Business

Few people pass 405 E. Oliver St. It’s hard to spot, tucked on what is a side street between the Amtrak railroad tracks and Green Mount Cemetery. For the past two decades, maybe more, this enclave within the larger Greenmount West neighborhood has been ground zero for local artists. It took nearly a year and $3.8 million for a neighborhood-based nonprofit community group to bank the funds to preserve 405 Oliver St. as the industrial building it is — a place for creatives to have their artist studios and workshops.

Salaries for female doctors in Maryland are significantly below those of their male counterparts. Asian doctors’ income is more than white doctors’ income, which is more than Black doctors earn. And all the state’s doctors average incomes below their peers nationwide. This is according to a new report commissioned by MedChi, a state medical society, which found similar disparities two years earlier.

The crab processing plant owners on Maryland’s secluded Hoopers Island call it “The Lottery.” They aren’t referring to the state-run sweepstakes, but to the U.S. government’s annual method of randomly selecting which businesses — crab companies, landscapers, resorts — will receive visas to hire the foreign guest workers they covet.

With the Major League Baseball lockout ending on its 99th day, the Orioles and the other 29 teams are finally tasked with what comes next: the 2022 season. The league’s owners and the MLB Players Association reached a new collective bargaining agreement Thursday evening, bringing an end to the owner-imposed work stoppage. Nearly a month after pitchers and catchers were scheduled to report, major league spring training will finally begin this weekend.

The biotechnology industry is booming in the U.S., creating a hot market for laboratories and other specialty properties. Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego have the highest demand and lowest vacancy rates for lab space, according to recent data from real estate firm CBRE, and rents are rising to match. That, in turn, has sparked new interest in Maryland’s I-270 BioTech corridor, a market more often known as a hub for government-related biotechnology work.

Capital CoLAB, an initiative launched by the Greater Washington Partnership to match students, particularly women and people of color, with the region’s tech job openings, has so far engaged with 12,000 prospective workers through its programs, the organization said. The current tally includes high school and college students engaged through digital skills trainings, career fairs and micro-internships, said Deborah Hodge, Capital CoLAB’s managing director.

Transamerica Asset Management plans to close and liquidate all five of its exchange-traded funds next month, the company said Thursday. The ETFs will stop trading when the market closes on April 7 and be liquidated on April 12, according to an announcement. The funds have a total of $824.83 million in net assets as of Dec. 31. Transamerica, which launched its suite of DeltaShares ETFs in 2017, did not provide an explanation for why the funds will close.

Leap, a Clumbia-based provider of home contractor sales enablement software, Thursday announced the acquisition of JobProgress, a leading workflow and CRM product for home contractors. Together, Leap and JobProgress will serve more than 2,400 home contractors in North America. JobProgress’ product suite offers CRM, project management, scheduling and employee management tools to both exterior and interior residential contractors. As part of Leap, home contractors will now have access to even more tools to help them manage, estimate, record, and close deals on a single platform, without the need to use multiple technology providers.

Maryland’s five sportsbooks handled more than $25.5 million in bets in February, which included Super Bowl Sunday, and paid out more than $24.5 million to bettors, Maryland Lottery and Gaming announced Thursday. Casinos brought in $955,377 from the February wagers. Following the deduction of promotional plays and other amounts, the state receives a 15% tax on those winnings.