The Department of Defense awarded a $500 million contract to the University of Maryland’s national security research facility, the largest research deal the university has received. One of the 15 university-affiliated research centers within the department, the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security is the only one dedicated to research and development in artificial intelligence, information engineering and human systems.

 

“Have you ever been homeless?” asked a woman standing outside a coffee shop with nowhere to go. She said she had lived on the streets of Annapolis for weeks, ever since being evicted from her apartment after losing her job. Without a permanent residence, she said that she sleeps and hangs out wherever she can – on park benches, at a shelter, under an overpass, and, on weekends, in the lobby of an apartment building. “I just have to be out by Monday morning,” she said.

 

The two Harborplace pavilions will get seven new tenants this summer ranging from a tea company to a literacy community outreach movement. The Downtown Partnership of Baltimore held a ceremony Wednesday to welcome the third group of businesses participating in its BOOST program, which stands for ‘Black-owned and operated storefront tenancy’ and focuses on filling vacant space downtown.

By the end of 2024, two giant pandas will be back at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., first lady Jill Biden and other federal officials announced Wednesday morning. Bao Li (pronounced BOW-lee), an almost 3-year-old male, and Qing Bao (pronounced Ching-BOW), a 2 1/2-year-old female, are coming to the United States as part of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute’s partnership with the China Wildlife Conservation Association.

Engineers at the Johns Hopkins University are set to begin an “urgent assessment” of bridges across the United States in the wake of the Key Bridge collapse, believing the risk for another ship strike to be higher than previously thought. The team, currently made up of three Hopkins staff and a small group of students, including one from Morgan State University, will use global shipping data to modernize what engineers believe are outdated risk assessment models.

Companies doing business in the state of Maryland are no strangers to regulation and taxes. So, when Maryland introduced a special business tax that would provide federal tax relief to Maryland businesses, there was widespread cheer. Unfortunately, government inefficiency in the state has caused a rare tax incentive to be more of a headache than it’s worth for many business owners and tax professionals.

Pompeian Olive Oil staffers spent three weeks this spring making daily calls to a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to pull off an expensive gamble: getting a ship across the ocean just in time for the reopening of a channel into the Port of Baltimore. The journey required precise timing to prevent the vessel from waiting for the wreckage of the Key Bridge to be cleared, but Pomepian officials deemed it worth the risk given the high costs associated with trucking imports from other ports. In the end, the trip was a success.

An East Baltimore union boss. A lefty City Hall staffer. A bilingual pastor. A South Baltimore football coach with a flock of devoted Reddit disciples. After a stunning primary election cycle, Baltimore’s City Council is poised to welcome a fresh crop of young Democrats who could help to shape city policy for years to come.

 

Baltimore’s Atapco Properties is expanding into the southern Virginia industrial market. The development and investment firm on Tuesday said it had acquired 124 acres near the Port of Virginia. The site within the Virginia Port Logistics Park can hold a warehouse of up to 1.5 million square feet and is Atapco’s first acquisition in the Hampton Roads market, a strong competitor to the Port of Baltimore.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday reiterated his administration’s support for restoring the Francis Scott Key Bridge and bringing business back to the Port of Baltimore and the communities that rely on the port for their livelihoods, according to a statement released Wednesday by the White House. Biden’s comment followed Gov. Wes Moore’s (D) and Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld’s meeting Tuesday with White House officials and officials from the Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Transportation Department and Federal Highway Administration.