Profit rises at American Science & Engineering

American Science & Engineering Inc.'s fiscal first-quarter earnings rose 3 percent to $6.17 million, or 66 cents a share, from $6 million, or 41 cents a share, a year earlier, on continued growth of international orders for its proprietary X-ray inspection systems. The Billerica company said revenue for the quarter ended June 30 increased 49 percent to $44.5 million from $29.9 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial, on average, expected earnings of 48 cents a share on revenue of $37 million. Analyst estimates typically exclude items. (Dow Jones)

Lenovo Group Ltd, the number three personal computer maker, said it would introduce a broad line of Linux laptops, the strongest endorsement to date of the open-source software by a major PC maker. The Linux operating system, which competes with Microsoft Corp's market-dominating Windows, has been one of the fastest-growing types of software used on servers and other types of powerful business computers over the past decade. Lenovo said it would offer a wide selection of low- to high-end machines loaded with Linux software from Waltham's Novell Inc. Lenovo declined to discuss pricing or which languages Novell's Suse Linux operating system would be available in. (Reuters)

Pharmaceutical services company Parexel International Corp. said its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings rose 24 percent, helped by strong new business growth. For the three months ended June 30, net income was $10.4 million, or 37 cents per share, compared with $8.4 million, or 31 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Revenue rose 19 percent to $254 million from $214.3 million the same period a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected earnings per share of 37 cents on sales of $201.6 million. The Waltham company said it won $356.2 million in new business in the quarter. (AP)

THE NATION

A group of music publishing companies said it is joining a copyright-infringement lawsuit against Google Inc.'s video-sharing site YouTube. The National Music Publishers' Association said it was joining the lawsuit out of concern that many songwriters weren't receiving proper compensation when their music appeared on YouTube videos. The lawsuit also includes as plaintiffs The Football Association Premier League and Viacom Inc., a media company that owns MTV, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central. The plaintiffs say YouTube is breaking the law by hosting video clips that they hold the copyrights to. However, YouTube says it's complying with the law by immediately taking down any clips found to be violating copyrights after receiving notification. (AP)