The company said its same-store sales for the quarter ended July 31 grew 0.2 percent, compared with an increase of 0.7 percent for the second quarter of fiscal 2009.

Same-store sales measure stores open at least one year or more.

For the four-week period ended July 31, net sales grew 5 percent to $11.9 million, compared with $11.3 million in the same period last year.

Same-store sales for the July 2010 period grew 7.8 percent compared to a decrease of 5.5 percent in the comparable period last year.

For the four-week period ended Aug. 21, net sales fell slightly to $11.1 million from $11.2 million in the same period last year.

Same-store sales for the four-week August 2010 period grew 0.9 percent compared to a decrease of 10.3 percent in the comparable period last year.

“Our second quarter sales results included a sequential improvement in our comparable store sales trend as the quarter progressed with comps turning positive in July, driven by increased promotional activity in sandals,” Chairman and CEO Peter Edison said in a statement. “Our comp trend continued positively in August, with a good early response to our fall assortments particularly boots, dress shoes and casual footwear.”

Edison said the company expects to deliver “comparable store sales growth for the fall season fueled by the strength of our trend-right fashion assortments and the introduction of new brands, as well as easier comparisons to the prior year.”

Last Friday, Bakers was delisted from the Nasdaq stock market after failing to meet the minimum level of shareholders’ equity required for continued listing. The company’s stock (OTCBB: BKRS) closed at $1.03 per share on Wednesday.

Also on Aug. 27, Bakers sold 20 percent of the company to Steven Madden Ltd. for $5 million in debt and equity financing. Madden bought more than 1.8 million shares of Bakers’ stock.

Bakers agreed to pay the money back at 11 percent interest and Edison said at the time that the investment has no financial covenants or governance conditions.

Bakers said it plans to use the net proceeds from the Madden investment of $4.6 million after closing costs for working capital purposes.

Bakers Footwear Group Inc. is a national, mall-based, specialty retailer of footwear and accessories for young women. It currently operates 237 stores nationwide.

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ACCOUNTING

Ralph Summerford, founder and President of Forensic/ Strategic Solutions, was recognized recently by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners with the 2010 Cressey Award. This award is the ACFE’s highest honor which recognizes a lifetime of achievement in the detection and deterrence of fraud.

Ross Mendheim, CPA and shareholder at Barfield Murphy Shank & Smith accounting firm, recently presented at the ACEC Tri-State Convention in a session entitled “Health Care Reform for the Business Owner.”

INSURANCE

Allstate exclusive agency owner Willie Robinson in Hueytown and owner Nicky Reed have been designated a Premier Service Agency for 2010.

LEGAL

Attorney David Donaldson of Donaldson Guin LLC was quoted in a front-page story in the New York Times about HUD Chief Andrew Cuomo. Donaldson handled a high-profile case involving deceptive mortgage-premium practices.

Jay V. Shah, an attorney with Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker LLC, was a featured speaker at the American Bar Association annual meeting in San Francisco. Shah was a part of the panel presentation “Anatomy of Business Law: ABC’s of an IPO,” presented by the ABA Young Lawyers Division on Aug. 6. Shah is a member of Haskell Slaughter’s Transactional Practice Group, representing clients in a variety of business and finance matters with a particular focus on securities offerings and periodic reporting. He also practices as part of the firm’s International Law and Immigration practice team and has a working knowledge of Gujarti and Spanish.

NONPROFITS

The Muscular Dystrophy Association has named Jerry Farris Jr. of Pinson the recipient of its 2010 Robert Ross Personal Achievement Award for Alabama. He also is a finalist for the 2011 national award. Farris will accept the Alabama award during the local broadcast of the 2010 MDA Telethon on Sept business card templates. 6 on WVTM, NBC, Channel 13 HD, in Birmingham.

REAL ESTATE

Shelly Terry, a sales associate with RealtySouth Acton Road office, earned the Certified Residential Specialist designation from the Council of Residential Specialists, an affiliate of the National Association of Realtors. She also recently earned the Short Sales and Foreclosure Resource certification from the NAR.

SENIORS

Jody Linton launched Caring Transitions of Birmingham to provide seniors and families transition, including senior moving, downsizing and estate sales. Linton was involved with health care management for years and then worked in hospice.

UNIVERSITIES

Karen Sparks, University of Alabama professor and founder of Urban Business Incubator, met with teens from the Birmingham area recently and encouraged them to graduate from high school and get their diploma in a motivational speech at the Taco Bell “Graduate to Go” Business Camp at the Sheraton Birmingham Hotel.

Professor of Chemistry Charles Watkins is the 2010 recipient of the Ellen Gregg Ingalls/UAB National Alumni Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Teaching. In his 40-year UAB career, Watkins served for 10 years as the associate dean for the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, which became a part of the new UAB College of Arts and Sciences in 2009. He also spent 10 years serving the University Honors Council, the advisory body that interviews and selects students for the University Honors Program.

