Business

Morgan State University, a historically Black college in Baltimore, will host U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for a campus visit and tour of its National Transportation Center lab Wednesday. On his visit, the university said Buttigieg will learn more about the transportation-related degree programs and the School of Engineering. He’ll also see demonstrations of the university’s work with an autonomous wheelchair and car/bicycle simulations.

The potential renewal of Harborplace could help jumpstart plans to build a 40-story tower across the street on the former News American site, says developer P. David Bramble. Bramble is leading the charge to convert the flat-surface parking lot at 300 E. Pratt St. into an office, retail and luxury apartment complex that will add another landmark to Baltimore’s skyline.

Baltimore-based Royal Farms plans to hire more than 2,000 workers in the next three months to staff new stores opening in the mid-Atlantic. The convenience store chain, known for its fried chicken, runs more than 240 stores in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The company is offering wages of up to $17.50 an hour and up to $23 an hour for management jobs as well as health, retirement and vacation benefits.

The NFL’s Washington Commanders denied several allegations of financial impropriety in a letter sent Monday to the U.S Federal Trade Commission. The 19-page letter — including testimony, emails and other documents — came as a response to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform asking the FTC to look into the team’s business practices. There are more than 80 pages of signed affidavits, emails and text message exchanges laid out as the team’s evidence.

A College Park startup that aims to increase the speed of food safety testing recently reached a milestone with the certification of its test sample preparation process. Pathotrak’s process enables food safety testing to occur in. The product is now certified by the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists International to detect salmonella and E. coli in romaine lettuce. The AOAC, founded in 1884, sets industry standards for food safety technology.

When Freeman Hrabowski, the longtime leader of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who led the once-little-known commuter school for three decades, announced his upcoming retirement, the central question on everyone’s mind was who could replace such a towering figure. Enter Valerie Sheares Ashby, a veteran university administrator, the current dean of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences at Duke University, a chemist by training, and, soon, the first woman to lead UMBC.

Eight Schools in Maryland are sharing in $1 million in Green Lab Grants awarded to dozens nationwide by Exelon Corporation, the parent company of Baltimore Gas and Electric, which are developing projects to advance STEM education in under-resourced communities.