Veto

By the time you read this, Terry Jones will have burned the Quran. Or not. At deadline time, Mr. Jones' so-called "International Burn The Quran Day" — also known as Sept. 11, 2010, the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks — was on hold. He said he'd reached an agreement with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf not to go through with plans to make a bonfire of Qurans if Mr. Rauf would cancel plans to build a mosque near ground zero. Mr. Rauf said this was news to him, whereupon Mr. Jones said he'd now have to "rethink" whether to go ahead with the burning.

The police won't get to watch patrons down beers at Shirley's Honey Hole after all. Baltimore's police commissioner is planning to veto a condition worked out by the bar's owner and a city attorney that would have allowed law enforcement to monitor live video feeds from surveillance cameras inside the tavern, according to the department's chief spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi. It was one of several concessions the owner, Shirley Barner, had agreed to this week to keep authorities from padlocking her business after a spate of shootings outside and accusations that drug dealers were using the vestibule to sell and store narcotics led police to label the bar a public nuisance.

At the end of a protracted budget battle with the City Council, Mayor Sheila Dixon took a rarely used - and legally questionable - step to get her way. Unhappy that the council trimmed funds from the inspector general's office, Ms. Dixon announced that she would use a line-item veto to reverse the cut. The city's charter does give the mayor the right to use a line-item veto to reverse an "appropriation" made by the City Council, but employing that power...

BOGOTA, Colombia - Although the U.S. government was supposed to have final authority on any plan to rescue three U.S. contractors held by guerrillas, it was kept in the dark by the Colombian military until a week before the July 2 operation to lessen the chances the Bush administration would veto the effort, said a top official close to the operation. "They wanted to wait long enough to make it difficult to say no," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was forbidden to speak on the topic for attribution.

About 30 Roland Park residents waved signs yesterday outside the Baltimore Country Club, urging the club's members to scrap plans that would sell off 17 acres of its property to a care facility. Neighborhood leaders say they have collected hundreds of signatures opposing the club's proposal to sell the property, north of Hillside Road, to Keswick Multi-Care Center, which plans to build a $195 million continuing-care retirement community. The residents acknowledge that the club has the right to sell its land but protested by holding multicolored signs saying such things as "Save the Park in Roland Park" and "Keep Roland Park Green" as club members drove into the facility for a meeting.

Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold sharply criticized Gov. Martin O'Malley yesterday for striking down a bill that would have required the state to reimburse the county for a $100,000 investigation that found cancer-causing metals in private wells in Gambrills, calling the governor's veto an "offensive and irresponsible anti-environment action." The veto - O'Malley's only one among 745 bills this year - was a stunning defeat for county officials, whose eight-month investigation helped persuade the Maryland Department of the Environment last summer to fine Constellation Energy and the operator of the 80-acre site $1 million and ordered them to clean up fly ash contamination.

WASHINGTON -- The House emphatically approved a major five-year farm bill by a veto-proof margin yesterday, setting up President Bush for a major political embarrassment. Brushing off Bush's opposition, many Republicans joined a majority of Democrats in approving the farm bill, 318-106. This is well over the two-thirds vote needed to override Bush's promised veto. "We've solved a lot of problems in this bill," said Rep. Collin C. Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat who is chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

Maryland Legislation Catholic group urges veto of marriage bills The Maryland Catholic Conference called on Gov. Martin O'Malley yesterday to veto two bills the group contends would undermine the legal status of marriage in Maryland. The bills would grant couples who declare themselves domestic partners, which can include same-sex partners, some of the rights of married couples. One bill would exempt domestic partners from paying transfer taxes when adding each other to home property deeds to create joint ownership, a right that married couples have.

WASHINGTON -- The House passed yesterday the most sweeping government plan yet to shore up the troubled housing market and help people struggling to pay their mortgages, adopting legislation that would underwrite $300 billion in new loans and keep an estimated 500,000 homeowners out of foreclosure. Backers contend that the bill - or something close to it - has a good chance to become law even though Senate Republicans have criticized it and the president has threatened a veto. "We're not stopping trying to compromise," said Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and chief author of the package.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's decision last week to at least temporarily postpone signing into law legislation to classify as beer so-called alcopops, the sweet, fruity drinks that are particularly appealing to underage drinkers, was a good first step toward protecting the health of Maryland teens. The next would be for the governor to veto the bill - and at least force the legislature to come up with a more reasonable approach to regulating and taxing them. How serious a threat is a bottle of Jack Daniel's Hard Cola and its ilk?