Around Maryland

Cushman & Wakefield announced that law firm Blades & Rosenfeld P.A., will soon occupy 8,900 rentable square feet at the One South Street building in downtown Baltimore, the first lease for the property’s new owners, One South Street Baltimore LLC. Blades & Rosenfeld has deep roots in Baltimore, having its offices in the downtown area since its founding in 1921.

The Maryland comptroller’s office said Monday that it has processed about half of the roughly 530,000 state returns received this year, following delays due to a tax system upgrade at the start of the season. State returns have been taking slightly longer — up to 10 business days — to process following the upgrade period that held up the office’s systems for roughly the first two weeks of the tax season, which opened Jan. 29.

Things have changed gradually and steadily at Baltimore’s biggest mosque since Hanan Williams started working there 17 years ago. The modest building that once constituted the Islamic Society of Baltimore in Windsor Mill has tripled in size. A private school that was situated in trailers has its own indoor wing, a gym hosts sporting events and prayer-session overflow, and three red domes surmount the sprawling, sand-colored complex.

One after the other, drivers pulled up the hilly terrain of The Alameda onto school grounds. A woman wearing a leopard-dotted headband and Baltimore City College sweatshirt emerged from the entrance near the football stadium. She stood in front of the orange door with a posted sign: “ALL FOOD DELIVERIES HERE.”

The question of where new cannabis dispensaries should set up shop in Prince George’s County divided the council last fall, igniting a layered debate about quality development and the potential for legalization to advance social equity in a county harmed by the War on Drugs. While council members never settled on whether to restrict new shop locations, they are nearly united in opposing a move by state lawmakers that would block them from doing so in the future.

Consumers in Maryland lost millions of dollars to fraud and scams last year, as the nation as a whole hit a new benchmark for fraud losses: more than $10 billion in 2023. Marylanders made 43,433 fraud reports in 2023, according to data released by the Federal Trade Commission. Most of the reports — 14,968 — were for imposter scams, where a scammer impersonates a government or business official, or even a personal contact, to earn a person’s trust or intimidate them to get them to send money.

Brandon Gruszczynski, who manages the LGBTQ Baltimore Eagle Bar & Nightclub in Old Goucher, fondly remembers a once-vibrant gay scene in Baltimore. It was during the ’90s and early 2000s when patrons could hop from bar to bar for hours on any given night or attend other activities, such as house parties, drag bingo or game and trivia nights throughout the week.