Majority Rule

Lordy, Lordy, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley wasn't that bad a mayor of Baltimore, was he? You'd think so if you read attorney Warren Brown's now controversial letter to black Baltimore mayoral candidates last week. Brown sent the letter to current Mayor Sheila Dixon and several other black candidates who have announced they will run against her in this year's election. "Surely you must recognize," the never-bashful defense attorney wrote, "that with five Blacks pursuing this office, a member of the (white)

THERE WAS A TIME in the late 1970s when Johannesburg's University of Witwatersrand was regarded as such a hotbed of anti-apartheid agitation that South Africa's security services had fewer than five agents watching one another as members of the student government's executive board.As the country's leading liberal and English-language university, privately operated Wits -- as it is commonly called -- was also an institution that found strict segregation laws distasteful. It admitted blacks, coloreds and Asians to its predominantly white student body and featured them as speakers.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Joe Mthimunye is on the fast track in post-apartheid South Africa. Victor Ntshingila is not.Mthimunye is a 32-year-old accountant riding a wave of black empowerment designed to wash away the legacy of 40 years of racial segregation, social injustice and economic exploitation.Ntshingila, 27, also black, who graduated from college three months ago with a degree in administration and economics, has yet to find a job and is teetering between optimism and pessimism over the prospects of the new South Africa.

There has been a lot of discussion in these pages about a recent statement on religious liberty issued by Maryland's Catholic bishops. Unfortunately, the discussion has ignored most of what the bishops had to say. It has focused almost exclusively on the Catholic Church's opposition to same-sex marriage — an issue the state legislature may revisit in its next session. Let us leave that controversy aside for the moment and consider what the bishops actually said. The bishops' statement, "The Most Sacred of All Property," takes its title from an essay by James Madison.

Does the game known as the fastest on two feet require an injection of excitement? The NCAA men's lacrosse committee thinks so. And by announcing two major rule changes last month - the introduction of a 60-second shot clock and the elimination of dead-ball substitutions from the sideline - the NCAA has assured that lacrosse will sport a different look in the spring of 2001. "It's going to be a different game," said Loyola coach Dave Cottle, who is not alone in his skepticism. "We'll find out if different is better."

WASHINGTON -- A sharply divided Supreme Court went far yesterday toward forbidding local governments to force organizers of controversial marches and demonstrations to pay the added cost of providing police to protect them.Although a planned protest likely to stir a hostile response may mean that counties or cities will run up extra police costs, officials may not charge fees to help defray the added spending, the court majority said.Moving on to curb federal power, the court in a second ruling imposed historic new limits on Congress' power to compel the states to help solve major national problems.

MORE THAN distasteful, a South Carolina hospital's policy of drug testing pregnant women and then -- without the women's consent -- sending results to police was unconstitutional. So said the Supreme Court this week, mounting an important victory for privacy protections. The Medical University of South Carolina had contended that the ultimate goal of its policy was to reduce drug use among pregnant women amid a rising number of "crack-babies." Maybe a good intention, but so what. By not informing the women that the test results would be forwarded to police, the hospital trampled all over the Fourth Amendment.

NEW YORK -- Wall Street won a major victory yesterday when the Supreme Court ruled that people who lost money on initial public stock offerings in the late-1990s Internet boom could not sue their brokerages under U.S. antitrust laws. The Supreme Court sided with investment banks that had been accused of conspiring to inflate IPO prices, ruling 7-1 that lawsuits alleging initial public offering abuses have to be brought under securities rather than antitrust statutes. The ruling reversed a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that had allowed the class action suit to move forward.

Tribune Co. expressed cautious optimism yesterday that it would succeed in overturning a tax ruling costing the company $1 billion, even as its stock price fell to its lowest level in nearly four years. Still, executives pledged to immediately pay the back taxes and interest to the Internal Revenue Service stemming from two transactions carried out by the former Times Mirror Co., before its takeover by Tribune in 2000. As the stock slid by more than 4 percent yesterday to its lowest level since November 2001, Tribune said the payment won't require the sale of assets because $250 million had been set aside and additional money was raised last month through bond financing.

WASHINGTON -- In a long-awaited policy statement, the federal government plans to announce that foods developed through biotechnology are not inherently dangerous and, except in rare cases, should not require extraordinary testing and regulation before going on the market.Some critics of genetically engineered foods have argued that they pose new safety risks and that any containing new substances should go through the extensive testing required of new food additives. In addition, they say, any such food sold to the public should be labeled so that consumers can identify it.Government officials have a different view.