Business

The Baltimore County Farmers Market opens for its 2023 season Wednesday, June 7. Baltimore County Farmers Market manager Bill Langlotz said visitors can take advantage of fresh produce while supporting local farmers. “They’ve been in the fruit and vegetable business since the 1800s. It’s several generations that have run the farm,” Langlotz said.

Maryland is preparing to dole out funding to help medical marijuana operators comply with the state’s transition to a recreational cannabis market in July, while also ensuring equity in the industry. The Maryland Department of Commerce has opened applications for its Cannabis Business Assistance Fund, which over the coming months will administer grants and loans to operators in the space, including those led by underrepresented entrepreneurs, according to the agency.

State regulators have ruled in favor of four Baltimore-area insurance brokers who accused Erie Insurance more than two years ago of discriminating by engaging in insurance “redlining” of predominantly Black neighborhoods in the city. Three of the brokerage firms, all small businesses, filed separate complaints in January 2021 with the Maryland Insurance Administration; they are Baltimore Insurance Network LLC of Bowie, Ross Insurance Agency of Windsor Mill and Welsch Insurance Group of Baltimore.

Prince George’s County has a shiny, new $70 million medical center. The University of Maryland Laurel Medical Center opened to the public Sunday, June 4. The 83,742-square-foot facility replaces the Laurel Regional Hospital, which was downsized to an outpatient medical facility in 2018. The new center is another addition to the University of Maryland medical system’s expansion within Prince George’s County, with prior projects including the University of Maryland Capital Region Medical Center.

Licensing in health care is one of the most complex and intricate systems in the United States. While physician licensing is relatively straightforward, with a medical degree and residency hours required for all practitioners and fees that are relatively small compared to their salaries, other health care professions do not have uniform requirements.

Mt. Vernon Marketplace is keeping up with food trends as it looks to welcome several Asian food concepts soon. The food hall is filling a void left by longtime vendor Pinch Dumplings by bringing three new concepts into the space to offer Asian cuisines such as sushi, Korean fried chicken and Korean-style rice hotdogs.

Carlose DeBose Jr. doesn’t remember a time when he felt like a kid. Not after his mother got sick. Not after he started taking care of his little brother. Not after he started playing the part of a grown-up. “I always had to be serious, like take on a role,” DeBose said. “I just always had it pretty much put together. I had to. I had no choice.” DeBose played that role for more than five years, rising at dawn and heading from the Upton neighborhood to wash car windows on Chase Street or Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Employers posted a blockbuster 339,000 jobs in May in the latest sign that a booming labor market continues to keep the country from slipping into a recession, but the economy also gave new warning signs with an increase in the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate rose in May to 3.7 percent from 3.4 percent, one of the fastest increases since early in the pandemic, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday.