Benjamin Franklin once said, “if you want something done, ask a busy person,” to which comedian Lucille Ball later added “the more things you do, the more things you can do.” The point, of course, is that people who stay busy are more energetic, more organized and more motivated by nature. We observed the opposite over two years of monotony and incubation during the pandemic, which resulted in a jump in laziness and less desire for people to get out of their comfort zones. For the first several months of the pandemic, activities were limited, responsibilities at work lessened, and lives constricted. As energy levels declined, anxiety meters rose. In other words, the less you do, the less you do.

After receiving a scathing report last summer that found victims of gun violence in Baltimore routinely suffer poor treatment from police and other agencies, city officials put their heads together and developed plans to address some of the newly uncovered issues. But another year would pass before officials told the public about the report’s findings and their ongoing efforts to improve. During a City Council hearing Thursday, leaders of the Baltimore Police Department and the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, among other agencies, were criticized for their handling of the assessment.

Baltimore’s Waterfront Partnership released its annual Harbor Heartbeat report card Thursday, depicting the stark increase in bacteria issues in the waters close to the city’s Patapsco Wastewater Treatment Plant. For several years, water samples collected by the nonprofit Blue Water Baltimore found that the river near the troubled treatment plant’s outfall was safe to swim in 100% of the time — at least during dry weather. But during 2021 monitoring, testing showed the area was only safe 40% of the time it was sampled. At all of Blue Water Baltimore’s other sampling sites in the Inner Harbor and along its tributaries, that percentage either improved or stayed the same from 2020 to 2021, according to the partnership’s report.

Shares of McCormick & Co. slipped Thursday after the Hunt Valley-based spice-maker reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings and record sales but said it continued facing supply chain struggles. Last month, the company warned of a weaker-than-expected third quarter marked by supply chain issues and the impact of inflation on consumer spending. McCormick’s stock closed down 88 cents at $72.43 a share in Thursday trading. Sales during the quarter ended Aug. 31 increased 3% to $1.59 billion from $1.54 billion in the third quarter of 2021, which included an unfavorable impact from the sale of the company’s Kitchen Basics business. Analysts expected sales of $1.59 billion, according to Zacks Consensus Estimate.

When I was growing up on the streets of west Baltimore — where there are no trees to climb — we crawled through dumpsters for fun. In autumn and winter, when the air was crisp and still, we rolled up our sleeves and pushed forward. My father caught me once. Suspended waist-deep in filth, I hadn’t heard the car engine as I closely examined what looked to be a perfectly good box of Captain Crunch. The sound of “Kenny!” shouted from the driver’s side window, shot through me like a slap. A year later we moved to a tiny house on a tree-lined street in the county. It was a revelation.

Amazon will hire 150,000 full-time, part-time and seasonal employees across its warehouses ahead of the holiday season. The announcement, made Thursday, shows the e-commerce behemoth is taking a less conservative approach to its holiday planning than Walmart, which said last month it would hire 40,000 U.S. workers for the holidays, compared to 150,000 in 2021. Amazon, which typically beefs up its operations during the holidays, was looking for the same number of seasonal employees last year. Its other competitors, UPS and Target, have said their holiday hiring plans will also remain in line with the prior year.

The Major League Baseball playoffs begin this weekend. Next year, Orioles fans expect their team to be in them. The 2022 regular season concluded Wednesday, with the Orioles finishing 83-79 and missing the postseason for the sixth straight year — but far surpassing preseason expectations. And even as questions loom around the organization — the sons of 93-year-old owner Peter Angelos remain embroiled in lawsuits over control of the team and the club’s lease at Camden Yards has yet to be formally extended beyond next year — both fans and Executive Vice President and General Manager Mike Elias are optimistic about the future. Elias said the team will spend more on its major league payroll in 2023, and fans look forward to cheering on playoff baseball in Baltimore for the first time since 2016.

The big spike in gas utility bills that Maryland residential customers should expect this winter is just the tip of the iceberg. Without major policy changes, customers will see huge increases in their gas bills in the years and decades to come. These looming increases are not because of the cost of gas itself, the source of this winter’s bill hikes, but because of the gas utilities’ massive spending on their local distribution systems — the pipes, concrete, computers, and other infrastructure that utilities use to deliver gas. A report my office is releasing this week shows that the utilities are on track to spend tens of billions of dollars replacing their entire local distribution systems and expanding pipeline capacity, with the state’s largest gas utility this year spending at a rate of more than $1.2 million per day.