Jun 02
Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to remove the “cloak of secrecy” from government by extending public access to data including Whitehall spending figures, street-by-street crime rates and hospital MRSA infection statistics.
Cameron believes greater transparency will help to reduce the UK’s budget deficit – approximately £5.5 billion at present – by making areas of waste and overspend visible to taxpayers, while enhancing public trust and engagement in politics.
“Greater transparency across government is at the heart of our shared commitment to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account; to reduce the deficit and deliver better value for money in public spending; and to realise significant economic benefits by enabling businesses and non-profit organisations to build innovative applications and websites using public data,” he wrote in a letter to the secretaries of state. “The
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May 31
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. (
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May 26
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.
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May 26
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
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