Profit

WJZ meteorologist Bernadette Woods is leaving the CBS-owned station to join a non-profit firm in New Jersey focused on climate change, she said Wednesday night. Woods, who has been with WJZ for seven years, said she will remain at the station helping with the transition for the next month. After that, she, her husband and their two children will be moving to Princeton, N.J., where she will join Climate Central as staff meteorologist. "I'm very excited about the opportunity in Princeton," she said.

Baltimore's Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum should reopen Oct. 4, the group responsible for making it profitable announced this week. "That's the official goal. That's the date," said Baltimore-based actor and author Mark Redfield, vice president of Poe Baltimore. "Things are coming along. " Tentative plans call for the house to be open weekends until spring 2014, when hours would be expanded. Final details are still being developed, Redfield said, but plans call for a museum that will be similar to what had been available to visitors before the closing of the house in September 2012.

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people - including 13 women working as corrections officers - who face racketeering and drug charges. Twenty of the accused also face money-laundering charges.

Hunt Valley-based Tessco Technologies Inc. said Wednesday that revenue and profits both fell about 18 percent in its most recent quarter compared with a year earlier, driven by its exit from a high-revenue business it considered too low margin. The provider of products for wireless broadband systems produced $2.9 million in net income in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended March 31. That's down from about $3.5 million in the year-earlier quarter. Revenue fell to about $158 million from almost $195 million a year earlier, while earnings fell to 35 cents a share from 43 cents.

Medifast Inc., an Owings Mills-based company specializing in weight loss programs, reported sharply higher revenue and profit in the first quarter. The company had profit of $4.9 million, or 33 cents per share, compard to $2.5 million, or 17 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. Net revenue rose nearly 75 percent, from $35 million in the first quarter last year to $61 million this quarter. The company said it has 45 corporate and franchised weight-control centers, and plans to open another 13 to 15 new centers this year.

In his recent op-ed, Professor James Burdick of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine writes that the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the ACA was a step toward universal care for all ("Universal care on the horizon," July 13). However, I find this assertion ironic because we are now further entrenched in a market system that does not embrace the idea of health care as a right. Dr. Burdick claims the inevitability of universal care, stating that partisan arguments will have to subside and that ultimately, the ACA reduces costs through cutting over-utilization.

Hunt Valley-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. reported a first-quarter profit Wednesday, a turnaround from a first-quarter loss in 2009, as sales of television advertising improved. Sinclair, owner or programmer of 58 TV stations including Fox 45 in Baltimore, said it earned net income of $11.5 million, or 14 cents per share, in the three months that ended March 31. The broadcaster had posted a loss of $85.7 million, or $1.06 per share, in the first three months of 2009, largely due to an after-tax, $100.

It's disappointing to hear so much rhetoric coming from members of the development community and some local politicians over new storm water rules in Maryland ("A threat to Smart Growth" Feb. 2). The plain truth is that developers appreciate a clean and healthy Chesapeake Bay when they can build waterfront homes or other development projects with real estate values boosted by water views. But when saving the bay requires them (and everyone else, by the way) to do more to protect it, they threaten to retreat to the sprawling suburbs again.

Legg Mason Inc.'s quarterly profit fell 4 percent as operating costs grew and investors continued to withdraw money from the Baltimore asset manager's funds. Meanwhile, Legg Chief Executive Officer Mark R. Fetting said Monday that efforts to "streamline" its business by cutting 350 back-office jobs — 250 of them in Owings Mills and Baltimore — began July 1 and are on target to save $130 million to $150 million on an annual basis by March 2012. The work force reduction to boost profit margins was announced in May, but employees won't start losing jobs until the end of the year, Fetting said.

MICROS Systems Inc., a Columbia-based provider of software for the hospitality industry, reported Thursday its profit in the fourth quarter rose 16 percent on higher sales revenues. The company, which makes point-of-sale software for hotels, restaurants and retailers, said its revenues climbed more than 10 percent, or $28.4 million, to $303 million in the quarter ending June 30. The higher revenues helped the company earn a profit of $48 million — an increase of $6.7 million, or 16 percent, over the similar period last year.

Deadly industrial accidents in the developing world are tragically common, but the recent collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh that took the lives of more than 500 workers has captured the American public's attention, and no wonder. Knowingly or unknowingly, most Americans at some point have purchased clothing or other items made in Bangladesh, where factory workers labor under sweatshop conditions and employers keep manufacturing costs down by ignoring safety and building code violations.

Legg Mason Inc. reported Tuesday that it earned $29.2 million in its fourth quarter, down about 62 percent from a year earlier due to added real estate expenses. The Baltimore-based money manager's results still beat analysts' expectations, and its stock ended the day up 48 cents at $31.86 per share. On a per-share basis, Legg earned 23 cents, exceeding analysts' expectations by 3 cents per share for the three months ended March 31. A year earlier, Legg earned $76.1 million, or 54 cents per share.

Hunt Valley-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. reported a 42 percent drop in profit for the first quarter, as operating and interest costs rose and revenue increased but fell short of analysts' expectations. The television station owner and operator said Monday that its income fell to $17 million, or 21 cents per common share, from $29.4 million, or 36 cents per share, during the three months that ended March 31. Its earnings did beat Wall Street's expectations of 17 cents per share, yet its stock fell Monday, closing at $26.69 per share, down 2.9 percent.

Higher airfares and lower fuel prices combined to give Southwest Airlines $59 million in first-quarter net profits, or 8 cents a share, beating Wall Street's predictions. The Dallas-based airline's earnings fell 40 percent from $98 million, or 13 cents a share, of a year ago. Revenue rose 2.3 percent to a record $4.1 billion. The report exceeded the First Call consensus estimate of 2 cents per share. Southwest and its subsidiary AirTran Airways are the largest carriers at BWI Marshall Airport, accounting for 71 percent of all commercial passenger traffic.

T. Rowe Price Group reported Wednesday that profit rose 22 percent in the quarter from a year ago to $241.9 million, buoyed by an uptick in the market that pushed assets under management to a new record. The Baltimore-based money manager earned 91 cents a share, beating analysts' expectations of 89 cents. Still, Price's stock closed Wednesday down by more than 4 percent, at $72.75 per share, because of lower-than-anticipated cash inflows. "The flows were a little on the disappointing side," said Jeffrey Hopson, a senior analyst with Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. in St. Louis.

Baltimore baseball fans flocked back to Camden Yards and merrily decorated themselves in orange and black as the Orioles authored baseball's most surprising story of 2012. Now, signs abound that the enthusiasm from last fall - when the team broke a 15-year streak of losing records and postseason whiffs - has carried forward to a new season, which starts Tuesday in Tampa Bay. The Orioles' home opener Friday is the second-most-expensive opening-week ticket in the sport. The team's merchandise accounts for three times as much of the Major League Baseball retail market as it did last year.

Maryland could be the first state in the nation to allow a new class of "for-benefit" corporations if a measure before the House of Delegates receives final approval. The designation, which has already been approved in the Senate, would allow the director of a company to weigh community, environmental and societal factors when making determining the "best interest" of the company. "It is evolving as a national movement," said Del. Brian J. Feldman, a Montgomery County Democrat, during a Saturday debate on the measure.

WJZ meteorologist Bernadette Woods is leaving the CBS-owned station to join a non-profit firm in New Jersey focused on climate change, she said Wednesday night. Woods, who has been with WJZ for seven years, said she will remain at the station helping with the transition for the next month. After that, she, her husband and their two children will be moving to Princeton, N.J., where she will join Climate Central as staff meteorologist. "I'm very excited about the opportunity in Princeton," she said.