Federal Law

An Ellicott City senior living facility is being sued for allegedly violating federal law for failing to hire a Muslim woman who would not remove her head scarf. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against Morningside House on behalf of Khadijah Salim on Monday. The lawsuit says Morningside House's director of health and wellness asked if Salim during a June 2010 interview if she would remove her religious headscarf, called a hijab, if she worked at the facility.

Your front-page analysis of the recent federal court decision striking down Maryland's "right to carry" handgun law conveys the misimpression that the law is ill-conceived and too "restrictive" ("Gun ruling likely to be upheld, say legal experts," March 7). Nothing could be further from the truth. The handgun permit law has served Marylanders well for 40 years, and has survived a number of earlier challenges in the Maryland courts. Even your article concedes that only 5 percent of last year's applicants were denied for lacking a "good and substantial reason" for wanting a permit.

A Baltimore County man who sued Kooper's Tavern and Poncabird Pub over an obscure identity law has voluntarily dropped the lawsuits. A lawsuit against the Middle River bar Catches stands. In September, Ronald L. Bradley, of Baltimore County, sued The Fells Point bar and Poncabird Pub in East Baltimore, as well as Catches, for printing the expiration date of his credit in sales receipts. He claimed that was in violation of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act, a federal law that aims to prevent identity theft.

The premise of the lead anecdote in Sirine Shebaya's op-ed ("Local police, federal law," Dec. 11) is incorrect. The deputies who questioned the referenced Hispanic woman were not acting, and did not purport to act, pursuant to the Section 287(g) immigration enforcement provisions. The two deputies who were involved in fact knew nothing about Section 287(g). They were simply on routine patrol when they spotted the woman eating a sandwich next to a container storage pod behind a building.

Every year, some 31,000 Americans are killed with guns; nearly 340,000 more are victimized in gun-related crimes, with more than 73,000 of those treated in hospital emergency rooms for nonfatal gunshot wounds. The rate of firearms-related homicide in the U.S. is 20 times that of the next 22 richest nations combined, yet measures to reduce the loss of life and the enormous economic and social costs of gun violence have become a virtual non-issue in this year's political campaign season.

FOR THE FIRST time in three decades, the Supreme Court is likely to consider whether federal law enforcement officers must continue reading criminal suspects their rights upon arrest. Although criticized, the mandate should not be overturned. It has improved law enforcement and provided clear standards to strengthen criminal court cases. Defendants have a tough time getting confessions ruled invalid after they have been advised of their rights to remain silent and to have a lawyer.

While I am in The Boot, waiting for the chipped bone in my foot to knit its way back on board, and testing my wife's patience as she drives me back and forth to campus and the paragraph factory,* I am, as you must also be, searching for innocent amusement. Here is some.  The Economist , bless its heart, has produced a little animated selection of style guidelines , illustrated delightfully by KAL . Brush up on rack and wrack .  Stan Carey comments on the polysemy (tendency of words to develop multiple meanings)

Maryland is right to move ahead with plans for establishing a state health-insurance exchange, despite uncertainty over the ultimate outcome of pending court challenges to the federal health-care reform law. Even if the Supreme Court were eventually to find that all or parts of the federal law violated the Constitution - such as the individual mandate requiring everyone to buy private insurance - a vigorous state exchange would still make quality care...

Perhaps we should no longer be surprised by the incredible hypocrisy -- and lack of historical memory -- of today's political conservatives. Unable to block health care reform through congressional process, they now have sought nullification of federal law in various state legislatures -- the same obstructive means which led to the Civil War, when southern states sought to "nullify" Lincoln's anti-slavery measures. They also threaten litigation in the federal courts to have all or portions of the new health care law declared unconstitutional under the Tenth Amendment, which reserves to the states those powers not granted by the Constitution to the federal government.

The Federal Transit Administration has given its blessing to the environmental impact assessment for Baltimore's proposed Red Line, clearing the way for final design but adding new urgency to finding the means to pay for the $2.5 billion light rail project. In a decision released Tuesday afternoon, the FTA said the Maryland Transit Administration had satisfied all environmental requirements laid out in the federal law. "This is a milestone," said Henry Kay, the MTA's executive director for transit development and delivery.