Federal Law

A federal law that takes effect in July will provide far-reaching employment rights to the mentally ill, requiring most businesses to alter hiring practices and workplace conditions.Psychologists and government officials say they expect the law and the recently issued regulations explaining it to diminish the stigma of mental illness and reduce discrimination involving millions of Americans.At least 60 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 64 will experience a mental disorder during their lifetimes, government economists say.The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, which applies to all businesses with 25 or more employees, forbids employers from asking job applicants questions such as whether they have a history of mental illness.

Effective tomorrow, a new federal law, the Patient Self-Determination Act, requires health care facilities to inform adult patients of their right to make advance directives -- documents that allow patients to say whether they want to remain alive by artificial means. In Maryland, there are three types: a living will, durable power of attorney for health care and LTC documented discussion with a doctor. None is irrevocable.The law requires hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, home health agencies and health maintenance organizations (HMOs)

Unless Congress changes it, federal law could keep the Army from using a promising new method to destroy 1,500 tons of mustard agent at Aberdeen Proving Ground.The law requires any new method used to destroy the mustard agent be "significantly safer" than the Army's original plan, which calls for a $500 million incinerator to be built at the Harford County post, said members of a statewide commission studying disposal of the Aberdeen stockpile.However, Army researchers and commission members say a chemical and biological "neutralization" process under study at Aberdeen -- it detoxifies mustard agent in near-boiling water and uses common bacteria in sewage sludge to produce a nonhazardous waste -- has the potential to be a low-cost, safe way of destroying the stockpile.

The Baltimore City Detention Center had the nation's second-highest rate of sexual contact between jail staff and inmates, according to a U.S. Department of Justice study released less than a month after federal prosecutors accused corrections officers at the jail of sleeping with gang members. The report, released Thursday, also found higher-than-average rates of inmate abuse at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup. Women in prison are generally subjected to more abuse than men, and nearly 13 percent of inmates at that facility reported being abused either by a fellow inmate or staff member.

Marjorie Benedum and her husband, Mel Harris, knew their landlord was facing foreclosure but were reassured when he said they could keep renting the Southwest Baltimore house after his family lost it. Then Harris, who is 79 and retired, came home from church three weeks ago to find a sheriff's notice on the door. Get out in 10 days, it said, or be evicted. "We weren't sure what we were going to do," recalled Benedum, 62. More and more renters have been caught up in the national foreclosure crisis, and lenders taking back those homes nearly always want them gone.

The American Farm Bureau recently filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency challenging the agency's "pollution diet" for this 64,000-square-mile watershed. The response of some critics, including this publication's editorial board, might lead readers to believe that the Farm Bureau is opposing the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite the rhetoric of critics, the Farm Bureau's lawsuit is not about whether to clean up the bay. Farmers remain committed to working to achieve clean water for the Chesapeake.

The ad that led to the arrest of a Towson massage parlor owner this month was typical for such businesses, boasting as it did of the availability of "new young girls. " "You have to ask: If they constantly have new girls, where are the other girls going?" Melissa Snow asked. It was a rhetorical question, because as someone who works to stop sex trafficking, Snow has a pretty good idea where they go — to yet another massage parlor that similarly is offering more than rub-downs.

A proposal to tax cable television in Baltimore has been yanked by its sponsor after city attorneys determined that federal law would prohibit such a fee. Councilman James B. Kraft said he decided to shelve the bill and cancel a Thursday afternoon hearing after the city solicitor's office ruled that the city does not have the authority to impose the $4 monthly telecommunications tax on cable service. Kraft had estimated that the tax could generate as much as $10 million in revenue.

A federal judge has frozen the assets of a Baltimore man who is accused of bilking investors of $630,000 in an illegal commodities-trading venture and using part of the money to pay his mortgage and his daughter's college expenses. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett acted Thursday in the case of Andrew Silberstein, who is facing civil charges filed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Maryland securities commissioner. The civil complaint, filed March 5, charges Silberstein with nine counts of violations of the federal law regulating commodities, and violations of Maryland securities laws.

In one of the 10 biggest corporate mergers ever, long-distance telephone insurgent WorldCom Inc. agreed to buy local telephone upstart MFS Communications Co. in an all-stock deal valued at more than $12 billion.Industry experts called the deal an example of a wave of consolidation triggered by the new federal telecommunications law. The $200 billion U.S. telecommunications industry is scrambling to reorganize itself into a smaller number of huge virtual supermarkets where consumers can shop in one place for all their communications needs.