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Baltimore Pickleball Club opening 12,000-square-foot venue in Baltimore County

A mother-daughter team enamored with pickleball — an uber-popular sport that mixes tennis, Ping Pong and badminton — is opening a 12,000-square-foot, year-round indoor venue in a Timonium business park. Bonny Gothier and her daughter, Alex Guerriere, and the rest of the Baltimore Pickleball Club LLC owners group, signed a lease in a single-story building at the Timonium Exchange, a 200,000-square-foot complex at 2125-2131 Greenspring Drive.

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Revitalizing America’s News Deserts

Throughout the country, local journalism is being defunded and dismantled. A recent report by Northwestern University’s Medill Local News Initiative shows that the newspaper industry—still the primary source of original reporting for our entire news media system—has lost more than a quarter of its newspapers and almost 60 percent of its newsroom employees since 2005. More than one-fifth of the U.S. population—approximately 70 million Americans—now live in an area with little or no access to local news.

Towson University president announces departure for University of Louisville

Towson University’s president announced plans to lead a Kentucky university Wednesday morning. Kim Schatzel, 66, became president of Towson University in 2016. She will be University of Louisville’s 19th president starting Feb. 1. “There’s no question that President Schatzel’s departure from Towson University and from the University System of Maryland (USM) is a loss for us,” said USM Chancellor Jay A. Perman in an email.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Baltimore developer pays $37M for Columbia office complex, plans upgrades

A six-building office complex in Columbia has sold for $37 million and is poised to be converted into a medical hub. Baltimore-based Goodier Properties acquired the Old Dobbin Lane at Columbia Crossing property off Old Dobbin Road and Route 175 in Howard County in June and already has four leases signed, said Jon Selfridge, vice president at Goodier, on Wednesday.

‘Element of surprise and wonder’: Pop-up dinners give Baltimore chefs without a restaurant a table to call their own

Some of Baltimore’s most exciting dining experiences can’t be found in a restaurant. pop-up dinners and supper clubs are flourishing in the city, where diners in the know pounce on tickets for meals that feature one-night-only menus and are limited to a handful of guests. Pop-ups aren’t a new concept: There’s a long history of chefs organizing dinners to showcase their skills or highlight a particular ingredient or theme.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Sinclair Broadcast subsidiary writes down value of struggling regional sports networks for second time

Sinclair Broadcast Group took a loss on the value of its regional sports networks for the second time since buying the package for $10.6 billion from The Walt Disney Co., this time writing off an additional $1 billion of its book value. Sinclair’s subsidiary, Diamond Sports Group, took an impairment loss on the rebranded Bally Sports networks in the recent third quarter. Diamond, which owns the 19 networks, now reports financial results separately from Hunt Valley-based Sinclair as part of a deconsolidation earlier this year.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Online sports betting off to fast start in Md. as more license applicants line up
State gaming officials are poised to give preliminary approval to three new applications for mobile sports betting licenses as well as two operators connected to two of those licenses. The Thursday votes set the stage for three more entrants into a new market that saw brisk business over the opening Thanksgiving weekend. While there are no official initial numbers, GeoComply, a company that tracks online gaming within states, told BetMaryland.com that 477,000 unique accounts placed 16.5 million online sports bets from Nov. 23-27 in Maryland. Nearly 4 million were placed on Thanksgiving Day, according to the gaming site. The number of transactions in Maryland was double that of neighboring Virginia, a state with 2 million more people.
Freedom Federal Credit Union members hit by fraudulent debit card charges

Many Freedom Federal Credit Union members noticed fraudulent charges on their cards over the weekend, and some aren’t happy with how the situation was handled. The Bel-Air-based credit union, which as of June had more than 33,000 members and more than $420 million in total assets, announced on Friday that many of its members were experiencing unauthorized charges on their debit cards due to issues at Freedom’s third-party card services provider. The credit union has been working with impacted members to shut down accounts and issue refunds by the end of the day on Tuesday. The mass instances of fraud led to long lines at Freedom’s branches, and long waits for customers who called.

Annapolis Town Center debuts Vibe, a 500-person music venue

Annapolis residents in search of live music have a new venue to visit with the opening of Vibe, a 10,000-square-foot nightclub in the bustling Annapolis Town Center shopping complex. The standalone club opened quietly on Nov. 23 after its owner, Fivestar Restaurant Development & Consulting, secured a liquor license from Anne Arundel County the day before. The club can fit 500 people standing and 250 seated. The property features two bars and a menu that offers “finger foods” and “shareables” like ahi tuna bites and tacos. In terms of size, Vibe comes in between two of Anne Arundel County’s popular music venues. The county is home to Rams Head on Stage, a 300-seat capacity music club in the city’s historic downtown, and the Hall at Live Resort, a 4,000-seat venue at the Live Casino & Hotel in Hanover.

Illinois, other states reach $9.4 million settlement with Google, iHeartMedia over misleading ads

The Federal Trade Commission and a handful of states announced settlements Monday with Google and iHeartMedia related to misleading radio advertisements about a Google cellphone. The settlements stem from complaints alleging Google paid to have radio personalities endorse and talk about their personal experiences using the Pixel 4, one of the company’s cellphones, according to California Attorney General Rob Bonta. At the time, the phone wasn’t available and many of the radio DJs had not used it, Bonta said. The ads ran more than 23,000 times across 10 media markets, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, Bonta’s office said.

Read More: Baltimore Sun

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