Premera grant should improve patient care

Premera Blue Cross announced Thursday that it’s giving the Washington State Hospital Association a $250,000 grant to improve the safety of hospital patients. The association’s program helps hospitals create systems to ensure all patients get the right care at the right time, eliminating errors that affect a patient’s health. Premera, based in Mountlake Terrace, is the state’s largest health insurer.

Cardiac Science in partnership

Cardiac Science Corp. of Bothell has entered into a two-year marketing partnership with the city of Minneapolis. Under the agreement, the local maker of heart defibrillators will be the recommended provider of automated external defibrillators to participants in Minneapolis Project Heart Beat, the city’s public-access defibrillation program. Project Heart Beat hopes to increase the survivability of heart attacks by making the defibrillators as common as fire extinguishers in public buildings and businesses.

Judge authorizes Wal-Mart labor suit

The New Jersey Supreme Court certified a class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart by employees who claim that the nation’s largest retailer denied them meal and rest breaks and forced them to work off the clock. The Thursday ruling revives the workers’ lawsuit, which had been denied class-action status by a trial judge and an appellate panel. Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said the Bentonville, Ark.-based company was disappointed with the ruling and was studying its options.

Starbucks to move to 2 percent milk

Starbucks Corp. said Thursday it will replace whole milk with 2 percent for espresso drinks in all of its U.S. and Canadian stores by the end of the year. Drinks in North America will soon be made by default with the lower-fat milk, but customers can still request their cappuccino with whole milk, the company said. Starbucks said it made the switch based on increased requests from consumers for low-fat milk in stores, as well as increasing purchases of lower-fat milk in U.S. consumers’ homes.

Seattle arrest doesn’t stop spam

Junk e-mail continued to land in mailboxes around the world Thursday, despite the arrest in Seattle of Robert Alan Soloway, a man described as one of the world’s most prolific spammers. Soloway, 27, was once on a top 10 list of spammers kept by The Spamhaus Project, an international anti-spam organization. Soloway was arrested Wednesday on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Prosecutors say Soloway has sent millions of junk e-mails since 2003 and continued even after Microsoft Corp. won a $7 million civil judgment against him in 2005 and the operator of a small Internet service provider in Oklahoma won a $10 million judgment.

From Herald staff

and news services