Inadequate

Dear Mr. Azrael:I have tenants who have given me only two weeks' notice to leave my rental unit. My rental agreement requires 30 days' written notice for a month-to-month lease.Rent is due on the first of the month. They stayed in the rental until the fourth of the month before moving. They did not pay rent for that month.My question is, can I charge them for the full month's rent and deduct that amount from their security deposit? There is no provision in my rental agreement for prorated rent.

USAir Group Inc. said the cost-cutting proposal by its pilots falls "far short" of what the company needs, and said their union is effectively seeking employee control of the financially beleaguered carrier in exchange for a minority investment.The pilots' plan, outlined to the company earlier this week, envisions $2.5 billion in cuts by all employees over five years, with $750 million of that coming from the airline's pilots.But the Arlington, Va.-based company said that the cost reductions are "illusory."

The school board's efforts to pare next year's operating budget may have been for naught.An increase of $9.9 million over this year's $177.5 million is still too much, according to County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann."

Environmental groups are unhappy with Gov. William Donald Schaefer's proposed tree-preservation bill, which they claim would allow developers to continue to cut too many trees without having to replace them.David Carroll, Schaefer's Chesapeake Bay coordinator, acknowledged the complaints. He added that the measure, filed this week, was the product of a work group that included legislators, state planners, home builders and others."I would expect the discussion to continue," Carroll said. "We have made it clear [in the bill]

A new county traffic study has confirmed what Sykesville residents have known for years -- that Obrecht Road is no longer adequate to handle an increasing amount of traffic.The report found more than 5,000 vehicles a day use Obrecht Road to reach Route 32, and the volume is projected to increase to an average 15,000 vehicles within 20 years."The level of service on the road is questionable now," said Steve Horn, county transportation planner and author of the report, which was issued last month.

After seven hours of contract talks with county officials yesterday, representatives from the Howard County police union say they are no closer to being able to give residents the improved service they've demanded.Though a staffing shortage that has bothered the department for years won't be a formal topic in the negotiations, improvements in salaries could stabilize the force's numbers, union members said."When you have happy police officers, you have productive police officers, and the citizens get even better service," said James Fitzgerald, president of the Howard County Police Officers Association.

The federal racketeering and drug charges unveiled this week against 25 inmates and guards at the Baltimore City Detention Center raise serious questions about the state's management of the facility. Investigators detailed a pattern of corruption and criminal behavior that was so widespread that for much of the last few years, the inmates were literally running the asylum. It will take drastic action to root out the crooked corrections officers and incompetent higher-ups responsible for this debacle, but that's only a start.

The National Mortgage Settlement's relief is not reaching enough Maryland homeowners and is not as effective as it could be in keeping people in their homes, the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition said Tuesday. “The number of Maryland families facing new foreclosures continues to dwarf those getting help under the settlement,” said Marceline White, the group's executive director, in a statement. Between March 1, 2012 and the end of last year, about 14,200 homeowners received assistance through the settlement, intended to resolve accusations by 49 states and the federal government that five major mortgage servicers abused borrowers during the foreclosure process.

A Washington-based nonprofit group has offered to test for toxic contamination in city park land that borders a new casino being built in South Baltimore, but City Hall says it's not interested. The Inner Harbor Stewardship Foundation, which bankrolled a lawsuit seeking to block work on the Horseshoe Casino until more cleanup is required on the site, wrote Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake on Monday saying that it would pay for testing of soil and ground water at Gwynns Falls Trail Park.

An Army report addressing the environmental risks of germ warfare research at Fort Detrick is "hopelessly inadequate," a counsel for a Washington public interest group has said.The Army claims its work does not pose any significant environmental threats, but the Army has failed to go back and decide if the research was necessary in the first place, Andrew Kimbrell, of the Foundation on Economic Trends, said this week."Any risk is too high if the research is unnecessary," said Kimbrell, policy director and counsel for the foundation, which has long been concerned about the dangers of biological warfare research.