DENVER – The Colorado Health Foundation, one of the state’s largest foundations with $800 million in assets, on Monday announced a two-year grant of $248,000 to help develop strategies to recruit and train nurses.
The money will be used to create two programs to increase Colorado’s workforce of nurses and to attract people to the field. The foundation is one of 10 nationwide to receive such a grant, awarded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Northwest Health Foundation.
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DOUGLAS COUNTY
Starz buys rights to 500 Sony movies
Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures Television unit agreed to license a 500-title movie library to Starz Entertainment LLC, a unit of Liberty Media Holding Corp.
Starz gets exclusive rights to show select titles in Sony’s film library from 2008 through 2014, and can carry Sony films on its channels including the Encore network, the Douglas County-based company said Monday. On the Internet, the company can begin offering the films starting next month through its Vongo video-on-demand service. Terms weren’t disclosed.
GOLDEN
Coors inks deal with New Orleans Saints
The New Orleans Saints and Coors Brewing Co. signed a two-year sponsorship agreement Monday, the same day the team played its first game since the 2004 season at the Louisiana Superdome, which was damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Coors, a unit of Denver-based Molson Coors Brewing Co., will be able to use the Saints’ trademark in its marketing efforts, and has the naming rights for a bar inside the Superdome as part of the deal. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
DENVER
Comcast hires help for its phone service
Comcast Corp. has hired StarTek to handle some back-office operations for its Internet-based phone business, Denver-based StarTek announced Monday. StarTek will perform customer support and technical duties to help Comcast roll out Internet-based phone service. StarTek will help customers of Philadelphia-based Comcast retain their phone numbers when they subscribe to the service.
BROOMFIELD
Level 3 to provide W. Europe services
Broomfield-based Level 3 Communications, a provider of Internet connectivity through its fiber-optic network, said Monday it agreed to provide network services across Western Europe for German telecommunications carrier EWE TEL GmbH. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
TORONTO
Phone, cable forecast sees gains for both
A new report estimates that cable companies will have 8 percent of residential telephone subscribers by the end of this year and 24 percent by the end of 2009, up from 5 percent at the end of 2005.
The Convergence Consulting Group, based in Toronto, also estimates that telephone companies, including Denver-based Qwest, will have less than 1 percent of pay-television subscribers by the end of the year, and 6 percent by the end of 2009.
JACKSON, Miss.
Ebbers to report to prison today
Former WorldCom Corp. chief executive Bernard Ebbers is to report to prison today, but federal officials won’t say where he’ll serve his 25-year fraud sentence.
Ebbers on Monday was at his upscale brick and stucco home in a gated community in the Jackson suburb of Ridgeland. He refused to answer any questions and told an Associated Press reporter to leave.
NEW YORK
Viacom CEO’s salary cut, shares boosted
Viacom Inc. said it cut chairman Sumner Redstone’s salary and cash bonus 51 percent for next year and boosted his stock compensation in an effort by MTV Networks and Paramount Studios to link executive pay to the share price.
Redstone will receive $4.5 million in salary in 2007 and bonus and $6 million in stock-based compensation for total pay of $10.5 million, Viacom spokesman Carl Folta said. This year, he will receive $9.15 million in salary and bonus and no stock.
OAKLAND, Calif.
3 AOL subscribers sue over data release
Three AOL subscribers who suddenly found records of their Internet searches widely distributed online are suing the company under privacy laws and are seeking an end to its retention of search-related data.
The lawsuit is believed to be the first in the wake of AOL’s intentional release of some 19 million search requests made over a three-month period by more than 650,000 subscribers, including the three plaintiffs – two unnamed Californians and Kasadore Ramkissoon of Richmond County, N.Y.
WASHINGTON
Treasury auctions $34 billion in bills
The Treasury Department auctioned $18 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 4.77 percent and an additional $16 billion in six-month bills at a rate of 4.81 percent.
For a $10,000 bill, the three-month bill sold for $9,879.43 while a six-month bill went for $9,756.83.



