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Health-care giant says an unknown party made patient information available on an online forumHCA Healthcare HCA - which operates about 180 hospitals and other health-care facilities, said some patient information, including names, emails and phone numbers, were leaked online. The company said an unknown and unauthorized party made the information available on an online forum. The information includes patients’ names, cities, ZIP codes, emails, phone numbers, service date and more. However, payment information, clinical information and other sensitive information such as social security numbers weren’t leaked. [Snip] The company has disabled user access to the affected storage location as a...

Country music star Eric Church is making his feelings about the NRA very clear—and they aren’t pleasant. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, the signer cast blame on the NRA for Congress’ lack of action after the Las Vegas massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history that left 58 people dead and more than 800 injured. “I blame the lobbyists,” Church told the magazine. "And the biggest in the gun world is the NRA.” Church was a headliner at the Route 91 Harvest Festival where the shooting took place, performing just two nights earlier. His fans were...

SNIPPET: "In July, the British government warned that Al Qaeda’s exploitation of social networking websites is on the rise." SNIPPET: "The massive and multifarious network of websites and social media has presented a challenge to authorities in trying to combat it. Additionally, civil liberty concerns have conflicted with government efforts to spy on communications. Reducing terrorist activity on social media sites has been particularly difficult because users have adopted new forms of communication to conform with the new formats. Many Arabic speakers on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other sites use Arabizi, a form of colloquial Arabic written in the Latin...

Meat on the grill is as much a part of the Fourth of July as fireworks and American flags. But it is also reputed to increase cancer risk in unsuspecting patriots, thanks in part to chemical compounds formed when meats containing muscle — including beef, pork, poultry and fish — are cooked at very high temperatures. The class of chemicals known as heterocyclic amines, or HCAs for short, were first discovered in the 1970s by Japanese scientists, who noted that compounds in the charred parts of cooked fish and meat were capable of damaging cellular and bacterial DNA in test...

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum still has "serious questions" about gubernatorial opponent Rick Scott's "character, his integrity, his honesty," and he does not plan to endorse Scott as the GOP candidate for governor. McCollum confirmed to reporters Thursday that he called Scott Wednesday "to congratulate him and wish him well." Asked whether he would consider endorsing Scott, McCollum replied: “I still have serious questions and I have had them throughout the time that I’ve had the very brief acquaintanceship with Rick Scott about issues of his character, his integrity, his honesty, things that go back to Columbia/HCA.”

NASHVILLE (AP) -- HCA Inc. (HCA) said 10 computers containing Medicare and Medicaid billing information and records of employees and physicians were stolen from one of the company's regional offices. HCA officials won't say where or when the theft occurred because they believe that might help the thieves, who authorities believe were after computer hardware, not personal identity information. "We don't want to tip them off they may have information that they might use to perpetuate identity theft," said HCA spokesman Jeff Prescott. The Nashville-based for-profit hospital operator reports on its Web site that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is...

Excerpt - SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Hospital operator HCA Inc. is in advanced talks to sell itself to an investor group in a transaction that would rank among the largest buyouts ever, according to a media report Sunday. The proposed deal, valued at $21 billion, not including the value of HCA's debt, could be announced as early as Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition citing unnamed people familiar with the talks. See Wall Street Journal story (subscription required). Factoring in HCA's debt load of $10.6 billion, the deal would narrowly top the record-setting leveraged buyout of...

Frist accumulated stock in family company Questions of conflict of interest raised Wednesday, October 12, 2005; Posted: 10:56 a.m. EDT (14:56 GMT) WASHINGTON (AP) -- Over a period of four years, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist accumulated stock in a family founded hospital chain that produced tens of thousands of dollars in income -- all outside the blind trusts he created to avoid a conflict of interest, documents show. The stock was held in a family partnership largely controlled by Frist's brother, Thomas, who founded HCA Inc. along with the senator's late father. Frist, R-Tennessee, has long maintained that he...

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist began exploring ways to sell his shares in HCA Inc. on April 29, more than two months before a July 13 earnings warning caused the stock to fall, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The timing of his communications about the sales will likely be a key defense for Mr. Frist, who is under investigation for potential insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice. Mr. Frist's shares weren't sold until July 1 and July 8, just several days before HCA's warning caused the stock to fall...

...The SEC is investigating Mr. Frist for unloading his shares of hospital chain HCA prior to a July earnings warning. Democrats are suggesting that an HCA insider gave Mr. Frist a call to tip him off. Mr. Frist denies it, and to date there is zero evidence... to support the allegation. And nothing in Mr. Frist's past or character suggests he's the kind of politician who'd try to scam the system.... The real issue here is the modern demand that politicians abandon all acquaintance with the world of commerce when they take office, lest they have a "conflict of interest."...

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was updated several times about his investments in blind trusts during 2002, the last time two weeks before he publicly denied any knowledge of what was in the accounts, documents show. The updates included stock transactions involving HCA Inc., the hospital operating company founded by Frist's family. Frist's sale of HCA stock is under scrutiny by the federal government. Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA said Friday it had received a subpoena from prosecutors for the Southern District of New York, asking for documents the company believes are related to Frist's sale of company stock...

WASHINGTON - When Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist asked a trustee to sell all his stock in his family's hospital corporation, a large-scale sell-off by HCA Inc. insiders was under way. Shares of the Nashville, Tenn.-based hospital company were near a 52-week peak in June when Frist and HCA insiders were selling off their shares — just about a month before the price dropped. Information about the insiders' moves was publicly available through disclosures required by the Securities and Exchange Commission. About 2.3 million shares, worth about $112 million, were sold by HCA insiders from January through June, with sales...

FTCR Letter to Sen. Frist Asking Majority Leader to Recuse Himself from Medical Malpractice Debate 7/6/03 3:57:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk Contact: Carmen Balber, 310-392-0522 ext. 324 or Douglas Heller, 310-392-0522 ext. 309 both of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights WASHINGTON, July 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is the text of a letter from the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights to Sen. Frist, asking the Majority Leader to recuse himself from the medical malpractice debate: July 3, 2003 Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Via facsimile and US mail Dear...

Bill Frist, senator from Tennessee and heir to resigning majority leader Trent Lott, is a Bush kind of guy. Where Lott brought little to the president's agenda, Frist is Bush's brand of compassionate conservative, a friend of Karl Rove and a key figure in the GOP's November election victory. To top it all off, he's a pivotal player in the single biggest issue facing Congress: the soaring cost of health care. It's in this arena that the president seeks to lock down his domestic support for 2004. For him, Frist is a perfect choice—business-friendly, highly connected, and blessed with a...

<p>HCA Inc., the largest hospital company in the United States, has reached an ''understanding'' with the Justice Department to pay nearly $900 million to settle the government's longest-running inquiry into accusations of health-care fraud.</p> <p>Under the terms announced this morning, Nashville-based HCA would pay $631 million in fines and penalties to resolve all outstanding civil litigation with the Justice Department. The company would pay an additional $250 million to the Medicare program to resolve expense claims submitted by the company.</p>