In the early 1990s, Father William “Bill” Watters, a Jesuit priest, was sent to Baltimore with a discomfiting question: whether the venerable but struggling St. Ignatius Church, founded in the 1850s, should be closed. His superior made clear he favored an exit. Watters pondered the boarded-up rowhouses across from the church and noticed a plaque marking the founding of a Jesuit university and prep school on the site more than a century before.

When you think about all the challenges that kids can face growing up in Baltimore, asthma might not come to mind, but it should. In 2020, one in five children in Baltimore had an asthma diagnosis, a rate more than double the national average. As a pulmonologist, I’ve seen firsthand how asthma can disrupt the day-to-day lives of our friends and neighbors, resulting in missed days from school and work, emergency trips to the hospital and expensive medical bills.

On Wednesday, as the U.S. Supreme Court pondered whether to uphold a ban on “bump stock” devices, which can speed up the firing of semi-automatic firearms to near machine-gun rate, lawmakers in Annapolis were presented with concerns about the rising use of “Glock switches” which can likewise convert Glock semi-automatic handguns into fully automatic ones. In other words, in the war to keep the most destructive firearms out of the hands of evil-doers, yet another battlefront has opened up.

Ten Greater Baltimore firms are on this year’s Inc. Magazine list of the 135 fastest-growing companies in the mid-Atlantic region. The regional ranking compares private companies based on two years of revenue rather than the three years of data it uses for the popular Inc. 5000 franchise. The mid-Atlantic list was released Feb. 26 and ranks companies by percentage revenue growth from 2020 to 2022. The 10 Baltimore-area companies posted median growth of 173%, higher than the 154% median growth posted by the mid-Atlantic region as a whole.

Steve Inskeep’s recent interview of Rep. Andy Harris on NPR’s “Morning Edition” revealed the utter shallowness of the Republican position on Ukraine and the Maryland congressman’s inability to credibly defend it outside of the right-wing echo chamber. Harris, a do-little rep for most of his seven terms, got time on NPR because he’s co-chair of the House Ukraine Caucus and because he’s changed his mind about funding the fight against Russia’s hideous invasion.

Crews spent hours picking their way along the shoulder of Interstate 370 in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and by noon, they had already filled huge trash bags full of what either falls or gets tossed from cars and trucks. It’s part of “Operation Clean Sweep,” the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration’s continuing effort to clear trash and debris from state roads. And the crews have a lot of ground to cover: MDOT SHA maintains more than 17,000 miles of non-tolled state roads.

Before it sold out, Hozier fans paid $40 via Ticketmaster to sit on the lawn for the singer’s Merriweather Post Pavilion concert in May. Now, latecomers who buy tickets on StubHub will pay nearly five times more for the same vantage point. In some extreme cases, tickets are being digitally hawked on resale sites for 10 or 20 times their face value — before the Columbia music venue even puts them on sale, said Audrey Fix Schaefer, the director of communications for I.M.P., which operates Merriweather Post Pavilion.

It started with a few co-workers at Baltimore-based T. Rowe Price, who got to know each other because they all had children with autism. Word of their informal support group spread. When the money management firm adopted a disability inclusion strategy last year, the parents formed THRIVE, a group to foster inclusion of people who are neurodiverse — those on the autism spectrum or who process information in an atypical way — or have other disabilities or chronic conditions.

Baltimore’s financial position has improved somewhat in recent months, a lift that comes even as the city has taken a few major hits from vacancy in its downtown business district. The city has seen its property tax base shrink by $181 million just since July 1, largely a consequence of updated appraisals to major commercial properties that have lost business and tenants since the pandemic, Deputy Finance Director Bob Cenname told the City Council on Thursday.

EVAPCO, one of Carroll County’s largest manufacturers, plans to expand in Taneytown for the second time in a decade and create 275 new jobs. The expansion over two years will increase EVAPCO’s employment in the county to more than 840 workers, Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday. The company, which makes commercial heating, air conditioning and refrigeration products, plans to add 45,000 square feet to its global headquarters on Allendale Lane.