ML Macadamia Orchards yesterday said it earned $26,000 in the second quarter compared with a net loss of $161,000 in the same three-month period a year earlier.

Second-quarter revenues were $1.5 million, compared with $800,000 a year earlier. The second-quarter results included a crop insurance settlement of $147,000.

The second quarter marks the end of the harvest season and is usually one of the year's lowest harvest periods, accounting for less than 4 percent of the total year's harvest, according to the company. Nut revenues were $465,000 for the three months ended June 30, compared with $153,000 a year earlier, due to different weather patterns affecting the timing of the harvest.

TAX COLLECTIONS ON STRONG PACE

State tax collections for the new fiscal year are off to a good start, state officials said yesterday.

General-fund revenues for July totaled $267.2 million, an increase of 4.9 percent over July of last year, the state Department of Taxation reported. General excise and use taxes, which account for more than half of all general fund revenues, totaled $141.8 million, an increase of 3.7 percent over the first month of the last fiscal year.

During the 2005 fiscal year that ended June 30, the state took in a total of just under $4 billion in taxes, a 16 percent increase over the previous fiscal year.

NATION WORLD

WHIRLPOOL UPS ANTE FOR MAYTAG

DES MOINES, Iowa — Whirlpool Corp. moved more aggressively yesterday to clinch the deal to buy rival Maytag Corp. by raising its offer for a third time to $1.79 billion, or $21 a share.

Including the assumption of $977 million of Maytag debt, the entire deal was valued at $2.7 billion.

CRUDE OIL HITS $65 A BARREL

NEW YORK — Oil prices zoomed higher yesterday, touching a new high of $65 a barrel, with buyers focused on refinery snags, shrinking U.S. inventories of gasoline and motorists' growing thirst for fuel despite record-high costs.

Crude futures have risen 14 percent in three weeks.