In mostly affluent Anne Arundel County, huge pockets of poverty persist. The divide formed the backdrop for an Oct. 27 town hall meeting at St. Bernadette, Severn, where a Johns Hopkins researcher presented stark contrasts between the haves and the have-nots.

Kermit the Frog once sang “It’s not easy being green.” The leaders at the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s downtown headquarters beg to differ, however.

Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien was to preside over the opening session of the cause for sainthood of Holy Cross Father Patrick Peyton during the 12:10 p.m. Mass Nov. 20 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore.

Aimee Murray can deal with carrying her 31-pound, 4-year-old son. She can handle putting a 1.5-inch feeding tube into a hole in his belly and inflating a small balloon inside his abdomen to keep it in place. She can even endure exhausting hours of constantly checking on her boy to monitor his breathing and comfort him when he has muscle spasms.

Calling the death penalty “an expensive and utterly ineffective tool in deterring violent crime,” Gov. Martin J. O’Malley implored members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee to allow his proposed capital punishment ban to reach the floor for a vote by the full legislative body.