Assistant professor Ho-Wook Jun from the UAB Department of Biomedical Engineering has received a National Science Foundation Career Award. The $407,000 award benefits Jun’s research into a bioactive hybrid nanomatrix for intervertebral disk regeneration.

Donna Arnett, professor and chair of epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, has been elected leading scientific officer for the American Heart Association’s Greater Southeast Affiliate.

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The company, which has U.S. headquarters in Fremont, focuses on retail and payments technology.

In this new role, Jain will be responsible for growing the business in rest of the world outside of North America, strategy and development of IP, heading India business and delivery operations high risk personal loans.

ISTS said Akash has more than 22 years of professional experience in the software services industry, working with companies including MasterCard and Reliance.

Click here to read the press release.

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Research In Motion and AT&T sold no more than 150,000 of the devices over the weekend, according to estimates by RBC Capital Markets and Stifel Nicolaus analysts. By comparison, Apple’s iPhone 4 sold 1.7 million units in its first weekend of sales.

The Torch, a touch-screen smartphone with a slide-out keyboard, went on sale Thursday for $199 with a new two-year contract, but Amazon.com (AMZN, Fortune 500) immediately slashed the price of the Torch in half to $100 (see correction below). That’s the same price Amazon is offering on the three-month old BlackBerry Bold 9650.

Wirefly, LetsTalk.com and other mobile phone outlets also are selling the Torch at a much steeper discount than other phones that just launched. For example, the Motorola Droid 2 (which also launched Thursday) goes for $150 on Amazon and Wirefly, while the back-ordered Droid X sells for $180 on each site. Each carries a list price of $199, just like the Torch.

RIM hailed the BlackBerry Torch as the "best BlackBerry ever" earlier this month, and it’s unquestionably the company’s most advanced smartphone. But AT&T (T, Fortune 500), the phone’s exclusive carrier, also offers Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone. At the same $199 price point and the same data charges, customers would really have to love the new BlackBerry operating system and the Torch’s pull-out keyboard to choose a Torch over an iPhone.

Some analysts weren’t surprised by Amazon’s price chop and predicted that AT&T (T, Fortune 500) would likely follow suit.

"The device will ultimately have to sell in the marketplace side-by-side with Apple’s iPhone," Sanjiv Wadhwani, analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, said in a research note. "To sustain U.S. sell-through momentum into the November quarter, we believe the price of $199 on contract will have to fall."

RIM declined to comment cash till payday. "The Torch is a breakthrough device and we think businesses and consumers will love it," said Mark Siegel, a spokesman at AT&T.

The first BlackBerry to run RIM’s modernized operating system, BlackBerry OS 6, the Torch offers a full Web browser, as well as other features common on most of today’s smartphones like social networking integration, universal search and multiple home screens. It includes a 5 megapixel camera, built-in GPS, and video recording at up to 640×480 resolution.

That didn’t appear to be enough to wow too many customers. Wadhwani said that Torch buyers are mostly BlackBerry loyalists, smartphone customers who use e-mail more than any other application, and physical keyboard lovers. Though RIM said it is working hard to improve its app store, its offerings are still very slim compared to the iPhone or Google’s (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android phones.

"The new device will be more competitive in retaining at-risk enterprise customers and driving incremental opportunities in the rapidly expanding consumer market," he said.

That’s not exactly the "game changer" language that RIM and AT&T spouted a few weeks ago.

BlackBerry went through a similar ordeal with Verizon Wireless’ BlackBerry Storm and subsequent Storm 2. The Storm was RIM’s first try at a touch-screen, but without a physical keyboard, it never appealed to RIM’s core customers and failed to live up to the "iPhone killer" hype.

Shares of RIM (RIMM) fell more than 1% on Tuesday.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Amazon had cut the price of the Torch. The Torch has sold at $100 on Amazon since its launch last Thursday. 

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The 3,200 bed, 11-hospital health care system launched the Sharps Management Service using Bio Systems reusable containers by Stericycle Inc. (NASDAQ: SRCL). Each reusable container keeps an average of 600 disposable sharps containers from going to a landfill.

Marshall Heins, chief facility services officer at Memorial Hermann, said the shift means Memorial Hermann will no longer buy disposable containers.

“With more than 1.4 million patients visits a year, there are hundreds of thousands of pounds less plastic and cardboard going to landfills,” he said. “Equally important is managing the regulatory compliance and avoiding hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs since we implemented the program in 2006.”

Between April 2009 and March 2010, Memorial Hermann diverted 138,627 pounds of CO2 from 232,610 pounds of plastic and 19,982 pounds of cardboard. Such a carbon diversion is the equivalent to 7,138 gallons of gasoline or 2,622 propane cylinders for home barbecues.

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The series C venture capital financing was led by San Francisco-based Clarus Ventures, a new investor in the company.

Also participating in the financing were new investor Hatteras Venture Partners and existing investors Amgen Ventures, HealthCare Ventures, Latterell Venture Partners, Novitas Capital, Philadelphia-based Quaker BioVentures and the Vertical Group.

