BUSINESS

Columbia/HCA earnings fall 53% Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. today reported first-quarter earningsfell 53 percent, reflecting the costs of a restructuring in responseto a sweeping federal health care fraud investigation. The resultswere above Wall Street projections. Columbia/HCA also said it willask the Internal Revenue Service for permission to create spin-offcompanies from two regional units with 63 hospitals in tax-freetransactions. Other hospitals will be sold, though it was unclearhow many. Columbia reported profit for the three months ended March31 was $197 million, or 31 cents a diluted share, on revenue of $4.9billion. That compared with earnings of $423 million, or 62 …