Business

American Airlines earned $476 million in the second quarter on record revenue from summer travelers and said Thursday that it expects to remain profitable in the third quarter. It was American’s first quarterly profit without government pandemic aid in the COVID-19 era. While revenue from leisure travelers is soaring, so are costs, especially for fuel. That kept quarterly profit 28% below the same period in 2019.

United Airlines said Wednesday that it earned $329 million in the second quarter as summer vacationers packed planes, but the results fell far short of Wall Street expectations due largely to soaring fuel prices. United said it will keep flying at current levels instead of growing about 10% in the second half of the year, as it had originally planned.

Kind Therapeutics plans to build a new cannabis production kitchen in Hagerstown as Maryland prepares for the potential approval of the recreational adult-use market later this year. The 10,000-square-foot production kitchen is an addition to the company’s current 180,000-square-foot growing and processing plant. Kind, a wholly-owned subsidiary of MariMed, a multi-state cannabis company based in Norwood, Massachusetts, previously produced edibles at the facility, but the addition will allow them to increase production.

Baltimore’s spending board approved $39.3 million more in tax increment finance bonds Wednesday for the city’s Harbor Point development, the final piece of public financing for the high profile waterfront project. In 2013, the city approved $125 million worth of public financing for Harbor Point in what’s known as tax increment financing or TIF bonds. TIF bonds are designed to help ambitious developments get off the ground, typically by covering the costs of infrastructure improvements. Additional property taxes generated under a TIF go toward paying off the debt — instead of city coffers.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. CEO Chris Ripley is doubling down on sports, betting that the billions of dollars the company has invested in the industry over the last few years are poised to pay off. Ripley sees three big moves by the Hunt Valley broadcaster over the last three years as the key to its strategy.

A nearly 2-mile trail linking Frederick and Walkersville will provide a tourism and transportation link between the two municipalities and be part of a 1,400-mile network of paths around the Washington, D.C., region. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ Transportation Planning Board approved a $5.1 million grant with federal funding Wednesday to pay for construction of the Frederick and Pennsylvania Line Trail, a pedestrian and bicycle path that will link up with another trail in the city of Frederick.

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” The classic line from Charles Dickens comes to mind when surveying the current economic landscape, which is full of unique and often-confounding contrasts. Workers are growing increasingly concerned about layoffs, but hiring activity remains robust and employers are planning big raises for 2023. Many big tech companies are laying off workers or pulling back on hiring, but economists say it’s an isolated situation that isn’t indicative of problems at more traditional businesses that don’t depend on slowing venture capital funding.

Toys R Us and its mascot Geoffrey the Giraffe are trying to make another brick-and-mortar comeback ahead of the holiday season, after the brand filed for bankruptcy and shuttered all of its 800 U.S. stores four years ago. From this month through mid-October, the brand is opening shops inside every Macy’s store in the United States, Macy’s said in a news release Monday. The Toys R Us shops will start at 1,000 square feet and can be 10,000 square feet at flagship locations in Atlanta, Chicago, Honolulu, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, San Francisco and San Jose.