Inadequate

The National Federation of the Blind filed a complaint with state education officials yesterday alleging that blind children in Baltimore are graduating from public schools as functional illiterates because they are not being offered the proper training and technology at their schools. At a news conference at the national headquarters in South Baltimore, Denzel Ferges said he graduated in June from Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School but will need to get further training in Braille and technology to be able to continue his education and realize his goals of becoming a physical-education specialist and opening a recording studio.

By any reasonable standard, the U.S. does a terrible job of registering eligible citizens to vote. According to the most recent estimates, only about 68 percent of eligible voters age 18 and over are likely to be registered in 2010. A study of voter registration systems in other democracies around the world released last week by New York University's Brennan Center For Justice underscores this country's failure. France registers 91 percent of its eligible citizens. Germany and Britain do even better.

The Proposal should have been called The Formula . The Recipe would suggest too much flavor. It's been made according to the chapter in the box-office manual labeled "summer counter-programming." Take one established female star (Sandra Bullock) hungry enough for a hit to sign on to substandard material. Add a male up-and-comer (Ryan Reynolds) who still has to prove that he's a leading man. Proceed to wrap them inside a romantic comedy with several high-concept twists. Hot-weather audiences flocked to The Devil Wears Prada a few years ago. So transform Anne Hathaway's executive assistant into a man (Reynolds)

A pair of environmental groups is threatening to sue state and federal environmental agencies as well as the present and former owners of the Sparrows Point steel mill complex, accusing them of failing to clean up pollution of the industrial site and of the surrounding community, as they promised to do 12 years ago. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper contend that toxic waste from the steel-making complex is contaminating the...

Opponents of a liquefied natural gas terminal in eastern Baltimore County stepped up their attacks Tuesday, hosting an appearance by a former CIA officer who said the $400 million project lacks critical safeguards and raises the specter of terrorism and piracy. "The more I looked into this project, the more I thought the company building it does not care about the safety implications," said Charles S. Faddis, who retired a year ago as chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's anti-terrorism unit and is a security consultant, based in Davidsonville, and a writer who has published two books on security issues.

The county Planning Board is weighing conflicting visions of the fears and hopes generated by plans for a major urbanization of Columbia's town center as board members prepare to make their own recommendations. The divide was clearly outlined in remarks at a Thursday night public hearing by Long Reach resident Russel Swatek and the Business Alliance, which represents 46 local business owners. "Some don't want a city," Swatek, a five-year resident, said about the plans to urbanize Town Center.

WASHINGTON - The suicide rate among Army soldiers reached its highest level in three decades in 2008, military officials said yesterday in a report that pointed to the inadequacy of anti-suicide efforts undertaken in recent years. At least 128 soldiers took their own lives last year, representing an estimated suicide rate of 20.2 per 100,000, a sharp increase from the 2007 rate of 16.8. It marked the first time the Army rate has exceeded the national suicide rate for the corresponding population group - 19.5 per 100,000 - since the Pentagon began systematically tracking suicides nearly 30 years ago. The 2008 figure does not include 15 additional deaths under investigation that officials suspect were suicides.

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Aviation Administration lacks an adequate system for checking the quality of commercial airplane parts, creating a potential safety risk for airline passengers, according to a new oversight report. "Neither manufacturers nor FAA inspectors have provided effective oversight of suppliers; this has allowed substandard parts to enter the aviation supply chain," states a 24-page report from the Transportation Department's inspector general. Federal investigators assessed the oversight of suppliers to the nation's major aircraft manufacturers - Boeing Co., Bombardier Aerospace/Learjet Inc., General Electric Aircraft Engines, Rolls-Royce PLC, Pratt & Whitney and Airbus SAS. They found "widespread deficiencies" at all but one of 21 suppliers who make parts for those companies.

WASHINGTON -- National Guard and Reserve forces remain inadequately equipped and unprepared to deal with a range of domestic disasters, particularly an attack with unconventional weapons, a congressional commission has concluded. In a report yesterday, the panel said that policymakers in Congress and the Pentagon have been reluctant to acknowledge that the U.S. military remains the only institution that can respond quickly to natural and man-made disasters. That failure "places the nation at risk" because it has led to shortfalls in planning and readiness.

The American Bar Association, concluding a three-year study of capital punishment systems in eight states, found so many inequities and shortfalls that the group is calling for a nationwide moratorium on executions. In a study to be released today, the lawyers organization, which has more than 400,000 members, said that death penalty systems in Indiana, Georgia, Ohio, Alabama and Tennessee - in particular - had so many problems that those states should institute a temporary halt to executions immediately until further study can be conducted.