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Maryland employers added 6,700 jobs in January, picking up the pace from the end of last year, the U.S. Department of Labor said Monday. Businesses added 5,300 jobs in December, according to the agency's revised estimates. In both December and January, all gains came from the private sector as government agencies cut back — eliminating 1,500 jobs in each month. January's uptick wasn't large enough to lower the unemployment rate, which held steady at 6.7 percent. The U.S. jobless rate was 7.9 percent that month.

Coppin State University has a serious problem with very low rates of student retention and graduation. Last December, the University System of Maryland Board of Regents created a Special Review Committee to look into this problem further and make recommendations. This is of special interest to me, as I served as a member of the faculty at Coppin for 12 years, from 1999 until 2011, including service as Faculty Senate president in 2005-2007. Historically, Coppin's core mission has been to provide much-needed access to quality higher education for the citizens of Baltimore City, especially African-American men and women who often must contend with social and economic barriers because of race.

A lifelong Democrat, I now find myself taking issue with the Obama administration in general and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in particular as it pertains to current Fed policy. What seemed to have been a good idea at the onset, to keep interest rates low to stimulate the economy, has been counterproductive and harmful to many of us who need help the most, the retired, the elderly and the poor. The funds this group depends on come mostly from savings. This was the way many of us were directed over time by the prevailing wisdom on how to prepare for the future.

The networks might be struggling on Sunday nights but not basic cable's the History Channel. The miniseries beat everything in sight Sunday night with record ratings for "The Bible. " I think this quote from executive producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett might be a little over the top: "Today, more people are discussing God's chosen people -- Moses and Abraham -- in one day than ever before," Downey and Burnett are quoted as saying in a History Channel statement.   Still, you have to be impressed by the numbers.

For decades, African-Americans have been sentenced to prison at far higher rates than their proportion of the population would suggest. In 2000, black men were incarcerated at nearly eight times the rate of white men, while black women were nearly three times more likely to be imprisoned than white women. But for the first time in recent memory those disparities appear to be narrowing, according to a new study. If the trend continues it could have implications for the racial makeup of prison populations across the U.S., including those in Maryland.

We are pretty sure of our stereotypes in this country, and we hold them close. One of them is that teen pregnancy is an inner-city problem, a poor problem, a black problem. Another is that "rural" equals "farm," and life there is wholesome and God-fearing. Like so many of the things we believe to be true, these aren't. Not exactly. New research from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy reveals that the teen birth rate is a third higher in rural counties than in other areas of the country, regardless of age, race or ethnicity.

Central Maryland's rate of homeownership, the proportion of households that are owner-occupied, was slightly lower in the fourth quarter of 2012 than during the same time a year earlier, according to data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Just over 65 percent of occupied homes in Baltimore and six surrounding counties - Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Howard and Queen Anne's - were owned by someone who lived there, the Census Bureau reported. In the fourth quarter of 2011, the homeownership rate in the region was 67.5 percent.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers will be paying higher rates this year, with the average bills rising by several dollars a month, to cover the cost of upgrading the utility's infrastructure. Maryland's Public Service Commission, which regulates the company, said Friday it approved an increase to distribution rates that will cost the average residential electricity customer an additional $3.33 a month and the average residential gas customer an extra $2.70 a month. The utility had sought larger rate increases.

Port officials have asked the state Public Utilities Commission to set a flat rate for taxi services to and from the cruise ship terminal and three popular city locations. James White, executive director of the Maryland Port Administration, said passengers — many from out of state — have complained "that they are being overcharged and that taxi drivers are not turning their meters on. " He asked the commission to set a fare for trips to Fort McHenry, Pennsylvania Station and the Inner Harbor in the same way it established a $30 flat rate for fares to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

Excuse me, but what are my fellow Baltimoreans complaining about? The mayor has proposed doing something to avoid an all-out collapse of the city's finances, and some citizens of Paradise-on-the-Patapsco are annoyed, confused or just so cranky and fed up with February they need a good cheesesteak sub from Captain Harvey's. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake wants to lower the city's highest-in-the-state property tax rate to a level that makes the rate more competitive with those in surrounding counties, and — what?