Business

The U.S. is getting a third vaccine to prevent COVID-19, as the Food and Drug Administration on Saturday cleared a Johnson & Johnson shot that works with just one dose instead of two. Health experts are anxiously awaiting a one-and-done option to help speed vaccinations, as they race against a virus that already has killed more than 510,000 people in the U.S. and is mutating in increasingly worrisome ways. The FDA said J&J’s vaccine offers strong protection against what matters most: serious illness, hospitalizations and death.

Gaming companies — and those hoping to climb aboard the sports gambling bandwagon — on Thursday urged a House panel to greatly expand the number of licenses for mobile-device-based betting. They said states that have leapt ahead of Maryland in the sports betting arena have done so, in part, because they allowed more players onto the field. Jason Tosches, director of government affairs for TheScore, a Canadian sports betting app that launched in 2007, urged the House Ways and Means Committee to amend House Bill 940 to allow for 24 mobile-only sports betting licenses. Currently the bill allows 10.

Private sector jobs in Baltimore dropped 25% in 2020, wiping out hiring gains made during 2019, the city’s economic development arm revealed on Thursday. There were just 6,200 new jobs created in the city last fiscal year amid Covid-19. That is a stark contrast to the 31,900 new jobs during the same period in 2019, a report from the Baltimore Development Corp. showed. The report provided a micro-level snapshot of the local hiring landscape amid the pandemic.

Local psychiatric hospital Sheppard Pratt is partnering with a fast-growing mental health care company to build out a center dedicated to research of psychedelic drugs. COMPASS Pathways plc (Nasdaq: CMPS), a United Kingdom-based company developing psychedelic mental health therapies, is establishing its first Centre of Excellence in collaboration with the Sheppard Pratt Institute for Advanced Diagnostics and Therapeutics.

D.C.-based EverFi Inc. has a plan for 2021 — double down on mental health, social and emotional learning online courses at a time when the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic makes those subjects more important than ever. That follows a 2020 when the company grew its online learning platform for K-12 schools, colleges and employers to include more offerings centered on social justice. And it all comes as the pandemic is forcing big cuts in state and local funding for education — and EverFi is hoping to position itself to help fill that gap.

Chick and Ruth’s Delly, the mainstay Annapolis restaurant on Main Street, will remain open and won’t change following the death of its owner Keith Jones last month, his son said Thursday. “We’re going to keep Chick and Ruth’s going strong for the Annapolis community as it has for decades,” Spencer Jones said. “And we’re going to honor the legacy of both the restaurant and my dad.”