Business

In 2018, when Mike DeWine was Ohio’s attorney general, he began investigating an obscure corner of the health care industry. He believed that insurers were inflating prescription drug prices through management companies that operated as middlemen in the drug supply chain. There were concerns that these companies, known as pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, were fleecing agencies like Medicaid, the government-run health insurance program for the poor.

The death of Orioles owner Peter Angelos raises questions about what happens to the team now. Here are five key questions and answers: How will Angelos’ death affect the pending sale of the Orioles? Angelos’ death on Saturday will not affect current plans in place for the sale valuing the team at $1.725 billion, according to Chris Ullman, a spokesperson for David Rubenstein, 74, the leader of the group buying the club.

A piercing thought stopped Jim Palmer in the midst of a recent conversation covering his 61 years with the Orioles. He has never traveled to Baltimore for a baseball spring without knowing Brooks Robinson would be there. Robinson, who died in September, was more than a longtime teammate and hot corner hoover who kept runs off Palmer’s pitching ledger.

After claiming the title of lowest state unemployment rate in the country last year, Maryland’s unemployment rate rose for the third consecutive month in February. Virginia’s unemployment rate held steady last month. The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reports Maryland’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate in February was 2.4%, up from 2.3% in January and 2.2% in December.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. spent $443,983 and registered 22 lobbyists to influence public policy in 2023. Its sister utility, Potomac Electric Power Co., also owned by Chicago-based Exelon Corp., spent $647,813 and had 22 lobbyists. During the General Assembly’s legislative session last year, the two utilities were involved with more than 50 bills focused on such areas as energy, the environment, decarbonization, decommissioning of power plants and the state’s climate transition legislation.

One of Greater Baltimore’s fastest-growing credit unions will get even bigger following its planned acquisition of a rival firm. Bel Air’s Freedom Federal Credit Union announced plans to acquire Atlantic Financial Federal Credit Union. Freedom’s acquisition of the Hunt Valley credit union is expected to close before the end of the year and is still pending regulatory approval and a member vote.

MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving handed out $36 million to 20 organizations based in Greater Washington this week as part of $640 million in pledges to small nonprofits across the U.S. The total amount of donations is more than twice what the billionaire philanthropist and author had initially said she would dole out when she opened the application process a year ago.