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Howard Bank has agreed to buy Cecil Bank's branch at 3 W. Bel Air Ave. in Aberdeen, the institutions announced Monday. Under the deal, Howard Bank, based in Ellicott City, will acquire at least $38 million in loans and $37.9 million in deposits from Cecil Bank. That's about 10 percent of Cecil Bank's deposits. "It was a fit for both of us," said Mary Halsey, Cecil's CEO. "They were looking to expand; we were looking to head back into Cecil County, where are roots are. " Howard Bank's CEO, Mary Ann Scully, said in a statement that the bank had been growing beyond its Howard County roots, and the branch acquisition will mark its entry into Harford County.

Big Huge Games in Timonium closed last May, taking nearly 100 jobs with it. Nine months later, a local studio that was launched from the ashes of the video game-maker shut down, too. And Zynga, which created FarmVille and Words with Friends, closed its Baltimore County office several weeks ago. So why aren't local game developers freaking out? They're used to volatility - not this much, but quite a bit. And even with big game-makers facing tough competition and multimillion-dollar costs, tiny independent studios are popping up locally to take advantage of new opportunities in mobile and online gaming - and new ways of raising money to get games made.

Maryland employers punched the accelerator on job creation in February, adding 10,500 positions and bringing the state much closer to recovering its recessionary losses five years after they began. The job growth estimates released Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor also pushed the state's unemployment rate to 6.6 percent from 6.7 percent in January. February's growth, split between the private sector and government, was the third straight month of above-average gains. Maryland employers added 5,300 jobs in December and 7,500 jobs in January.

With Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. likely poised to announce year-end and fourth-quarter results this week, investors and analysts wonder just how bad it will be. So far this year, stock in the Hampstead-based men's apparel chain has sat out the stock market rally, falling 6 percent even as the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 7 percent. The concern stems from the retailer's January warning that its profit for the fiscal year ended Feb. 2 will be off 20 percent. The problems prompted Zacks Investment Research to dub Jos. A. Bank its "bear of the day" in a report issued last week.

Lanham-based veterans group Amvets has been awarded a $250,000 grant to bring veterans' job services to 20 new markets around the country. The grant comes from the Call of Duty Endowment, which provides grants to groups that find jobs for veterans. Amvets expects to open career centers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, California, Florida, Missouri and Tennessee. The unemployment rate for veterans improved overall in 2012 to 7 percent, according to a U.S. Labor Department annual report released Wednesday.

FORT MYERS, Fla -- Danny Valencia launched a solo homer in the ninth inning off Red Sox reliever Terry Doyle to give the Orioles an 8-7 win over Boston at JetBlue Park on Tuesday afternoon. The Orioles survived a furious Red Sox rally - Boston scored five runs in the bottom of the eighth inning off relievers Daniel Schereth and Adam Russell - to tie the game at 7. Valencia, who was acquired from the Red Sox for cash this offseason, then took a full-count pitch from Doyle and hit it over the ballpark's high Green Monster wall in leftfield.

Corporate Office Properties Trust, a real estate investment and development firm based in Columbia, on Tuesday completed its public offering of nearly 4.5 million new common shares, the company said in a statement. The offering generated about $118 million in proceeds, the company said. The offering's underwriters purchased all 585,000 shares available to them, said COPT, which owns about 210 office buildings, totaling 18.8 million square feet of leasable space. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company said it intends to use the proceeds to redeem a series of preferred shares, repay what it owes on an unsecured credit facility and for general corporate purposes.

The Baltimore sports scene is blessed with a bunch of talented bloggers who bring their unique perspective to the conversation. Each week, I hope to chat with one of them in a regular feature called Blogger on Blogger. This week, I exchanged emails with Stacey Long, who blogs about the Orioles for the blog Camden Chat. MV: What do you think 2013 will bring for Manny Machado? What are realistic expectations for the kid? SL: Defensively there is nothing to worry about regarding Machado.

Orioles first-base prospect Tyler Townsend, a Delaware native who was the organization's third-round pick in 2009 out of Florida International, is hurt again and has no set timetable for returning to action. Townsend, 24, injured his right wrist in the offseason and entered minor league camp with that injury, according to a team official. He's now dealing with a hip flexor and has not been able to play in games. Once considered among the system's best power prospects, Townsend has been riddled with injuries and played in just 68 games last season - although he had six homers in 21 games for Double-A Bowie last year.

More than 1,300 young, single soldiers, sailors and other service members drive to Fort Meade every work day because they don't live on post - can't, actually, because the barracks are full and other homes there are for families. The Army installation isn't about to get millions of dollars to build more housing, not with the defense budget falling. Instead, it's getting the Army's first privately developed garden apartments for the unmarried junior-enlisted crowd, with costs covered by the developer.