New Legislation

More city women ages 40 and over are eligible for free breast cancer screening under a new state law that took effect this month, according to city officials and the University of Maryland School of Medicine."

Now it's up to Danny Henson.The Baltimore housing commissioner, who has had a soft spot for dancers on The Block ever since he used to take clients there during his early career as a liquor salesman, will also be the commissioner of nudity, under a new city ordinance.He will license show bars and porno book stores and make sure they abide by a number of operating restrictions. In these tasks he will be aided by an unpaid nine-member board.As a result of the new legislation, The Block will remain in the 400 block of East Baltimore Street.

After years of bickering, citizen groups and quarrying companies appear to have reached a compromise on statewide legislation regulating rock quarrying that seems to satisfy both parties. If the General Assembly passes the legislation, stone, gravel and cement companies will be able to mine the rock they need and nearby residents will be assured that the land will be restored after the mining ends. The state will also have more regulatory powers over the companies' mining plans.Residents of Wakefield Valley, the site of two operating quarries -- Lehigh Portland Cement Co. and Genstar -- and one planned by Arundel Corp.

After years of bickering, citizen groups and quarrying companies appear to have reached a compromise on statewide legislation regulating rock quarrying that seems to satisfy both parties.If the General Assembly passes the legislation, stone, gravel and cement companies will be able to mine the rock they need and nearby residents will be assured that the land will be restored after the mining ends. The state will also have more regulatory powers over the companies' mining plans.Residents of Wakefield Valley in Carroll County, the site of two operating quarries -- Lehigh Portland Cement Co. and Genstar -- and one planned by Arundel Corp.

WASHINGTON -- A House committee voted unanimously yesterday to turn over a large segment of the radio spectrum, previously reserved for the government, to commercial uses.The approval of the House Energy and Commerce Committee marked an important step toward finding room on the crowded airwaves for new technologies such as pocket-sized radio telephones, digital radio and computers that transmit data over the air.The new legislation does not endorse particular technologies, nor does it settle the sticky issue of how the new frequencies will be allocated.

In California, a physician who is unwilling to comply with a terminally ill patient's wish to be allowed to die must transfer the patient. Failure to do so constitutes unprofessional conduct.In Florida, a physician unwilling to comply with a patient's declared intent must make only a "reasonable effort" to transfer the patient.In Alaska, however, an attending physician who fails to comply with a patient's properly declared wish not to have his or her life artificially prolonged has no right to be paid for services after the point at which those wishes should have been honored.

IRAs (Individual Retirement Accounts) were a good idea that should never have been tampered with.We are glad to see the U.S. Senate is trying hard to undo the damage.IRAs gave Americans one of the best means ever devised to plan for their futures.Why, then, did the Congress place restrictions on IRAs in the 1986 tax "reform" legislation?We think that, in seeking ways to close tax loopholes, [members of Congress] tried too hard to boost revenue at the expense of economic vitality. Savings boost investments, which in turn boost payrolls and profits, and, ultimately, the amounts paid in taxes.

WASHINGTON -- If Rep. Tom McMillen, D-Md., has his way, the reform of college athletics will start with the NCAA.McMillen yesterday unveiled the "Collegiate Athletic Reform Act" designed to restore the balance between athletics and academics at colleges and universities across the country. The bill takes aim at what McMillen considers the core of the problem -- the escalating role of big-time money in the big-time college sports, football and men's basketball.The new legislation would restore to the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption for football and basketball, a privilege that was taken away by the Supreme Court in 1984, for a period of five years, giving the NCAA the power to negotiate all television contracts.

Charging that the County Council has become a "closed clubhouse" dominated by Democrats, council candidate John J. Klocko III, a Republican from Crofton, yesterday called for a three-term limit for the office."

Sweeping new immigration reforms passed in the closing hours of the 101st Congress have their share of flaws, compromises and genuflections to political interest groups. Nonetheless, the statue is generous in spirit, a codification of America's increasing willingness to become a multi-racial, multi-ethnic and even multi-lingual society.The golden doors are opening as the fear of things foreign diminishes.New immigrants will be clearly identified by their skills, their assets, their family ties here and their country of origin.

