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WOONSOCKET – Summer Infant Inc. reported third-quarter profit of $2.08 million, or 13 cents per diluted share, up from $1.96 million in the third quarter of 2009.

The infant and toddler product maker said late Monday that revenue grew 21.5 percent quarter-over-quarter to $49.8 million, mainly due an increase in the number of stores where existing customers sell its products and expanded product offerings.

“We now expect the full-year revenue to be better than previously expected,” said Jason Macari, chairman and CEO, raising the 2010 fiscal revenue guidance to $190 million from $185 million.

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Two South West poultry producers that trade as Finnesse Foods and Ferguson Valley Chicken have gone into voluntary administration.

Gold Level Enterprises which operates an abattoir in Dardanup and Goldfin Enterprises which operates a processing plant just outside of Bunbury appointed Kim Strickland and David Hurt from WA Insolvency Solutions as administrators yesterday afternoon.

More than 130 people are employed between the two companies.

Mr Strickland said he and Mr Hurt were in the process of assessing the financial position of Gold Level Enterprises and Goldfin Enterprises.

Mr Strickland said a couple of million dollars was owed to suppliers and the National Australia Bank was owed an amount of money, which he would not disclose.

“We’ve had total support of creditors and suppliers who say they will continue to supply the companies,” he said.

He said the position of the workforce was also very strong.

“Employee entitlements are strong,” said Mr Strickland.

“There are lots of assets to cover them and there is no intention of putting anyone off at this stage.”

Mr Strickland said it was fundamentally a good business.

“We’re assessing the profitability and cash flow issues and planning to put together a restructuring plan in the next five weeks,” he said.

Mr Strickland said the business will continue and that many of the issues that had resulted in it getting into financial trouble had already been identified.

The agreement with Empco may violate both state and city conflict-of-interest laws and raises another question about city oversight of the police department.

Williams has been suspended and is on paid leave for a month for alleged insubordination related to a city investigation into her disciplinary practices. She has not returned calls for comment.

Both current City Manager Isaac Turner and his predecessor, Marty Black, gave Williams written permission to do consulting work with Empco after she was hired to run Venice’s police department in 2006.

But they said they did not realize Williams had also hired the company to handle testing for officer promotions.

City policy does not always require bids or contracts for work or services, said City Clerk Lori Stelzer, and she did not have documents authorizing the work with Empco.

The first $22,000 city payment to Empco was sent in December 2006, nine months after Williams was hired as the city’s first female police chief.

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PROVIDENCE – Frank T. Caprio, Democratic candidate for governor, has made national news after telling WPRO-AM that President Barack Obama can “take his endorsement and really shove it.”

“I never asked President Obama for his endorsement and what’s going on here is really Washington insider politics at its worst,” Caprio said, according to abcnews.com “He can take his endorsement and really shove it as far as I am concerned.”

The non-endorsement is seen as a victory for independent candidate Lincoln Chafee, who supported Obama in 2008.

The local news item has traveled fast. The Washington

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Los Angeles singer Aloe Blacc’s single I Need a Dollar – a slice of brilliantly anguished soul about a man made jobless by the recession – was hailed as the credit-crunch anthem. Thus, eyebrows were raised when “Blacc” turned out to be one Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins, a former consultant at Ernst & Young.

Wearing a jacket that makes a Louis Vuitton handbag seem the epitome of austerity, the supposed soul man further dents his credibility by blending I Need a Dollar with bizarre covers such as the Police’s Walking on the Moon, and urging everybody to say “Way-oh!” Faced with the chance to become the voice of a generation, Blacc seems to have opted instead to be a singing Butlins redcoat.

Or maybe he’s just an all-round entertainer who accidentally produced an era-defining track. Thi

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