Maryland’s second busiest trauma center is receiving federal funding to help identify and aid victims of sex and labor trafficking. The University of Maryland Capital Region Medical Center hospital (UM Capital) in Prince George’s County will get nearly $800,000 from the Department of Justice to go toward screening, identifying and supporting victims in medical settings. UM Capital’s emergency room, Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Center, OB/GYN, Behavioral Health unit and outpatient clinic will be trained on best practices to begin assisting trafficking victims or high-risk individuals. “Victims of human trafficking are often identified by law enforcement, service providers, faith-based institutions, and medical settings,” Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks said in a statement.

Kimberly Tenice Johnson and Denise Roles Matthews are statistical outliers in the wine world. They’re Black. They’re women. Their winery is based not only in Maryland, but in Baltimore. All of the above put them in lanes not exactly overflowing with company in the industry. Yet Philosophy — the winery the women launched in 2018 — has already scored silver and bronze medals in the Maryland Governor’s Cup Competition. They sell via farmers markets, festivals, an online shop and a handful of locations like Baltimore’s Off the Rox. And they have high hopes for this year’s harvest, which is winding down across the state.

It’s fairly well known that Inauguration Day for Gov.-elect Wes Moore (D) and his running mate, Aruna Miller (D), is Jan. 18, and there will be an inaugural ball and other festivities. But what about Attorney General-elect Anthony Brown (D) and Comptroller-elect Brooke Lierman (D)? Brown is scheduled to be sworn in on the morning of Jan. 3 in the House of Delegates chamber in the State House — where Brown served as a delegate from 1999 to 2007 and as lieutenant governor from 2007 to 2015. There will also be a celebration for Brown, but details have not been finalized. Lierman will be sworn in on Jan. 16, at a time and place to be announced.

When Ohio transportation officials got the bids back in spring for the next phase of an expansion of Interstate 75 north of Cincinnati, they had a rude awakening. Inflation had driven up the mega-project’s cost by about $100 million above the $171 million state engineers had estimated. Officials decided to redesign the project, break it up into smaller phases and rebid it, putting off construction until the fall of 2023. Ohio transportation officials are getting nearly $2 billion over five years from the $1.2 trillion federal bipartisan infrastructure law. But so far, the money they’ve received “has largely been gobbled up by inflation,” said Matt Bruning, spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Transportation. “It didn’t take all of it, but we’re pretty close to a net sum zero because of it.”

When Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, signed a major Infrastructure bill in 1956, he was 65 years old — definitely a senior. And when Ike, as he was affectionately nick-named, left office in 1961, at age 70, his approval ratings throughout the country were sky high. Everyone still “liked Ike,” as his early campaign buttons suggested. Eisenhower was venerated for being a senior; I remember the word “grandfatherly” being used. President Ronald Reagan, too, was respected for his age. Today, sadly, many young people believe President Joe Biden, who just turned 80, is over the hill. When he won the passage of his own critical infrastructure bill in 2021, he received nothing like the credit Ike was given.

Patterson Bowling Center, a Baltimore institution and longtime home to duckpin bowling, has closed, owner Ken Staub confirmed Saturday. That afternoon, groups with bowling reservations at the 95-year-old lanes found the building shuttered and a closed sign on the door. I am heartbroken; this is the oldest duckpin house in existence, but there is nothing I can do about it,” said Staub, 70. He said the owner of the two-story building, at 2105 Eastern Ave., will finalize its sale this week and that the structure will be converted to 15 apartments.

Entrepreneurs seeking to innovate in the mid-Atlantic’s aerospace and defense sector now have some extra consolidated support thanks to the State of Maryland and federal government. The U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation granted the Maryland Department of Commerce $641, 573, with part of the funds being used to restart the Defense Commercialization (DefTech) Center. The resurrected program will now be administered by the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), the state-connected investment vehicle for tech companies across the state.

As if he doesn’t have enough going on, writer and filmmaker John Waters and the Sub Pop record label on Friday released a new recording, entitled “It’s In The Book/”Proud New Father.” The release comes one day after Artforum magazine published Waters’ Best Films of 2022 list, which includes “Bones and All;” “EO,” a film about a donkey that wanders Europe; and “Detainee 001,” a documentary about John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban.” Waters’ new audio-only release, available digitally and on a seven-inch single pressed on gold vinyl, features Waters covering a stand-up routine recorded in 1952 by Johnny Standley, a comedian, actor and musician who was born in Milwaukee in 1912.