News in :90 – Sept. 17, 2020

Patients and donors to at least four different Minnesota health care providers are being notified that their personal information may have been compromised.

More than 200,000 patients and donors from Allina Health hospitals and clinics and more than 160,000 patients and donors at Children’s Minnesota have been notified of the possible data breach, as well as patients and donors from Regions Hospital and Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare.

The hack is part of a ransomware attack on a cloud computing company called Blackbaud, which manages databases for a number of nonprofits.

Children’s Minnesota has told those involved to check their medical bills for signs of fraud.

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to 860,000, which is still a historically high figure.

Before the pandemic damaged the economy, the number signing up for jobless aid had never exceeded 700,000 in a week. Now, numbers have been higher than 700,000 for 26 straight weeks.

U.S. jobless claims fell by 33,000 from the previous week and 12.6 million are collecting traditional unemployment benefits, compared with just 1.7 million a year ago, the Labor Department said Thursday.

A University of St. Thomas student was robbed by two suspects in an alley on the 100 block of Cleveland Avenue, according to an alert from Public Safety to the St. Thomas community Wednesday afternoon.

The suspects got out of a dark SUV with no license plates parked in an alley, according to the report. The first suspect approached the student and took their belongings. The second suspect demanded more from the student, but did not get those items. Both suspects then fled back to their vehicle and drove east down the alley.

The first suspect was described as an 18-year-old male between 5-foot-7 inches and 5-foot-8 inches, with short hair, wearing pants and all-dark clothing. The second suspect was described as an 18-year-old male who was wearing all dark clothing and was short.

In the campus-wide email alert, Public Safety said that anyone with relevant information should contact Public Safety or the St. Paul Police Department.

Sara Thibault can be reached at thib9782@stthomas.edu.