Business

The top three executives for Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) saw their pay bumps garner 56% approval in an advisory vote at the company’s shareholder meeting, according to a regulatory filing. That was a much narrower margin than in previous years. Compensation approvals for named executives — the company’s top leaders — usually pass by wide margins at Amazon and other large companies. At Amazon, pay plans for top executives received over 97% approval from shareholders from 2017 through 2020, though last year approval dipped to 81%.

Maryland’s legal community is preparing for the seismic changes to landlord-tenant cases that will come with the impending arrival of access to counsel in evictions. The statewide program is set to launch in the coming years after Maryland lawmakers passed legislation in the 2022 General Assembly session to fund legal representation for low-income renters facing eviction.

Pier 23, the resort area’s first waterfront container food port, will celebrate its grand opening on June 18 with happy hour drinks and live music throughout the day. West Ocean City’s newest addition offers a relaxed outdoor retreat surrounded by decked-out shipping containers, each with their own unique fare, tacos, deli, grille and a full bar. The final container serves as the stage for a lineup of live performers throughout the summer.

“Parcel 4” is no more at Baltimore’s burgeoning Harbor Point development, or at least the name anyway. Development partners Beatty Development and Armada Hoffler started work on the undeveloped waterfront property off Caroline Street this month, officially branding the site, Allied | Harbor Point, in a nod to its industrial past as the Allied Chemical chromium plant. The factory processed chromium ore on the 27-acre Harbor Point property for 130 years before the plant was razed in the 1980s.

TEDCO, Maryland’s economic engine for technology companies, announced today its Builder Fund invested $150,000 in AudioOne Inc., a technology startup based in Maryland. TEDCO’s Builder Fund invests in and provides executive support to Maryland-based technology companies run by entrepreneurs who demonstrate economic disadvantage. AudioOne Inc., based in Bethesda and founded by Mark McMahon and Antonio Bray, integrates different artificial intelligence platforms to bring its members a more complete, personalized radio listening experience.

Medifast Inc. has agreed to buy back $100 million worth of its own stock, nearly twice the amount of stock it repurchased in all of 2021. The Baltimore-based dieting and wellness company announced on Wednesday that it had entered into an agreement with JPMorgan Chase to repurchase $100 million worth of stock, which equates to about 600,000 shares based on the May 31 closing price of $166.75. That represents about 5% of the company’s fully diluted outstanding stock, Medifast said in a release.

Sheppard Pratt, the Towson-based behavioral health provider, said it is opening a new center to provide care for hard-to-treat illnesses that will include use of psilocybin, a psychedelic medication. Psilocybin will be used in research at a center within Sheppard Pratt’s new Institute for Advanced Diagnostics and Therapeutics, which will bring together a range of clinicians and treatments. Sometimes called magic mushrooms, psilocybin has shown to be effective in clinical trials for treatment-resistant depression and other mood disorders, though it remains illegal at the federal level, where it’s listed as a schedule 1 drug under the U.S. Controlled Substance Act.

Baltimore Medical System, a nonprofit providing medical care to underserved communities, has received two grants totaling $350,000 to support a new community health center at Yard 56 in Greektown. The facility, set to open in early 2023, will feature 54 patient care rooms and provide health care to 20,000 new patients. The medical system currently serves more than 60,000 patients annually. The France-Merrick Foundation has awarded $250,000 and the Middendorf Foundation has awarded $100,000 for the construction of the 40,000-square-foot center. The center will cost a total of $8.2 million.