Logo

FedEx is a shipping company — except on football Sundays in Washington. Verizon is a communications company, unless professional hockey is being played at the home of the Capitals. Verizon competes with Comcast, unless you're talking about the home court of the University of Maryland Terrapins. Now, State Farm Insurance wants to be identified as a good Samaritan by drivers whose cars go kaput on Maryland highways. Just like FedEx, Verizon and Comcast, the insurance company has entered into a partnership — albeit somewhat less glamorous than the others — with the state of Maryland.

The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development released a new "CyberMaryland" logo on Friday as part of its plans for marketing the state as a leader in the cybersecurity industry. In January, Gov. Martin O'Malley unveiled the CyberMaryland initiative more than a year ago to promote the state's businesses, academic institutions and government agencies involved in cybersecurity. The logo features the name, CyberMaryland, and the tagline: Epicenter for Information Security and Innovation.

Apparently, Denver Nuggets forward and former Towson Catholic star Carmelo Anthony is selling his 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle for The Carmelo Anthony Foundation . (I wonder if this has something to do with him being tied up in all those trade rumors .) In this Tweet , Anthony said the car was one of his favorites. He didn't say why he was so fond of the black and orange Chevelle, but I think it might have something to do with the Orioles logo on the hood and the old-school cartoon logo on the back left fender.

Overnight, the Baltimore Ravens painted the town purple — and black, and on two memorable occasions, yellow. Rush hour commuters and pedestrians woke up this morning to find that literally hundreds of logos had been spray-painted under cover of darkness on sidewalks from Baltimore's City Hall to Padonia Station, from the Elkridge Library to Perry Hall Middle School in White Marsh. The designs — the familiar, fierce-looking fowl, rendered in lavender, over bold, black letters spelling out W.I.N.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and members of the Baltimore Ravens organization gathered this morning in front of City Hall as they launched an effort to build team spirit one purple stencil at a time. Days away from a playoff match against the Kansas City Chiefs, the "paint the town purple" campaign will result in a slew of stenciled images placed in the city, and throughout Baltimore and Howard counties. Tuesday morning, the Ravens' grounds crew painted the grounds in front of City Hall and Federal Hill with the same Ravens logo seen on the field at M&T Bank Stadium.

Horse racing Ben's Cat wins 8th in a row; Preakness logo unveiled Ben's Cat, the undefeated son of Parker's Storm Cat, held on to earn his eighth consecutive victory in Wednesday's $36,000 allowance feature at Laurel Park. Sent to post as the 6-5 favorite under regular rider Julian Pimentel , Ben's Cat withstood a late rally from long shot Fonda Ronda Won to win by a half-length. Ben's Cat completed the mile in 1 minute, 39.08 seconds and paid $4.40. The victory boosted his career earnings to $199,980.

The Maryland Jockey Club unveiled Wednesday the logo for the 2011 Preakness, set for May 21at Pimlico, according to a news release. For the 12th consecutive year, the Leffler Agency of Baltimore and Tampa designed the official Preakness logo. The logo features a horse and jockey with overlapping, tapering streamers. The colors used, red, black and gold, are the colors of the Maryland flag. "The Preakness logo creation is a highlight of the year for us at Leffler and has been since 2000," said Leffler Agency president Bob Leffler, according to the news release.

A direct-mail appeal to 20,000 mostly Republican voters this weekend is Howard County Republicans' last chance to pull what has been a losing charter referendum petition drive out of a death spiral as time runs out. With two weeks until the Aug. 9 deadline for collecting 10,000 valid signatures to place a charter amendment on the Nov. 2 ballot, petition drive chairman Ken Aldrich said he has fewer than 3,000 signatures. He needs about 15,000 overall to end up with enough valid signatures for the Taxpayer Protection Initiative.

A direct-mail appeal to 20,000 mostly Republican voters this weekend is Howard County Republicans' last chance to pull what has been a losing charter referendum petition drive out of a death spiral as time runs out. With two weeks until the Aug. 9 deadline for collecting 10,000 valid signatures to place a charter amendment on the Nov. 2 ballot, petition drive chairman Ken Aldrich said he has fewer than 3,000 signatures. He needs about 15,000 overall to end up with enough valid signatures for the Taxpayer Protection Initiative.