For the quarter ending Sept. 30, the Nyack-based insurer reported Thursday earnings fell to $625,000 from $14.6 million in the year-ago quarter. On a per-share basis, the company reported it earned 2 cents a share compared to 49 cents a share a year ago, a drop of 96 percent.

Presidential Life also said it was cutting its quarterly dividend payment, due to paid shareholders Jan. 1, to 6.25 cents a share from 12.5 cents a share.

The 50-percent decrease in the dividend marks the first change in the amount paid shareholders since February 2007, when Presidential Life boosted the quarterly payment to 12.5 cents a share from 10 cents a share.

Shares of the company, traded on the Nasdaq stock market, ended yesterday’s trading down 11 percent to $7.37 a share.

For the year, Presidential Life shares have lost 58 percent of their value.

The decline was most pronounced in Westchester, Pace said, where the IT job market had its worst quarterly slide since Pace created its IT job index three years ago.

The Pace/SkillPROOF IT Job Index dropped more than 100 points during the third quarter, in contrast to the strong growth of over 40 points reported last quarter.

In Westchester, of the 11 job categories, only Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts exhibited growth with a slight upturn near the end of the quarter, said Pace, which has campuses in Pleasantville, White Plains and New York City.

The IT job market in Manhattan was better, Pace said, falling just 30 points.

The full report can be read at www.pace.edu/PSII.

In addition, three new tenants, Carpet World, Bushido Karate and Royal Beauty Supply, occupy the remainder of the vacated space in the Loehmann’s Shopping Center on Route 119.

With the expansion and the additions, the strip mall is fully leased, the Scarsdale-based leasing agent said.

The report noted that IBM’s sales of such software rose 6 percent from 2006, while total worldwide sales of the software by all vendors grew last year to more than $3.1 billion.

Further, IDC anticipates revenues to rise to $5.3 billion by 2012, IBM said.

Westrock Development LLC, based in Yonkers, plans to devote 10 of the acres to retail, creating Cortlandt Crossings, an 85,000-square-foot shopping center with 445 parking spaces and an additional 5,000-square-foot bank site, according to NAI Friedland Realty Inc., the Yonkers-based firm that brokered the sale.

Friedland will also act as leasing agent for the retail spaces. The shopping center, construction for which is expected to start in November 2009 with a planned opening date a year later, will join a mass of other retailers along the section of the Route 6 corridor, including Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Barnes & Noble.

(This posting corrects a previous post that contained incorrect information.)

In tests of 83 patients, Arcalyst reduced the number of gout flares 81 percent in patients prescribed allopurinol, a drug used to reduced the amount of excess uric acid in the blood that is known to trigger acute spasms of joint pain and inflammation, the Eastview-based biopharmaceutical company said.

None of the patients experienced any side effects from Arcalyst, an injected drug. The successful completion of the Phase 2 clinical trial opens the door for Phase 3 studies, which Regeneron expects to begin early next year, it said.

Arcalyst, Regeneron’s only marketable drug, was approved earlier this year for treatment of a rare auto-inflammatory condition known as CAPS. Shares of Regeneron rose nearly 6 percent in trading today to end at $21.80 a share, up $1.22.

The sale includes two New York state subsidiaries: Rochester Gas & Electric Corp. and New York State Electric & Gas Corp., which has nearly 90,000 customers in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties.

New York was the last of four Northeastern states to weigh in on the deal. Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine previously approved the buyout.

The Public Service Commission 4-0 vote follows a non-binding determination by an administrative law judge in June that state regulators should deny Iberdrola’s takeover of Portland, Maine-based Energy East, saying the sale wasn’t in the interest of New York state residents.

Further, the judge advised that should PSC officials approve the sale, regulators should place conditions on the deal, including requiring Iberdrola to sell wind-turbine generators to prevent any possibility of electricity price manipulation.

Last month, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., urged the commission to drop its insistence that Iberdrola sell all its wind power assets, saying that requirement wasn’t in keeping with the goal of moving the state toward renewable sources of energy.

In announcing its approval yesterday, commission Chairman Garry Brown said in permitting the sale, PSC required that Iberdrola credit ratepayers $275 million as a condition in allowing the company to operate both generation and transmission facilities in the state, which the state generally views as unacceptable.

Iberdrola will also be permitted to own and operate Energy East hydroelectric plants but will be required to sell those that operate on fossil fuels, ordering the company to file a divestiture plan of such assets within 90 days of the buyout’s completion.

Iberdrola must file a written statement of acceptance of the commission’s order before the deal can close, PSC said.

Maxon said it is the first third-party administrator in the state to offer the insurance, which is offered to employees of companies with self-funded insurance plans.

The coverage is underwritten by AIG Medical Excess, a specialty medical insurer, and covers costs related to transplants of the heart, lung, liver, intestine, kidney, pancreas, bone marrow and stem cells, Maxon said.

The insurance covers all transplant-related expenses, including physician, hospital and drug charges, when in-network resources are used, Maxon said. Coverage begins at patient evaluation and continues for a year after the surgery, it said.

The 82,000-square-foot store at 255 Main St.  will feature women’s and men’s apparel and accessories, kids clothing, shoes and, of course, coats.

The outlet will also have a home décor department selling bedding, home and bath accessories, housewares and gifts.

Burlington Coat Factory, which has 390 stores in 44 states, has one other store in the Lower Hudson Valley — in Yonkers.

(A previous posting on this blog contained incorrect information.)