MIDDLETOWN – Shares of broadband provider Towerstream Corp. have jumped more than 30 percent over the last week after an influential investor suggested AT&T Inc. may start paying the company to provide a Wi-Fi network for its subscribers.
Michael Murphy, who writes the newsletter New World Investor and is a contributor to MarketWatch, laid out the case to his readers last Thursday. (
Employment hit an eight-month high in Kingsport during April as employers added 230 jobs. The unemployment rate dropped 0.8 percent from March’s total to 10.5 percent. At month’s end the total number of jobs in the city was 17,200 – 886 fewer than during the third quarter 2008, just before the recession imploded the local jobs market. The current number of Model City resident who are unemployed – 2,169 – is the highest number this decade.
Employment also picked up in Johnson City where the jobless rate dropped 0.2 percent to 8.9 percent. Employment was at a seven month high there – 29,290 jobs.
Bristol didn’t fare as well.
PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island drivers got the fourth-worst scores in the nation this year in GMAC Insurance’s annual National Drivers Test, the company said this week.
Ocean State drivers’ scores ranked 47th among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., one spot below 2009. Rhode Island drivers got an average score of 73.8 percent, compared with a national average of 76.2 percent, and 28 percent of the state’s drivers failed outright.
The survey polled 5,202 licensed Americans across the country asking 20 questions taken from Department of Motor Vehicle exams. Questio
Strike talks between British Airways and workers’ union Unite collapsed after it emerged that live updates on negotiations were being broadcast on social networking platform Twitter.
Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Unite, is reported to have revealed the location of the talks via the microblogging service. This led to members of the Socialist Workers Party protesting outside the venue where they were taking place.
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BA chief executive Willie Walsh now blames Simpson’s use of Twitter for the breakdown in discussions.
PROVIDENCE – Cox Communications Inc. has started constructing wireless towers in Rhode Island as it lays the groundwork to begin offering cell phone service in the state, Providence Business News has confirmed.
Cox has received approval from a number of municipalities in the state to put up wireless antennas in their communities, Amy Quinn, a Cox spokeswoman in Rhode Island, said in an e-mail.
“Unfortunately, we cannot provide additional details on where or how many towers have already been installed, or are yet to be installed,” she said.
In recent months, Cox has sought zoning approvals to put antennas on church steeples, smokestacks, water tanks, existing towers and other structures in communities across the state, including Providence, Cranston, Jamestown and Woonsocket, according to municipal records. Some
PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island’s unemployment rate edged down one-tenth of a percentage point last month to 12.5 percent despite historic flooding that caused a sharp drop in the number of jobs based in the state, the R.I. Department of Labor and Training said Friday.
Rhode Island lost 4,400 jobs in April, due in large part to layoffs and relocations at businesses impacting by flooding. But