Religion

Lecture Neurobiologist Therissa Libby, co-author of "Heroin: Its History, Pharmacology, & Treatment," gives a talk on recovery at 7 p.m. Nov. 15 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis, 333 Dubois Road. A Q&A session follows her presentation. Information: 410-268-9639 or mpg@uuca-md.org .

Gospel concert "Divine & Friends Right Direction Gospel Xplosion," featuring DiVine of Annapolis, the Christian Cavaliers, Tony Winston & Star Christ, the original Little Ark Male Chorus and others will be held at 3:30 p.m. at Cecil Memorial United Methodist Church, 15 Parole St. in Annapolis. Admission is $10, $5 for children younger than 12. Doresa Harvey of the Heaven 600 radio station is the emcee and food will be on sale. Information: 443-517-8984. Meeting The Anne Arundel Cluster of the Women of the ELCA will hold its Spring Cluster Meeting from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, May 25, at the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, 7606 Quarterfield Road in Glen Burnie.

Four new stores will be coming to The Mall in Columbia, including Lululemon Athletica and True Religion, mall officials said Thursday. Lululemon, a yoga-inspired athletic apparel store, and denim apparel brand True Religion are opening as part of the center's 70,000-square-foot redevelopment and expansion. The stores will flank a new entrance leading from the mall to the new open-air "lifestyle center. " Lululemon will open this summer in 3,200 square feet on the upper level across from Michael Kors.

A bill has been introduced in the U.S. Senate that would allow a foreign country, Israel, to discriminate against select groups of American citizens - including Americans who have expressed criticism of its policies. Disappointingly, the bill, S.B. 462 (also known as the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013), is co-sponsored by Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin. Those who stand to be most affected by this piece of legislation are Arab Americans and Muslim Americans. However, it may also apply to individuals who wish to visit or work in Israel and/or the Palestinian territories that Israel has occupied since 1967.

Baltimore's speed cameras are off-line for the second time this year after officials found faults with some of the tickets issued by the city's new camera system vendor. Officials say they will void or refund nearly 600 erroneous tickets. We would be inclined to compliment the city for how seriously it is taking the responsibility to eliminate all errors from the program if there weren't something so odd about this latest twist in the Baltimore speed camera saga. According to a news release issued by the Department of Transportation late Tuesday afternoon, the city decided to shut the cameras down after finding some "clerical mistakes" involving the payment options listed on tickets and the speed limit near one camera on the Alameda.

The media cover Ray Lewis' faith and his role as spiritual leader of the Ravens frequently. Ray Lewis makes it so. Anyone who has seen him once knows that he understands how to use pageantry to reveal deeper meaning. From taking off his jersey following the post-season win over the Indianapolis Colts to reveal a shirt with "Psalms 91" emblazoned across it to the inimitable way he enunciates each syllable as if he were beseeching God (even when he is talking about what he ate for breakfast)

A few years ago, the History Channel was best known to some as a punch line on HBO's “The Sopranos.” Remember mobster Tony Soprano sitting alone late at night in his New Jersey McMansion eating ice cream and watching World War II documentaries about Adolph Hitler and Winston Churchill? These days, no one is laughing at the History Channel - not with audiences like the 13.1 million viewers who tuned in last Sunday for the first two hours of “The Bible,” a 10-hour miniseries that runs through Easter Sunday.

In the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, people continue to ask the useless question, "Why?" We search for the shooter's "motive," as if we could discover a satisfactory explanation for why a depressed young man would decide to execute his mother, 20 first-graders and six of their teachers. Why did this latest alienated loner in our pantheon of mass murderers grab the stockpile of weapons his suburban mother had accumulated? How could people not have known? Was this a "failure of the mental health system?"