools and retrofits many others with air conditioning. There are millions of dollars for new school security systems, for a new family resource center on the east side of the county and for new technology for police.

In addition to having a hand on the nation's checkbook, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski is reaping a political reward from her new assignment as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee: a significant increase in campaign cash. The Maryland Democrat, who is not up for reelection until 2016, raised $191,000 in the first three months of this year - many times the $7,737 she collected over the same period last year, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Johns Hopkins' 7-4 victory over Maryland not only snapped a stretch in which the team had lost three of its last four games, but it also moved the program into the top 20 of the most recent Rating Percentage Index list - also known as RPI - released by the NCAA on Tuesday morning. The Blue Jays (7-4) climbed to No. 16 from No. 22 as they added the win over the Terps (8-2), who dropped from No. 4 to No. 8. Johns Hopkins, which has victories over No. 23 Virginia (5-7) and No. 28 Towson (7-6)

The NCAA released its first Rating Percentage Index - also known as RPI - and Maryland opens the list at No. 4. The Terps (8-1) have two top 10 wins (based on RPI) against No. 6 Duke (9-4) and No. 10 Loyola (9-2). Maryland trails only No. 1 Notre Dame (9-3), No. 2 Denver (9-2) and No. 3 Penn (6-3). The Fighting Irish have two top five victories over Denver and No. 5 North Carolina, three more top 10 wins against Duke, No. 8 Penn State and No. 9 Ohio State, and one more top 20 victory over No. 19 Hofstra.

Who had whom in a headlock is the focus of a dispute between a Baltimore chef and a diner. The parties in the argument are Kevin Perry, the chef and co-owner at Liv2Eat, a restaurant in the Riverside neighborhood of South Baltimore, and Wesley Doyle, 42, of Baltimore, who was dining at Liv2Eat on Friday with his wife and their two children. Perry, who is 34 and lives in Annapolis, and Doyle have filed criminal complaints, each charging the other with second-degree assault. Perry also charged Doyle with reckless endangerment and affray, which is similar to disturbing the peace.

Probably nothing else needs to be said about the Ticketmaster issue, especially after the well-written letter from Barbara Blumberg ("Ticketmaster is a scalper by another name," March 6). However, it should be pointed out that Ticketmaster is just one more e-business, like Microsoft, that sells a product that costs almost nothing after its initial development costs are recovered and charges phenomenally high rates. And like Microsoft, it has recovered its development costs long ago and has the capacity to generate incredible profits - well beyond those possible in brick and mortar businesses.

Earle Palmer Brown is back in the saddle again with the Roy Rogers restaurant advertising account.The restaurant chain said yesterday that it had selected the Bethesda-based advertising agency to oversee the $20 million account. The agency had the account from 1986 until 1990, when Hardee's Food Systems Inc. acquired the chain and moved the account to Ogilvy & Mather in New York.Hardee's began converting many of the Roy Rogers restaurants to Hardee's, but consumers rebelled. In March, Hardee's began turning those restaurants back into Roy Rogers outlets.

NEW YORK -- MCI Communications Corp. pulled its $50 million account from Wells, Rich, Greene yesterday and gave it to Messner Vetere Berger Carey Schmetterer, a small New York agency.Executives at MCI would not comment on why the company had switched its account. But advertising executives familiar with MCI's plans said the company had moved its account in large part because of management changes at MCI earlier this year involving executives in charge of the company's advertising.The transfer of the MCI account comes as the long-distance telephone company finds itself under growing pressure from shareholders to improve its performance.

An electrician sued a Bel Air payroll company five years ago, alleging that it failed to submit payroll taxes for his employees, so he wonders why it took until last week for the Internal Revenue Service to start an investigation. "They know what's going on," said Ron Biskup, owner of Biskup Electric LLC. The authorities, including the IRS, were notified of the issue. And two other businesses also sued the payroll firm AccuPay Inc. around the same time, for similar reasons. Still, it wasn't until after a veterinarian's office filed a suit on Feb. 27 that the IRS put its criminal division on the case.