News that Diageo North America, the parent company of Guinness, will lay off around 100 workers and shut down the Maryland plant that manufactures Baltimore Blonde and other beverage brands stunned the local brewing scene. Left in doubt is the future of Baltimore Blonde — the lager with a logo that includes a Maryland flag — that Guinness began brewing in Relay in 2017 and has since become a popular offering everywhere from Camden Yards to local stores.

The House of Delegates unanimously gave final approval Tuesday on “Safe Harbor” legislation that would protect minors from being prosecuted for prostitution and other offenses based on sex and human trafficking. Sponsored by Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery), Senate Bill 292 would provide that persons 17 years old and younger not be prosecuted for certain offenses if the crime resulted from the minor being a victim of trafficking.

Right before Thanksgiving 2021, without previous warning, we received the shocking news that our community school, Steuart Hill Academic Academy, would close at the end of that academic year. Steuart Hill and two other elementary schools, Eutaw Marshburn and Dr. Bernard Harris, were slated for closure, and our communities had until the second week of January 2022 to engage with the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners, which would ultimately decide whether to uphold the district staff’s recommendations. We had only eight weeks between two major holidays to get organized and respond.

Round number anniversaries are typically considered milestones, and so it is that the coming baseball season will mark the 40th anniversary of the Baltimore Orioles’ victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1983 World Series. The team is remembered as much for its cast of characters as for its considerable talent.

Once more, with less feeling. Baltimore’s mayor-controlled spending board on Wednesday again considered the $139 million deal with Baltimore Gas & Electric pushed by Mayor Brandon Scott for maintenance to the city’s underground network for infrastructure. This time all five members of the board were in the room. But — unlike the rancorous first vote nearly two months ago — there was no discussion, and no vote was taken.

While we are reluctant to compare Donald Trump to the fictional characters of Shakespeare given the Bard’s skill, subtlety and wit, the ex-president’s rambling Tuesday night seethe-a-thon from the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom at Mar-a-Lago had all the elements of King Lear’s Act III rage on the hearth. If Lear’s deep flaw is his vanity and how he values appearances above reality, what better tribute to that highly theatrical moment than Trump blasting the world from his gilded stage in Florida?

A new facility for so-called “living funerals” complete with a catering hall and bar is being developed at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens as the ageless task of mourning adapts for the 21st century. The funeral home is in the works for a corner of the 70-acre cemetery at 200 E. Padonia Road in Timonium, said John O. “Jack” Mitchell IV, president of the Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home, which has owned the site that also has a pet cemetery and cremation center since 2008.

With less than a week left in Maryland’s legislative session, most elements of Maryland’s plan to create a legal market for cannabis have been decided. Bills on track to pass establish details like licenses to be allotted, the types of operators allowed and provisions to create an equitable market for a likely billion-dollar industry.

The longest serving chair of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland will step down next week to become a partner in an Annapolis lobbying and government relations firm. Del. Darryl Barnes (D-Prince George’s) plans to leave his duties as a legislator April 15 and, on the same day, become a partner in Evans, Barnes & Associates.

Maryland’s environmental agency filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Fleischmann’s Vinegar over allegations that its North Baltimore plant has discharged unpermitted pollutants into the Jones Falls stream. The state’s lawsuit comes a day after Blue Water Baltimore, the local environmental nonprofit, also sued Fleischmann’s and its parent company headquartered in Ireland, Kerry, Inc., in federal court for failing to meet requirements under its environmental permit with the state and for violations of the U.S. Clean Water Act.