The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore and the Maryland Department of Business of Economic Development announced Monday that they created a new program to help companies that have moved beyond the start-up phase to continue to grow.

Adeo Ressi visited Tampa Bay in March to test its entrepreneurial passion and help introduce his global business incubator known as Founder Institute. Ressi took the spotligh to tell a room packed with locals with startup visions that it's a wonderful but painfully competitive thing to start a business from scratch. But that evening's promise of a big leap forward for Tampa Bay entrepreneurs became a step backward.

A half-dozen public universities in North Texas, straining under record enrollment growth, would receive more than $350 million for brick-and-mortar expansion projects under a state bond package that won preliminary approval in the Texas House Monday night. The $2.7 billion package of tuition revenue bonds would be the first since 2006

Sens. Charles Schumer and Orrin Hatch struck a deal Tuesday on visas for high-skilled workers, a major breakthrough for the Senate immigration reform bill paving the way for Hatch, the most senior member of the Senate Republican Conference, to support the immigration legislation pending in the Judiciary Committee.

The state Assembly yesterday passed legislation that would streamline New Jersey’s tax incentive programs. The bill , known as the New Jersey Economic Opportunity Act of 2013, passed by a vote of 53-6 and, with 15 assembly members abstaining. It will now be sent to the Senate.

In a quest to dismantle commissions and organizations N.C. Senate Republicans are taking aim at the granddaddy of them all: the state’s Rural Economic Development Center. The proposed Senate budget defunds the Rural Center, which received about $16.6 million in the state budget last year. It also creates a new division with the Department of Commerce to oversee rural economic development.