What’s the primary trait you need to be an advice columnist? According to Baltimore native R. Eric Thomas, bestselling author, noted playwright and television writer, the answer is simple. “Empathy.” On July 1, Thomas joins the big leagues of the trades with “Asking Eric,” the successor to the legendary Chicago Tribune’s “Ask Amy” column, written by the retiring Amy Dickinson.
Joy Sim came to America nine years ago from Korea with just $10,000 — enough to buy a car — and a dream of owning a clothing store. She opened a business on a busy five-mile stretch of Baltimore National Pike in Ellicott City in an area already popular with Korean-owned mom-and-pop shops. Since then, more and more have opened, with international Korean franchises joining the mix. Over 150 Korean-owned businesses are located along the major highway in Howard County.
The first time Vivien Bang grilled the outside of a rice ball in a little bit of sesame oil six years ago, she knew she had struck gold. “He was just like, ‘What are you doing? You have to do something with this,’” she remembers her then-boyfriend and now husband, Luke, telling her when he tried the new version of the snack she’d been making for years for friends and family.
As the COVID-19 pandemic was dominating life in the region, Linda Flores began reaching out to Spanish-speaking families to talk to them about a new vaccine. The work was crucial to ensure members of the community, many who did not speak English, understood the importance of protecting themselves and how to get a shot.
Larnell Robinson sat at a desk in his cluttered office last September, between a bookshelf full of Bibles and a table stacked with the overdose antidote Narcan. He slid out a list of residents of the West Baltimore high-rise where he was tenant council president — one of dozens of subsidized complexes that house the city’s poor seniors. One by one, he began scratching through names, conducting a grim accounting of the dead.
Eight years have moved by quickly for STEER Tech CEO Anuja Sonalker, not just in the growth and success of her autonomous vehicle company but in cities and states embracing the industry as a catalyst for growth in infrastructure. “We’ve had some great last few years,” said Sonalker, who in the last five years was named an All-Star by Automotive News and a distinguished alumnus by the University of Maryland A. James Clark School of Engineering.
Salesforce executives told investors that deals are shrinking or getting delayed. Dell said its margin is getting smaller. Okta highlighted macroeconomic challenges. And Veeva’s CEO said on his company’s earnings call that generative artificial intelligence has been “a competing priority” for customers. Add it all up and it was a brutal week for software and enterprise tech.
Early this year demolition began on the Bard Building in downtown Baltimore. This looming, dark-brick building has a prominent location, fronting Lombard Street at its corner with Market Place. The five-story, 172,000-square-feet structure was built in 1976 as a satellite campus of Baltimore City Community College (BCCC).
A Boonsboro High School student was not allowed to participate at her graduation ceremony Tuesday night because of concerns surrounding her makeup, leaving the 18-year-old and her family “heartbroken” on the big day. Nixx Cabrera-Guy is an aspiring piercer and tattoo artist and is the first person on her father’s side of the family to receive her high school diploma. She said she was told by the Boonsboro High principal, Michael Kuhaneck, that she had to remove her makeup or she could not sit with her fellow students or walk on stage during the ceremony.
With a rainbow sticker affixed to his campaign ballcap and another on his black polo shirt, Larry Hogan zig-zagged from one side of the street to the other, shaking hands and posing for selfies at the Annapolis Pride Parade on Saturday afternoon. The former governor, now a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, was marching in his first-ever Pride Month event. “How you doing? Happy Pride!” he said to obliging parade-watchers.