The nation’s economy accelerated last quarter at a strong 2.8% annual pace, with consumers and businesses helping drive growth despite the pressure of continually high interest rates. Thursday’s report from the Commerce Department said the gross domestic product — the economy’s total output of goods and services — picked up in the April-June quarter after growing at a 1.4% pace in the January-March period.

A Lockheed Martin office building built in Rockville in 1984 is the latest suburban office property offered up for residential conversion. JLL is marketing the 134,000-square-foot building and its surface parking lot at 1 Curie Court as an office-to-townhome redevelopment opportunity that’s “rare” for the property’s roughly 7.8-acre size and location just off I-270, according to marketing materials.

A Friendly Bread, a Baltimore-based artisan bread and frozen grilled cheese company, is moving into a new 17,000-square-foot facility, marking a major expansion from its shared coworking production space at B-More Kitchen. Owner Lane Levine said the 17,000-square-foot facility, which includes 5,000 square feet of frozen storage space and large dry and refrigerated storage areas, is much larger than A Friendly Bread’s current needs.

Maryland’s budget was prepared to give scholarships to 40,000 kids to help their families afford child care. But less than a month into the fiscal year, the state has already blown past that number. Maryland’s Child Care Scholarship Program, which subsidizes the rising cost of day care to help parents rejoin the workforce, has added 18,000 kids — a 75% increase in just over a year and a half. (Photo: Eric Thompson/The Baltimore Banner)

Maryland officials will not have to fully evaluate how a planned replacement for the Francis Scott Key Bridge will affect the surrounding environment, including the Patapsco River, federal officials said this week. The move clears a hurdle that could have delayed an already lengthy rebuild process. The Federal Highway Administration issued the exemption from the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, because the state anticipates the future bridge will share key characteristics of its predecessor — four travel lanes and the same location.

Judging from local wastewater surveillance trends, President Joe Biden has plenty of company in Maryland as he continues to recover this week from his third bout of COVID-19. The state is seeing the biggest spike in COVID levels in its wastewater — or sewage — since early January, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Angela Alsobrooks will launch her first television ad of the general election Thursday with a message her campaign intends to continue pushing until November: Control of the Senate could come down to her matchup with Republican Larry Hogan. In a state that hasn’t elected a Republican senator since 1980, the race between the two-term Prince George’s County executive and the former two-term governor is the most competitive in decades.

The Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has launched a new plastic film recycling program at the Shady Grove Transfer Station and Recycling Center. This initiative lets residents and businesses recycle flexible plastic bags and wraps. These materials require different processing than bottles and containers.

Baltimore’s mayor said Department of Public Works employees will get the resources to safely do their jobs amid a damning new report released Tuesday by the inspector general. Baltimore City Inspector General Isabel Cumming said in her report that she found potentially dangerous working conditions in some DPW facilities.

Furry companions and their owners in Baltimore’s downtown are getting a not-so-new, but improved, hang-out spot. New renderings of the Liberty Dog Run from the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore show an attempt at attracting more visitors to the struggling city center. The plan features a large expansion that would change the traffic pattern and introduce a public restroom, retail booth, shaded areas and a security hub.