Discussions

This year's pick for One Maryland One Book, the statewide reading program, is "King Peggy," a tale about a Washington, D.C., woman who is unexpectedly chosen to be King of Otuam, a 7,000-person village in Ghana. Peggielene Bartels, a secretary, faced reluctant male elders and a host of other problems as she adjusted to her fairy tale role.  Arriving in Otuam, she finds that the "town has no running water, no doctor, and no high school; the king's palace is in ruins, and the town coffers are empty.

Today, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended that wrestling be removed from the 2020 Olympic Games . The recommendation was ultimately made by secret ballot of several rounds, and wrestling was voted out from a final group that included modern pentathlon, taekwondo and field hockey. This is an unsettling decision for many in the pro wrestling community, a landscape that is full of successful amateur wrestlers at all levels, including former Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle, a TNA wrestler.

ESPN analyst Mark Dixon has added sideline reporter and play-by-play caller to his list of titles. He patrolled the sideline of No. 5 Johns Hopkins' 15-6 rout of Siena on Friday and will provide analysis for the Moe's Southwest Grill Classic doubleheader in Jacksonville on Sunday involving No. 10 Denver against No. 18 Penn State and No. 15 Ohio State against Jacksonville. The former Blue Jays midfielder, who can be followed on Twitter at @DixonLacrosse, discussed his thoughts on the pace of play, Duke's loss to Denver and one team that's not getting enough attention.

Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo said he plans to reach out to San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver in hopes of starting a positive discussion, following Culliver's anti-gay comments earlier this week. Ayanbadejo has been vocal in his support of same-sex marriage and was surrounded by media on Thursday hours after Culliver's comments became public. The San Jose Mercury News reported Culliver was asked by Artie Lange in a podcast if the 49ers had any homosexual players on the team.

A soldier who lost all of his limbs in the Iraq War received double arm transplants at Johns Hopkins Hospital last month in a rare procedure that has already begun to restore some normalcy to his life. Hopkins doctors are to speak in detail about the rare procedure performed on 26-year-old Brendan Marrocco in a press briefing today. The Army infantryman lost his arms and legs in a roadside bomb attack in 2009 becoming the first soldier of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to lose all four limbs in combat and survive.

A week after he won re-election, President Barack Obama said he was more than familiar with what the "literature" — the very use of the term cheered academics like me — says about re-elected presidents who over-reach during their second terms. They fail. Mr. Obama's second term began this week, following a first term defined by emergency challenges (largely economic) unlike those faced by almost any incoming American president. Theoretically, his second term ought to be easier.

The Orioles agreed to terms with catcher Matt Wieters on a one-year $5.5 million deal Friday, avoiding arbitration in Wieters' first year of eligibility. But Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette said the organization would like to pursue the possibility of signing Wieters to a long-term deal. Now that the Orioles signed center fielder Adam Jones to a six-year, $85-million extension last season and extended both Duquette and manager Buck Showalter through 2018, the organization's next step to locking up its cornerstones would likely be signing Wieters, who becomes a free agent after the 2015 season, to a long-term deal.

I had a chance to talk to former Oriole Rafael Palmeiro about Wednesday's Hall of Fame announcement that the Baseball Writers' Association of America did not vote in anyone for the 2013 induction class . That includes Palmeiro, who was on his third year of the ballot and is one of just four players in the game's history to have at least 500 homers and 3,000 hits. He's also the only one on this year's ballot to have tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug. In 2005, months after he told a congressional committee that he had never taken steroids, a drug test found stanozolol in his system and Major League Baseball suspended him for 10 days.

Annapolis civil rights activist Carl O. Snowden resigned his post in the Maryland attorney general's office Friday, one month after his conviction on a marijuana possession charge and following an eight-month absence from the job. Snowden, 59, declined to discuss his resignation, which he called a retirement effective Jan. 8. He said in an email that he would announce his political plans Jan. 18 during a Martin Luther King Jr. awards banquet he...

During multiple face-to-face meetings this past week, Orioles manager Buck Showalter and team principal owner Peter G. Angelos established parameters for a multi-year contract extension that would keep the popular manager with the club beyond 2013. Although some specifics still need to be worked out, a deal is expected to be reached in January, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. Showalter, who is splitting the winter between his homes in Dallas and Baltimore, was here last week to attend community and charity events and met with Angelos several times, including having lunch on Thursday in a Little Italy restaurant with Angelos and his son, Louis.