Framingham

Framingham-based Staples, preparing to absorb its chief rival, saw a second-quarter sales drop of more than five percent, and a 56-percent plunge in net income linked to restructuring and its planned acquisition of Office Depot.

Sales were higher than expected in the second quarter for Framingham-based TJX Cos., the parent of off-price retailers T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods said Tuesday. Net sales of $7.4 billion rose 6 percent over the second quarter of 2014.

Urban Kitchen and Bar on Worcester's Shrewsbury Street will close Friday, and the location will be leased to British Beer Co., a Massachusetts-based pub chain.

Yesterday, Framingham's Danforth Art Museum, which has served the MetroWest community with exhibitions and art education programs for the last 40 years, announced it's the recipient of a $40,000 grant to fund research and preservation of Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, a renowned artist who lived in Framingham before her death in 1968.

Verizon has completed field tests at its central office in Framingham of a new fiber network technology that could boost upload and download speeds, the company announced Tuesday.

Framingham-based Ameresco Inc. reported a revenue rise of 7 percent for the second quarter of 2015. Net earnings were 4 cents per share, lower than the 6 cents of the prior-year quarter, but beating the consensus estimate of 1 cent per share, as reported by Zacks.

The Framingham-based TJX Cos. will buy an Australian retailer, Trade Secret, for approximately $58.5 million, TJX announced Wednesday.

When the U.S. Supreme Court pronounced same-sex marriage legal, businesses sprang into action on social media and their websites. Public expressions, such as rainbow-colored messages, underscore businesses' increasing degree of inclusion of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, community.

Framingham biopharmaceutical firm LFB USA has pinned plans to build a new 65,000-square-foot manufacturing and laboratory facility in Marlborough in part on the expectation that its drug, ATryn, will soon receive FDA approval for the treatment of preeclampsia.

Framingham-based commercial real estate and property management firm Parsons Commercial Group (PCG) has merged with Sperry Van Ness International Corp., (SVNIC), a national commercial brokerage headquartered in Boston.