Rules

Ravens coach John Harbaugh essentially ruled out Lee Evans (ankle) from playing Sunday's game against the Houston Texans. "“We thought it would be fine by now, and it's just going a lot slower than we thought," Harbaugh said. "We say we're day-to-day on it. He hasn't practiced, so I don't see him playing in the game right now. He's going to need some practice. But it's been very disappointing. Nobody's been more surprised than all of us. So, just waiting to see if the doctors can figure it out, and he's got to keep working at it.” it will be the third straight game that Evans will miss.

When it comes to vacation, Net- flix has a simple policy: Take as much as you'd like. Just make sure your work is done. Employees at the online movie retailer often leave for three, four, five weeks at a time and never clock in or out. Vacation limits and face-time requirements, said Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings, are "a relic of the industrial age." "The worst thing is for a manager to come in and tell me: `Let's give Susie a huge raise because she's always in the office.

DUMB AND HAPPY, most of us have been bopping through life on the blithe assumption that our American citizenship came with oodles of legal and constitutional rights and that if anyone tried to mess with them, we could turn to the very nation itself, as represented by the federal courts, to stand up for us. Silly us. The U.S. Supreme Court in recent years, with a particularly busy hammer over the past year, has been tearing down that protection. And the political system, especially the Republican Congress but abetted at the margins by President Clinton, has been adding legislative wallop to the reactionary turn to state's rights.

In a third blow to President Bush's efforts to weaken federal workers' unions, a judge blocked yesterday several of the most contentious portions of the Defense Department's proposed workplace rules, arguing that they "eviscerated" the rights of 650,000 workers and represented "the antithesis of fairness." U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan's 77-page ruling is a setback in the campaign to run the government more like a private business. The case is being closely watched by workers at other federal agencies because the White House has said that it wants to extend similar rules to the entire federal work force.

University of Maryland, University College's ballyhooed move into the dot-com business has been put on hold, but school officials blame the delay on federal regulations, not on the virtual collapse of the online economy. It was 18 months ago that the state's 50-year-old continuing education school announced plans for a for-profit company that would market its fast-growing Internet courses. UMUC President Gerald Heeger said he had encouraging talks with venture capitalists about funding the company, but U.S. Department of Education (DOE)

Saying the Federal Communications Commission usurped the authority of state officials, a federal appeals court yesterday granted a temporary injunction that bars enforcement of regulations designed to open the nation's $100 billion local telephone service industry to competition.The ruling, by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, delighted traditional local monopoly carriers like Bell Atlantic Corp., and infuriated long-distance companies like AT&T Corp. and new, smaller local carriers, all of whom want to start chipping away at the regional Bell companies' dominance.

Maryland's Democratic Party chairman, Nathan Landow, says "rules junkies" could stifle his party's presidential aspirations, yet Mr. Landow's own views on rules have thrown him into conflict with two powerful party leaders.They are Gov. William Donald Schaefer, the state's most powerful Democrat, and Ronald L. Brown, the national party chairman.Mr. Brown and Mr. Landow disagree over rules for selecting presidential convention delegates. Obscure on the surface, their differences could affect the party's ability to keep harmony between its discordant factions.

MUCH is written about IRAs left to heirs. But I cannot find anything on strategies for bequeathing a 401(k) plan to one's heirs. Why is this so? And how can I, as a retiree who would like to stay in my ex-employer's 401(k) plan, learn about leaving those assets to my children after I die? - F.N., Plainfield, Ill. Post-retirement 401(k) management strategies are scarce because each plan can impose its own set of rules. With the rules being so varied and quirky, it's difficult to concoct a uniform plan.

Meeting new standards that require buildings to be accessible to the handicapped may be easier for companies in Maryland than in other states that have less stringent rules already on the books, state officials say.The proposed federal rules say that stores, restaurants, banks, theaters, hotels and offices must take specific new steps to accommodate people who are disabled in any way.The rules would "further what we've done in the state of Maryland," according...

Maryland's highest court will convene today for a hearing on changes to foreclosure rules that would conform with new legislation that gives homeowners more notification and a longer waiting period before their homes are sold. The hearing by the Court of Appeals follows a top judiciary subcommittee meeting yesterday in which officials discussed further reforms and changes to help ease a foreclosure crisis that is engulfing the state and country. While the proposed rules address the issue of giving homeowners greater notice to allow them to settle debts and potentially avoid foreclosure, the regulations should also be clearer on homeowners' rights and responsibilities in the interim, said Linda M. Schuett, an Annapolis attorney and vice chairwoman of the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, which met yesterday.