Lance Armstrong

WEATHER: Rainy, with temperatures in the 40s . TRAFFIC: Check our traffic updates for this morning's issues. TOP NEWS O'Malley to push sweeping gun control, licensing plan : Gov. Martin O'Malley announced Monday broad details of a plan that would give Maryland among the nation's strictest gun laws. No one would be allowed to own a handgun without first passing a training course and providing fingerprints to a police database.

The question now is: who's getting more out of Lance Armstrong's doping confession, the disgraced cyclist himself or Oprah? I say that because Oprah Winfrey -- the Doyenne of Drama, the High Priestess of Pathos -- was busy Tuesday flacking her big interview with Armstrong, which will air on her OWN Network Thursday and Friday. (Yes, the interview was so lengthy, Ope said, that it will now air over two days. “Just wrapped with @lancearmstrong More than 2 ½ hours. He came READY!

As Thanksgiving Day approaches, let us reflect on the things for which we are grateful. Let us give thanks . . . That Superstorm Sandy didn't do much damage in Maryland - and that we have a federal government to respond to the less fortunate areas where it did. That utility crews work in ice, rain and mud to fix power lines while we moan about how uncomfortable we are. That postal carriers got our mail delivered even as Sandy slammed into...

Earlier this month, Lance Armstrong participated in a triathlon in Columbia, benefiting the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults. Despite some poor weather, the event was an overwhelming success. People turned out in droves to watch Mr. Armstrong compete and to hear him speak at Centennial High School. Like the spectators in Columbia and so many other people around the country, I am not prepared to write off Lance Armstrong as just the latest in a long line of professional athletes who have fallen from grace.

One guy was among the greatest losers in the history of politics, the other, one of the biggest winners in all of sports. They were unalike men who shared little except recent headlines. But there was, in that brief juxtaposition, an object lesson for those who cared to see it. The loser -- George McGovern -- made headlines by dying at age 90. He is famous for having been on the rump end of one of the most thorough election shellackings in history, cobbling together a measly 17 electoral votes in 1972 to Richard Nixon's 520. But there was more to him than that epic loss.

For a while there, we vacationed with Lance Armstrong every summer. And Tyler Hamilton and George Hincapie and Levi Leipheimer and Floyd Landis. All the boys. They'd be in France, of course, while we were at the shore in Delaware. But the nasal British drone of Phil Liggett calling the Tour de France was as much the soundtrack of those vacations as the muffled rumble of the waves. The mountain vistas and the lovely little towns of France as recognizable as our ocean sunrises and our favorite shops and restaurants.

The International Cycling Union's announcement today that it was stripping superstar athlete Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles over charges of illegal doping effectively ended one of the most celebrated sports careers in recent memory. Mr. Armstrong's name is to be removed from the Tour's official record books, and he is banned for life from future competitions. It's likely the International Olympic Committee will move soon to strip him of his 2000 Olympic bronze medal as well, and corporate sponsors may demand he return millions of dollars in now-tainted winnings.

News that Nike is dropping its sponsorship of tainted cyclist Lance Armstrong brought me back to one of the most poignant sections of his first book, "It's Not About the Bike. " Armstrong described the aftermath of his testicular cancer diagnosis in 1996, as corporate sponsors decided he was no longer worth bankrolling. Nike was one of the few sponsors to stand by Armstrong as he recuperated -- despite the possibility that he would never race again. He vowed to be loyal when he returned to competition -- and forged a deep, mutually beneficial partnership with Nike as he won seven Tour de France titles.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report on Lance Armstrong was involved in doping is loaded with explosive allegations from fellow cyclists -- which the seven-time Tour de France champion has vehemently denied. But the quirkiest bit of information is that at least one rider nicknamed a common performance-enhancing drug for Baltimore's favorite literary son. According to cyclist Christian Vande Velde, riders generally referred to the illegal substance Erythropoietin as EPO, or "Po. " But Tyler Hamilton had his own nickname for it: "Edgar" as in Edgar Allan Poe. Hamilton may be an admitted doper, but at least he's well-read.

Lance Armstrong won the Revolution 3 Half-Full Triathlon at Centennial Park in Howard County on Sunday, finishing the 70-mile race in just under 4 hours, 11 minutes. The effort by the famous cyclist and embattled seven-time Tour de France winner in the combined swimming, biking and running event, organized by the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults to raise money for cancer awareness, brought him in more than 18 minutes ahead of the second place finisher, Louis Therien of Quebec. Sharon Schmidt-Mongrain of Lafayette Hill, Pa., was the top female finisher in just under 4 hours, 54 minutes.