Malvern, Pa.-based TetraLogic’s lead drug candidate for the treatment of cancer, TL32711, is designed to neutralize the activity of proteins that block tumor cell death payday loans. The compound is in early clinical testing as a potential treatment for patients with solid tumors and lymphoma.

“The support from our premier group of investors further validates our enthusiasm for the potential of TL32711 to treat cancer,” said John Gill, TetraLogic’s president and CEO.

Gill said the financing gives the company the resources to complete the ongoing phase-I study of TL32711 and complete a separate phase I-II study of the compound.

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The announcement was made Friday by Mark Winkleman, chief operating officer of ML Managers, the firm created to administer commercial real estate loans made by Mortgages Ltd. That company was forced into Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy after its sole shareholder, Scott Coles, committed suicide in June 2008.

Mortgages Ltd. had been one of the largest lenders in the state for construction and land acquisition loans since the mid-2000s.

Winkleman said Ten Wine Lofts, a luxury condominium project near Scottsdale and Osborn roads in Old Town Scottsdale, is being aggressively marketed by Mark Forrester, a partner at Hendricks & Partners.

“It’s about 95 percent finished. Pretty darn close,” Winkleman said.

The Hotel Monroe historic redevelopment project was barely off the ground when the economy tanked in late 2008. Interiors of the property at the southeast corner of Central and Monroe avenues in downtown Phoenix had been stripped in preparation for new construction of a boutique hotel and have remained untouched but exposed to the elements for about two years. Winkleman said that property will be put on the market shortly.

Another property acquired by Grace Communities via a Mortgages Ltd. loan also has been repossessed: A 9.7 acre vacant parcel near Highland Avenue and Scottsdale Road, north of Scottsdale Fashion Square. Winkleman said that property also will go on the market soon.

In all, Grace Communities borrowed about $121 million from Mortgages Ltd. Grace Communities has not been a viable company for several months, according to information provided in May by Ryan Zeleznak, one of its principals.

In addition to acquiring the properties through foreclosure sales, Winkleman said he negotiated settlements with Zeleznak, his father Don Zeleznak and Jonathon Vento, the three partners in Grace Communities. Specifics of those settlements are confidential, Winkleman said.

ML Partners has been busy in recent weeks. The company also repossessed Los Arcos Crossing, a former Bashas’ anchored strip mall east of Scottsdale and McDowell roads. The borrower on that property was Phoenix-based PDG America, which had planned to build a mixed-use development that would complement the nearby SkySong ASU Innovation Center.

The Los Arcos project never got off the ground, but Winkleman expects strong interest in the property given that the city of Scottsdale plans more significant redevelopment in the area.

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The Houston-based moving company said it will specialize in offering full-service portable storage units. The storage receptacles can either remain on a client’s property or 3 Men Movers can pick them up and relocate them.

The storage units are waterproof and have a steel frame and panels.

The move was a logical one for 3 Men Movers, according to Mitch Gonzalez, the company’s director of marketing and sales.

3 Men Movers owns and operates a self-storage facility in southwest Houston with climate controlled units, a security system and digitally-controlled access gates.

"We recognize that convenience is an extremely important factor when considering storage for a residence or business," said Gonzalez. "Many of our clients prefer the flexibility of organizing and packing their storage receptacle on their own schedule."

With this move, 3 Men Movers is competing with established companies such as PODS Enterprises Inc.

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The Independent Review Panel, assembled earlier this year after the governors raised questions over bridge design and funding, also offered recommendations that could provide a “roadmap” to help move from the bridge’s design to completion.

The recommendations include resolving several issues regarding interchanges leading to and from Hayden Island. The report also provided technical analysis of the currently proposed bridge type.

“This report delivered what we needed – a status report on this critical transportation project from an independent panel of national experts, as well as guidance on how best to advance the project in a timely, fiscally and environmentally responsible manner,” said Kulongoski in a statement.

The recommendation comes two days after the Metro regional government released a study about the impact of bridge tolls on growth in Portland and Southwest Washington. The study concluded that a $2 rush-hour toll on an expanded bridge would have negligible impact on population and employment growth in Clark County, but could boost jobs in North Portland.

The Columbia River Crossing project would expand the existing bridge to 10-to-12 lanes and include a light rail line and tolls. The bridge is expected to cost about $3.6 billion.

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Production on the new contract is taking place in Berryville, Ark., and is expected to continue through late 2013.

For the past 17 years, LaBarge has made wiring harnesses and select hardware assemblies for the Atlas family of launch vehicles, which take satellites into orbit.

ULA's Atlas, along with the Delta IV and Delta II, provides launch services for Air Force, NASA and National Reconnaissance Office missions payday loans. NASA recently awarded ULA a $6.7 million contract to develop an early detection system as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Development Program for human space flight.

St. Louis-based LaBarge Inc. (Amex: LB), led by CEO and President Craig LaBarge, manufactures electronics for various industries. The company has operations in Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.

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