Business briefs.

COLUMN: BUSINESS BRIEFS

TELEGRAM & GAZETTE

Bloomberg Index

Central Massachusetts

Last: 168.30

Change: +.62

Volume: 65,110,426

Up: 13

Down: 9

Unchanged: 8

Gainer: The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. $44.66 +$.94

(volume of 433,373 shares)

Decliner: Waters Corp. $57.37 -$.41

(volume of 1.19 million shares)

Local

Unitil earnings

HAMPTON, N.H. - Unitil Corp., parent company of Fitchburg Gas and Electric Light Co., posted net income of $3.3 million, or 57 cents per share, during the first quarter ended March 31, the company reported.

The results compared to $2.6 million, or 46 cents per share, in the same period last year.

Unitil's first-quarter electric revenues of $56.6 million were down from $62.7 million during the same period last year, and gas revenues of $14.3 million were about the same as the $14.2 million in gas revenues recorded a year ago.

Fallon grants

WORCESTER - Fallon Community Health Plan will award more than $130,000 in grants to support innovative, community-based programs that provide preventive health and social services for children in the first three years of life or for at-risk youth between the ages of 12 and 19.

For more information or to download a copy of the application, visit www.fchp.org or contact Kate McEvoy-Zdonczyk, director of community and government relations for Fallon Community Health Plan at [phone]. The deadline for submissions is 3 p.m. June 13.

Caliper cutbacks

HOPKINTON - Caliper Life Sciences Inc., a provider of tools and services for drug discovery and life sciences research, is consolidating its West Coast operations to reduce costs and improve the productivity of its research and development spending.

Caliper expects to save about $3.3 million annually once fully implemented, and to spend $3.7 million in fiscal 2008 to achieve the savings, the company said in a statement.

Company results

DEVENS - American Superconductor Corp., an energy technologies company, will release its fourth quarter fiscal 2007 financial results prior to the market opening on May 8.

Company management will participate in a conference call with investors beginning at 10 a.m. that day to discuss results and its business outlook.

Those who wish to listen to the live conference call webcast should visit the "Investors" section of the company's web site at www.amsc.com/investors.

Labor grant

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Labor Department has awarded a $250,000 regional innovation grant to the Connecticut Workforce Investment Board to develop strategies to boost workers' engineering and technical skills in Eastern Connecticut, Worcester County and Rhode Island's Washington County.

The grant will be used to study training programs, make recommendations, increase engineering degree programs and strengthen ties between employers and potential workers.