Nature

Wedding date: Dec. 29, 2012 Her story: Annie Balczerak, 31, grew up near Hunt Valley. She is a real estate agent at Prudential Home Sale WGC Realty in Baltimore. Her father, Edwin, is a retired pharmacist. Her mother, Patricia, is a retired schoolteacher. His story: Tom Molloy, 31, grew up in Baltimore. He is an emergency room physician's assistant at Franklin Square Medical Center in Baltimore. His father, Patrick, owns a contracting business. His mother, Agnes, owns an after-school program.

In his second inaugural address, President Barack Obama laid out clearly and forcefully the philosophy that animates his presidency and placed it in context of America's history and values. He believes in individual initiative and hard work, in the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But he believes that history has time and again forced us as a nation to recalibrate our notions of what actions are necessary to uphold those values - from the end of slavery with the Civil War to the enfranchisement of women during the Progressive Era to the dawn of the New Deal welfare state and the realization of equality through the civil rights movement.

Hayward L. Putnam, a recreational-vehicles salesman who wrote a popular weekly Harford County outdoors column, died of pulmonary fibrosis Jan. 16 at Stella Maris Hospice. He was 75 and lived in Jarrettsville. Born in Bel Air, he grew up on his grandparents' Jarrettsville farm, where his grandfather was a blacksmith. "He sang Gene Autry and Roy Rogers songs while milking the cows," said his daughter, Elizabeth "Beth" Holt of Red Lion, Pa. "He grew up tending livestock. " Mr. Putnam was a 1955 North Harford High School graduate.

Since 1998, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources has taught more than 32,000 students in 1,200 classroom programs about the Chesapeake Bay, coastal and bay marine life, as well as the state's streams through its Teaching Environmental Awareness in Maryland (TEAM) program. DNR officials are looking for volunteers who want to learn about the program and then teach it to children in third through eighth grades in the state. Volunteers must be 18 years old and be able to provide their own transportation.

A 546-acre deer hunting area that opened in Anne Arundel County shortly after Thanksgiving and will close at the end of January has seen only seven deer taken so far, according to the deer project leader for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. But the small number of deer killed by hunters at the Crownsville Cooperative Wildlife Management Area doesn't surprise Brian Eyler. "It normally takes a year or two for new areas to catch on," Eyler said. The hunting area in Crownsville opened Nov. 26, two days after the start of the deer firearm season, and will close when the bowhunting season ends Jan. 31. Deer hunting only is permitted there, and the program will follow the guidelines for bag limits in the 2012-2013 Guide to Hunting and Trapping in Maryland.

A Calvert County judge brushed aside Friday a potential legal hurdle to exporting liquefied natural gas via the Chesapeake Bay, ruling that Dominion, the Richmond, Va.-based energy company, does not need the Sierra Club's permission to convert its LNG import terminal at Cove Point. Circuit Judge James P. Salmon said Dominion has the right to export LNG from Cove Point, despite an agreement the company has had for decades giving the Sierra Club and another environmental group a say over the company's expansion of the little-used shipping facility near the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Southern Maryland.

Most of us have probably seen or heard the ubiquitous ads promoting domestic natural gas drilling. While they don't tend to use the word "fracking," their message about hydraulic fracturing of shale is clear enough - little kids playing happily on green patches of grass and the promise of bountiful clean energy, jobs and all-around happiness all rolled into one. Two things can be inferred from the ads. First, that those in the oil and gas industry...

Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco got the news via an early Monday morning phone call from coach John Harbaugh. Cam Cameron, the only offensive coordinator that Flacco has ever worked with in the NFL, had just been fired. “I was definitely stunned,” Flacco said Wednesday. The decision to let go Cameron and replace him with quarterbacks coach Jim Caldwell remained the prevailing topic of conversation Wednesday at the Under Armour Performance, even as the Ravens accelerated their preparations for Sunday's showdown against Peyton Manning and the first-place Denver Broncos.

When Bob Zealor was growing up in Overlea, he would go into the woods near his home and collect greens to make a wreath for his mother. You can imagine his delight when he discovered Colonial Williamsburg, where all the holiday decorations come from nature. All these years later, the interior designer and his wife Maureen make regular Christmas pilgrimages to Williamsburg, Va., which has become the inspiration for his holiday decorating. "It is homey. It is real. The greens, the fruit.

At a lively Central Booking hearing, a Baltimore judge denied bail to Frank James MacArthur, the local blogger who live-streamed a standoff with police on the Internet, two days after a different judge ordered him to be released. MacArthur, 47, appeared Wednesday dressed in a yellow jumpsuit, his head shaved and his hands cuffed behind his back. District Judge Joan B. Gordon pointed to MacArthur's criminal history and apparent "violent and assaultive nature" as reasons for denying bail on gun charges filed against him late Monday.