Business

A legislative committee heard over 10 hours of testimony on a series of bills that would regulate specifically who can carry guns in public in Maryland, and where they can go while armed. A bill that would bar guns within 100 feet of courthouses, arenas, hospitals, libraries, hotels and any other “place of public accommodation” drew the most testimony by far, at more than six hours. It’s sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher of Montgomery County.

Edtech player 2U Inc. (NASDAQ: TWOU) has completed the bulk of a corporate realignment that it hopes will yield 3% revenue growth for this year, compared with last year’s 2% growth, while substantially axing losses as it continues to work toward profitability and roll out new online degree and credentialing programs for university customers. The Lanham-based company spent the second part of last year slimming down, modifying its leadership team and restructuring to focus on the edX Inc. online education platform it bought for $800 million in 2021.

A Baltimore-based food manufacturer is recalling hundreds of ready-to-eat sandwiches, salads, yogurts, wraps and other products because they may be contaminated with listeria, the Food and Drug Administration announced last week. Fresh Ideation Food Group LLC, based in Lakeland in South Baltimore, issued the voluntary recall Friday after routine monitoring of its facility found the possible presence of listeria, according to an automated message on the company’s main phone line.

WRNR, a beloved Annapolis adult alternative station, will cease broadcasting at midnight on Saturday, said Steve Kingston, who has owned the station since 1998. The Federal Communications Commission approved in January the transfer of 103.1 FM from WRNR to Peter and John Radio Fellowship, a nonprofit that oversees Maryland’s largest evangelical Christian broadcasting network.

How much is a Maryland medical dispensary license worth? One deal in Cumberland might give a clue into the value of a license now that legal recreational use is on the horizon. TerrAscend, a Canadian company with operations in multiple states, purchased 100% of the equity of Allegany Medical Marijuana Dispensary for $10 million late last month. The real estate of the dispensary is not included in the deal. Instead, TerrAscend is entering into a long-term lease, with the option to eventually purchase Allegany Medical Marijuana Dispensary’s location at 100 Beall St. in Cumberland. The dispensary generated net revenues in excess of $8 million in 2022, according to a release.

After months of soaring salary offers, wage growth started to slow nationally at the end of 2022 — and in Baltimore, it completely stopped. The Baltimore-Columbia-Towson metro area saw average private-sector earnings drop by 2.9% year over year in December, from $1,140.36 to $1,107.22, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Nationally, private-sector earnings rose by an average 2.9% in metro areas between December 2021 and December 2022. That’s down significantly from the strong salary surges that were taking place in spring and summer 2022, causing significant headaches for employers and driving up inflation.  The pace of year-over-year growth has slowed even since November when the average metro posted a 3.4% increase in private-sector wages.

The COVID-19 pandemic is no longer the top office concern, according to a recent survey of executives and HR professionals by the Alexandria, Virginia-based Society for Human Resource Management. “What was clearly the top priority from 2020 all the way down to 2022 has now taken a step back and is now the fourth most-common priority,” said Alex Alonso, chief knowledge officer at the Society for Human Resource Management. “They are talking about how they go about managing it, as opposed to something that is taking lives or having to focus on vaccine mandates.” What has emerged as a top priority for employers this year, is the mental health of their employees.

Amazon Smile, the charitable platform that paid out a half-of-one-percent donation on top of shoppers’ Amazon purchases to the charity of their choice, will be ceasing operation on Feb. 20, and some Baltimore beneficiaries are not happy. Amazon said in a press release that, with now over one million charities listed on its recipient list, the corporation’s ability to have an impact was “being spread too thin.” In the almost 10 years since its start in 2013, Amazon Smile states it has raised $400 million for U.S. charities. That makes the average benefit to each local charity just $400 over the entirety of over nine years of donating.