Baltimore's top law enforcement officials accused a key House of Delegates committee yesterday of disrespecting them and killing a slate of bills that they thought would help control crime in the city. Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy and top police officials have long grumbled that the House Judiciary Committee is too dominated by defense attorneys, and yesterday those frustrations bubbled to the surface in a meeting of the city's Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said city officials were "treated pretty rudely" during the most recent legislative session, and City Solicitor George A. Nilson suggested maintaining and sharing a log of House Judiciary Committee members' voting records on bills proposed by law enforcement officials.

WASHINGTON -- With the families of Sept. 11 victims looking on, the House overwhelmingly voted last night to enact several languishing recommendations of the 9/11 commission. The legislation, symbolically labeled HR1, was the first to be passed by the new, Democratic-controlled Congress. Lawmakers voted 299-128 to require screening of all cargo on passenger planes within three years, to check cargo ships for nuclear bombs before they leave ports bound for the United States and to boost homeland security funding for urban areas most likely to be terrorist targets.

WASHINGTON - The biggest show in town yesterday was at the White House. But since the public couldn't get in to see the president and vice president meet with the 9/11 commission, Hollywood offered up a pretty good alternative. Actor Ben Affleck was in town. And he is, as several people commented, just as good-looking in person. He wore a dark suit, a blue shirt and gray monochrome tie, and strode into an ornate chamber located just off the Senate floor a mere five minutes late. The gilded room was crammed with reporters and congressional staffers; every seat was taken, and the walls were lined several people deep.

Maryland legislators answered persistent questions about the validity of laws used to prosecute suspected Internet predators this week by passing legislation that makes it a crime to solicit children for sex - even if the "minor" is a police officer posing online. If signed into law, prosecutors hope the bill will end the legal wrangling that has become routine in cases involving defendants caught in Web-based stings in recent years. Defense attorneys have challenged the law since a Frederick County judge dismissed one case in 2000, saying there could be no crime if there was no child victim.

ONE LAMENTABLE result of this month's elections is that the stalemate has been broken over the creation of a monstrous Department of Homeland Security. This cosmetic response to the myriad failures that made the nation vulnerable on Sept. 11, 2001, offers no assurance that Americans will be safer. Instead, it poses new dangers. Most alarming is that the version of the legislation passed by the House on Wednesday -- with the Senate apparently soon to follow -- is a 500-page, 11th-hour rewrite few lawmakers have read and perhaps none fully understands.

Acting at the last minute and without public notice, Congress is moving to give special exemptions to a small group of foreign investors who sought to gain permanent U.S. residency by participating in financial partnerships labeled "questionable" by a federal agency. The exemptions were included this week in amendments to a Justice Department spending bill. The amendments were passed Wednesday by a conference committee; and the House, in a 400-4 vote, approved the full bill yesterday. The compromise legislation goes to the Senate.

Less than 24 hours after President Bush on Tuesday signed into law regulations to toughen oversight of the U.S. financial system, Washington attorney Warren L. Dennis was receiving e-mail from corporate directors whom he represents. Within the array of new regulations were some stringent requirements demanding that corporate board members adopt a watchdog role to guard against inappropriate actions by top management - a responsibility that directors had often been pressured to abdicate during the go-go days of the 1990s.

DURHAM, N.C. - The United States certainly has a reputation for a fair criminal justice system. So should the Guantanamo Bay detainees rest easy? The Bush administration is trying to create new rules for the military tribunals that are intended to try suspected terrorists. These proposed rules would allow military prosecutors to charge detainees without evidence that they had committed war crimes. The detainees, who have not been charged, are not confessing to atrocious war crimes in quite the way the administration had hoped.

As state lawmakers groped their way to last week's passage of a far-reaching bill on computer software licensing, Montgomery County Del. Peter Franchot predicted that "Maryland is poised to become the e-commerce capital of the world." But don't look for big software companies to move here just because of the new legislation -- especially when the measure's merits are disputed. "They've been sold a bill of goods that this will bring jobs," said Skip Lockwood, director of 4CITE, a Washington-based coalition of business and nonprofit groups opposed to the legislation.

More city women ages 40 and over are eligible for free breast cancer screening under a new state law that took effect this month, according to city officials and the University of Maryland School of Medicine."