Backlash

The Greek parliament approved a $113 billion austerity package that had been demanded by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund as a condition for receiving a $17 billion installment of the $160 billion "bailout" package negotiated last year. This cash infusion will allow Greece to avoid defaulting on debt obligations due in July and August. This is a precursor to negotiations on a new "bailout" package that must be created to prevent Greece from defaulting on its debt over the next five years.

Members of the Baltimore County delegation are demanding an explanation for the school system's spending on top-level administration and its policy of requiring written requests for salary information. In a letter dated Friday, Sen. Kathy Klausmeier and Del. John Olszewski Jr. criticized the school system's recent hiring of a deputy superintendent at an annual salary of $214,000 even as the proposed budget calls for cutting 196 teaching positions at middle and high schools. "Leaving 200 teaching positions vacant will no doubt mean larger class sizes and it may also mean that many important and valuable educational programs will either be understaffed or non-existent," they said in the letter to school Superintendent Joe A. Hairston.

Maryland is known as a strong union state, and it would seem improbable to Marylanders that the current battle in Wisconsin could be replicated here. Maryland's budget deficit is less pronounced than that of Wisconsin, though its combined state debt and pension deficits place it among the top 20 states in debt burden. It retains its triple A bond rating largely because of constitutional provisions that are being eroded and because its electorate has many public workers not resistant to new taxation.

Unless you've been stuck in the house with sick kids or trapped there by snow, ice and school closings, you've probably heard about author Amy Chua and her memoir of raising two daughters in the Chinese way, with threats, taunts and unrelenting discipline. The book by the Yale Law School professor, titled "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," has had the not-so-surprising effect of bringing down more anger and abuse on Chua than she ever visited on daughters Sophia and Louisa. And it awoke the dragon of the Mommy Wars from the cave where it had been sleeping since supermodel mother Gisele Bündchen was quoted saying breast-feeding should be mandatory.

When they meet Wednesday to discuss the arrest of a volunteer patrol member accused of assaulting a teenager, Jewish and black leaders will try to preserve decades of bridge-building that has led to a generally peaceful coexistence of diverse groups in Baltimore's Park Heights neighborhood. Those bonds have been strained by the allegations against a member of the Shomrim community patrol, a group of Orthodox Jews who work closely with police on neighborhood safety. Eliyahu Eliezer Werdesheim, 23, was charged with assault after police said he beat a 15-year-old black youth, whose wrist was broken in the incident.

Taking a hard-line stand against proposed light rail projects in Baltimore and the Washington suburbs, former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. might have driven a wedge between himself and business leaders in regions where he needs to collect votes. At a recent round table in Montgomery County, Ehrlich said he would scuttle Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley's plans for light rail on Baltimore's Red Line and Washington's suburban Purple Line — possibly but not necessarily replacing them with dedicated bus lanes.

BEIJING - Google Inc.'s business ties in China unraveled a little more Wednesday amid a widening backlash to the U.S. Internet company's decision to move its Chinese search engine offshore in a challenge to the country's online censorship laws. While the stand is winning Google praise in the U.S. and other countries, it's threatening to turn the company into a pariah in China. A high-profile Communist Party newspaper skewered Google in a front-page article. And more of its partners and advertising customers in the country appeared to be distancing themselves from the company.

Baltimore County schools Superintendent Joe A. Hairston backed away Tuesday from a directive requiring teachers to start immediate use of a complex online grading system after intense criticism from teachers who say the program is cumbersome, time-consuming and redundant. Hairston's pronouncement marks a setback for an initiative developed and copyrighted by one of his top administrators who hopes to spread it across the state and beyond. Blaming "miscommunication and misinformation" from educators who raised concerns about the Articulated Instruction Module - or AIM - Hairston said he would work to streamline the program and limit the number of teachers who have to use it. The system as now constructed would require every teacher to judge each student's performance in 100 different skills.

When he saw the name of the Army officer accused in Thursday's shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Imam Awni Qudah got that sick feeling again. "I feel nervous when I see a Muslim name or an Arab name," Qudah, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Society of Annapolis, said Friday at the Makkah Learning Center in Gambrills. "What worries me is our neighbors, our reputation," he said. "Whenever something happens, everybody looks at us, and we do not want that barrier." Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old Army psychiatrist at the Army base in Texas, is accused of launching the attack Thursday that left 13 dead and 38 wounded.