Decline

Young companies in Maryland, Washington and Northern Virginia raised 14 percent less venture capital funding in the third quarter than they did last year during the same period, according to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mid-Atlantic companies attracted $215.7 million from venture capitalists from July to September, compared with $245.7 million in the same period last year, the report showed. The regional decline mirrored a national one. Nationwide, $6.5 billion was invested in companies, down 11 percent from the third quarter last year.

When developers promised to build a $38 million, 700-seat elementary school in Odenton, Anne Arundel County officials embraced the proposal as a way to ease overcrowding in other area schools. They even tentatively gave the school a name: Evergreen Elementary. But plans for the school have met an obstacle. The Forks of the Patuxent, the community in which the proposed development is located, refuses to lift a covenant that the land be reserved for adult communities. Forks resident Patrick Padilla, 42, said residents who declined to lift the covenant requiring 55-and-older properties were concerned that a new housing development around the school would generate more traffic and crime without the age restriction.

The number of young striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay fell to a record low this year, a drastic decline from a near-record high the year before, state officials reported Tuesday. State biologists checking Maryland's part of the bay found the fewest newly spawned striped bass that they've tallied in any year since annual surveys for the fish began 59 years ago, the Department of Natural Resources reported. Maryland's state fish, also known as rockfish, is closely monitored because it supports a multimillion-dollar recreational and commercial fishing industry that employs thousands.

The number of manufacturing jobs in Maryland seems to go in only one direction - down. The state lost 21,000 positions in the past five years. More than 40,000 in the past decade. Nearly 70,000 in the past two decades. But advocates think employment decline - driven by technology, consolidation, closures and offshoring - isn't inevitable. The nonprofit Regional Manufacturing Institute of Maryland is trying to organize employers and local officials to get the sector growing again. First step: reminding local officials that manufacturing, which employs 111,000 in the state directly and more indirectly, is not dead.

In the packed house at the South Carroll Senior and Community Center in Eldersburg this past Wednesday, Sept. 27, there was only one question on the minds of those in the crowd: "Is Liberty High School closing?" Rumors about Liberty High being tapped for closure brought people out to a Sept. 27 education forum hosted by County Commissioners Haven Shoemaker and Doug Howard, many shouting from the seats their concerns about the high school's fate. Currently, Carroll County Public Schools is undergoing a review of school facilities and operations in the light of figures that show declining enrollments.

Elections officials in Florida say they are asking prosecutors there to investigate allegations that former Maryland congressional candidate Wendy Rosen was registered and voted in both states. "After receiving information locally concerning this issue, we are referring this matter to the State Attorney's Office of the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida," Julie Marcus, the deputy supervisor of elections for Pinellas County, Fla., said Tuesday. State prosecutors in Maryland, meanwhile, declined to say whether they were investigating the allegations here.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office said this week that for the third straight year, serious crime in Carroll County has declined. The office cited the 2011 Crime in Maryland Report published recently by the Maryland State Police, which recorded a rate of 1.61 serious crimes per 100,000 residents during 2011 - the lowest rate since 1975. While incidents of robbery remained unchanged at 40, reports of murder, rape, aggravated assault, burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft - all of which fall under the "serious crime" category - all decreased compared to 2010 totals.

Officer Forrest E. "Dino" Taylor loved his family, his job, his fellow Baltimore police officers and his motorcycle. All played a part in services Friday at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. Officer Taylor, 44, died Aug. 29 of injuries incurred on duty. The 17-year veteran of the city Police Department was driving to aid a fellow officer at 5:50 a.m. Feb. 18 when his police cruiser was struck at an intersection downtown. He had endured months of surgeries, therapies and treatments in an effort to recover.

In an about-face, the organizers of the Grand Prix of Baltimore say they will release ticket-sales information for the Labor Day weekend event. J.P. Grant , a partner in the firm that put on the race, said Thursday the group also will commission an economic impact study. He said he decided such information is valuable for the public - and the business itself - to see. "More information is better than less," said Grant, the money-man behind Race On LLC, who swept in to salvage the racing festival three months ago. "This is our baseline year.

Baltimore residents might never know how much money the city's second Grand Prix race generated or how it affected local hotels, restaurants and other businesses. A spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Tuesday that the city would not commission an economic impact study of this year's Labor Day weekend event, as it did last year for the inaugural racing festival. City and racing officials also said they might not publicly reveal the number of spectators; last year 160,000 people attended over the three days.