Business

When Tyra Thompson would pass the old Methodist church on East Monument Street, she rarely gave it any thought. Why would she? Sure, Thompson, a 38-year-old single mother, has lived in the nearby Latrobe Homes for the past seven years, but this wasn’t really her neighborhood. She’s from West Baltimore, not East Baltimore. She’s not a property owner, let alone a developer.

Maryland state lawmakers are considering a bill to put more money into the pockets of restaurant workers. House Bill 803 would give restaurant servers a base hourly wage of $15, plus tips. “We will make sure that people will always get a wage where they can at least pay their rent,” said the bill’s sponsor, Senate Assistant Deputy Majority Leader Arthur Carr Ellis, D-District 28.

Though a traumatic brain injury suffered in an automobile crash has limited some aspects of Robert Jaffe’s life, the engineer hasn’t let it slow down his contributions to a robotics program at the Westminster-based nonprofit Mid-Atlantic Gigabit Innovation Collaboratory (MAGIC). After the crash, Jaffe went through physical therapy and then moved to Carroll County in October 2020 to be closer to family.

No question, Chris Amendola has a thing for mushrooms. The tables in his restaurant, Foraged in Baltimore, take on the feel of a forest with all the wooden sculptures of fungi. The chef clearly likes pigs just as much. Their painted likenesses and photographs, taken by Amendola, alternate with images of mushrooms on the slate-colored, plant-populated walls of his narrow dining room in Station North, near Penn Station.

Gov. Wes Moore (D) on Wednesday pledged to include a “labor peace” agreement when the state next awards a contract to run the concessions operations at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport. Moore made the public commitment, which has been long sought by labor leaders and many lawmakers and other stakeholders, as the Board of Public Works voted unanimously to extend the contract of the current airport concessionaire on a month-to-month basis.

Enviva Inc. (NYSE: EVA), a Bethesda biofuel company that manufactures and distributes wood pellets that are burned to produce heat and energy, said Wednesday it is raising $250 million in a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, deal. The PIPE transaction is being led by affiliates of Enviva’s two largest shareholders: Riverstone Holdings LLC and Inclusive Capital Partners, both of New York. Rio de Janeiro’s BTG Pactual is also participating, according to the Bethesda company.

Transamerica on Wednesday announced fee reductions on the four share classes of the Transamerica Floating Rate mutual fund. Contingent upon share class, these reductions range from 0.12% to 0.22% annually. These expense reductions will become effective on or about March 1, 2023. Transamerica routinely reviews fund fees charged and is consistently looking for ways to maximize value.