Father

While Ray Lewis was lapping the field and basking in the glory of his final victory at M&T Bank Stadium on Sunday, David and Michel Modell were on the Ravens' sideline connecting the final dot. They placed a bouquet of flowers on the large black circle bearing the first name of the father of the Ravens franchise - and the father figure who helped steer Lewis through the toughest time of his life. Art Modell , who passed away just four days before the Ravens opened the 2012 season, surely was there in spirit.

Wedding day: Dec. 1, 2012 Her story: Colby Previti, 26, grew up in Bowleys Quarters. She is a makeup artist. Her mom, Kim, is a hair stylist, and her father, Vincent, is retired from the Baltimore City Fire Department. His story: John Celmer, 26, grew up in Dundalk. He is a pharmaceutical sales representative. His mother, Linda, is deceased, and his father, Robert, is retired from Bethlehem Steel. Their story: Colby and John met at The Horse You Came in On Saloon in Fells Point six years ago. John proposed on Christmas morning last year with a 4-carat flower-cut ring from Reeds Jewelers.

Baltimore homicide detectives are investigating the death of an infant who was found in his Northeast Baltimore home Wednesday afternoon. The father of the four-month-old boy told investigators that he had put the child in his crib with a bottle and returned more than an hour later to find him face down and unresponsive. The child was rushed to Johns Hopkins Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 3:02 p.m. The family's home is located on the 2100 block of Belair Road on the edge of the Four by Four neighborhood.

Under its new ruler, Kim Jong Un, North Korea has reverted to its old tactics of provocation and aggression with the launch this week of a long-range missile it claims was intended to put the country's first satellite into orbit. It's unclear whether the satellite made it into orbit, but that really isn't the point. The U.S. and its allies fear the country's space program is just an excuse to develop technology that can be used to build nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, and Wednesday's launch showed the North Koreans are making progress toward that goal.

Baltimore police have arrested a 19-year-old man who had been a fugitive for a month and a half after police said he fatally shot a man while the victim's family stood nearby. The Baltimore Police Warrant Apprehension Task Force found Tavon William-Arthur Barnett on Tuesday and charged him with first- and second-degree murder in the Nov. 3 killing of Terrance Seale, 29, in Northeast Baltimore. Barnett, who also faces related assault and gun charges, was found through community tips, police said.

The trial for a 17-year-old Bel Air teen accused of killing his father has been postponed for a second time until May. Robert C. Richardson III is charged with first- and second-degree murder in the death Jan. 9 of his father. Richardson, who has been held without bail for nearly a year, is charged as an adult. The trial was postponed when Richardson's lawyer, Marc G. Snyder, turned the case over to the state's public defender's office. Snyder, who had accepted the case pro bono, said the case became too expensive for him to continue.

Matthew Cheswick was a Ravens fan, big time. And even months after he was killed by a drunken driver while crossing an Ocean City street, he remains a presence at M&T Bank Stadium. His dad makes sure of that. "I think the Ravens meant just about everything to him, outside of his mom and me and his brother," says Chris Cheswick, 57, who has hung a banner with his son's nickname, "Cheese," at Ravens home games this year. "It's what he loved the most. " Matt lived and breathed Ravens football, his dad says, and the two were never happier than when they were surrounded by the purple and black.

Kyle Lear was a freshman soccer player trying out for the JV team at Arundel High when he had to make a choice between continuing in the sport or devoting his weekends to another of his longtime passions: racing cars. Soccer lost out. "They asked me to show up on a Saturday, and I told them I couldn't ," said Lear, who said he was racing. . "They thought I was joking. " For as long as Lear, who is now 25 years old, can remember, weekends have been devoted to racing. It began when he was 4 years old and Lear would race Big Wheels down the various tracks between his father's dirt car races in Southern Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

If you are looking for a group of people that have an appreciation and deep love for the beauty of Howard County farmland, you need not look any further than the Mullinix family. I sit with my father on our front porch in Dayton every season as we're both rendered speechless by the beautiful sunset before us. At these moments I can't imagine anyone being so lucky, so fortunate as to enjoy this amazement. From our front porch I sit in awe of property that my family has owned for as long as I have lived.

President Barack Obama has several stated ambitions for his presidency. He wants it to be "transformative. " He wants to unite Americans of all parties. He wants to build an economy from the middle class out (whatever that means), and he wants to help what you might call the domestic refugees of America's economic transformation. Given the principled disagreements dividing left and right in America, it's hard to see how he can accomplish these goals when it comes to conventional economic policy.