Predictions

JOHN CENA VS. THE ROCK The hardcore wrestling fan may not be looking forward to this match. Some of them think the "Once in a Lifetime" tagline at Wrestlemania 28 was a farce, while others believe the build-up has been nowhere near the interest from last year (in fairness, how could it be with a year to build?). The match itself won't be stellar, but The Rock has just enough mystique and allure left to make the fans invested. John Cena wins the WWE championship and The Rock moves on to Brock Lesnar for Wrestlemania 30. What I would LOVE to see after the match is Cena and Rock sharing a "Wrestlemania handshake," Rock walking away and Dolph Ziggler attacking Cena by surprise (no theme music)

Two years ago, when the Orioles opened at Tropicana Field, Peter Schmuck , Jeff Zrebiec and I went to an Italian restaurant in Tampa the night before the opener. And while waiting for our food we decided to make random predictions about the Orioles. We ended up sharing it in a blog, and for some reason, it was well received. Zrebiec is now anchoring our coverage of that World Champion football team in Baltimore and Ed Encina joined our crew last year. And we decided to keep a tradition alive - or at least make it two times in three years - with Ed on board.

Crabbing season officially begins in Maryland today, but the Chesapeake Bay's blue crabs apparently haven't gotten the word. My colleague Richard Gorelick reports that watermen, seafood dealers, restaurateurs and state natural resource officials all believe that chilly bay water temperatures lately could mean a meager harvest for now. "The cold temperatures are likely to keep early catches low," Brenda Davis, blue crab program manager of...

Baseball predictions are always fun. Maybe it's because most of our NCAA brackets are busted and we need something new to stake our reputation to. Or maybe it's that the baseball season is so long that six months from now few people will actually remember what we pick. We at The Baltimore Sun already made our predictions for the 2013 baseball season (feel free to save that link and shove them in our face in October). Now it's time to document what the other so-called experts think will happen.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Adam Jones is in one of his moods and it's hard to blame him. The Orioles did what many thought would be impossible in 2012. They ended a string of 14 straight losing seasons and played all the way into October before losing a very tight American League Division Series to the New York Yankees. So why is everybody so convinced that they will stumble back to mediocrity this year? Why are the so-called experts and oddsmakers setting the bar so low when the Orioles have basically the same team back and have a chance to get much more from several key players who were injured in 2013?

Supporters of an ambitious plan to rebuild Baltimore's crumbling schools predict a large turnout Monday night when they gather in Annapolis for a rally in support of the plan, which faces an uphill battle to win passage in the General Assembly. The Baltimore Education Coalition, a group that supports the $2.4 billion plan, said more than 2,000 people are expected to turn out for the event on Lawyers Mall outside the State House. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and city schools CEO Andres Alonso, the two main proponents of the plan, are expected to speak at the 6:30 p.m. rally.

Politicians (including former politicians) like to be right more than most people. You see, in politics, public officials live or die by their (very) public opinions concerning the issues of the day. It is with this somber thought in mind that I reissue a sampling of previously published opinions - with timely updates For Your Information. Opinion: Prominent liberals will continue to market a new narrative that pushes public sector growth as the key to economic recovery. Update: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Jan. 31 floor statement concerning the U.S. economy's negative growth in the last quarter of 2012: "Growth went down in the fourth quarter because of reduced government spending, and a reticence in the private sector as government fought over the fiscal cliff.

The confetti from Tuesday's Super Bowl parade was hardly cleared before Baltimore's fiscal health jolted everyone back to reality. Warning of impending "financial ruin," a new report from the advisory firm Public Financial Management tallied Baltimore's cumulative 10-year deficit at a stunning $750 million, driven largely by the city's pension and retiree health obligations. While sobering, the report hands city leaders a rare opportunity to remake Baltimore into a championship city.

Major coastal snowstorms, the kind known to bury the Northeast this time of year, have been rare so far this winter. One expected to sweep over New England at the end of the week is expected to mostly miss the Baltimore area. As much as 2 feet of snow is expected from Rhode Island to Maine, including the Boston area, with lesser amounts to the west and south, including in New York. The Boston forecast office of the National Weather Service  has issued a winter storm watch  effective starting Thursday night.

Not long after President Barack Obama promised to fight climate change in his inaugural address, temperatures soared to 70 last week in Baltimore - in late January. Our weather continues to be unrecognizable. Last summer was the hottest ever recorded at Baltimore/Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport. And across the 48 contiguous states, 2012 was the warmest on record by a huge margin. Globally, the heating trend - fueled mostly by the combustion of fossil fuels - proceeds apace.