At the center of the Francis Scott Key Mall on Saturday, tables featuring a range of products and services stood surrounding the large fountain. Some offered jewelry and apparel. Others featured handmade skin and hair products. The small businesses at the tables were participating in Marketing Solutions and Events’ third annual Black-owned business showcase. The company hosted a series of Black-owned business showcases on Saturday at different malls across the country, including the Francis Scott Key Mall in Frederick.

There is a special kind of stress in finding and paying for day care for your children. Then there is the terror of leaving your child for the first time. But what’s the emotion when you’re told the center you’ve come to rely on shuts its doors? Shock, frustration and sadness, said parents picking up their children on July 28 from the Baltimore Montessori preschool in Locust Point, after they were notified by state education officials that the center’s license was suspended.

Mount Airy water and sewer customers will see an increase in their bills starting Sept. 1. The Mount Airy Town Council voted 4-1 to approve the rate increase during a town meeting Aug. 7. Council member Stephen Domotor was the lone vote against the rate hike. Town officials had proposed the rate increases as a way to help the town reduce a $274,546 shortfall in the fiscal 2024 operating budget. Domotor said he voted in opposition because the increases do nothing to address a capital budget deficit, which stands at $208,500.

Allegany County officials received a list of 17 projects being recommended for a total of $1 million in grant funding under Program Open Space. The state program provides financial and technical assistance to communities for the planning, acquisition, and/or development of recreation land or open space areas. Adam Patterson, director of public works, presented the list of projects for 2024 at Thursday’s meeting of the Allegany County Board of Commissioners. “We have a very nice funding package this year from the state,” said Patterson. “Our available funds are $993,046.”

Baltimore-area leaders aim to be in the running to become a national tech hub similar to Silicon Valley or Boston as the city competes for a federal designation and billions of dollars in funding. A 35-member consortium led by the Greater Baltimore Committee is finalizing a bid seeking to become one of 20 or more cities or regions chosen for the federal Tech Hubs Program. If it succeeds, federal funding — an estimated $500 million over five years — is expected to generate $3.2 billion in economic impact and 52,000 jobs by 2030 in a region including Baltimore and seven surrounding counties, GBC officials say.

For almost 100 years, a Navy research lab worked on secret projects just across the Severn River from the Naval Academy in Annapolis. The David Taylor Research Center opened in 1903, and at its peak in the 1960s employed more than 1,400 engineers, metallurgists, chemists and others working to make the ships and subs smarter, faster and quieter.

As wildfires blaze in Hawaii, taking lives and displacing people from their homes, a Baltimore charity with strong ties to the state is worried about its workers there and bracing for damage to real estate it owns. The Hawaii office of The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation — a private charity committed to helping people living in poverty — was not damaged by the fires, but donated $850,000 in grants to three organizations across the islands that will help those who have been affected, according to Arin Gencer, the foundation’s senior communications director.

Amtrak is seeking to use eminent domain statutes to seize control of four properties in Baltimore’s Bridgeview neighborhood to make way for the planned multi-billion-dollar replacement of a passenger rail tunnel that connects Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The National Railroad Passenger Corp., which does business as Amtrak, filed a complaint in U.S. District Court of Maryland Thursday asking the court to grant them possession of four properties in the 1000 block of North Payson Street.

Maryland’s utility regulator has ordered Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. to remove a controversial electrification plan from its proposal to raise customers’ gas and electric delivery rates. A proposed BGE rate hike, under review by the Public Service Commission, would allow the utility to invest not only in improving the electric grid and natural gas system but also in electrification programs to promote electric vehicle use and building efficiency, BGE has said.