New York court gives green light to fracking bans June 30, 2014 Today, New York's highest court ruled that the state's towns and cities can block hydraulic fracking within their borders. The ruling comes as the energy industry awaits a decision on whether a hold on hydraulic fracking, which has been in place in New York since 2008, will be lifted. Fracking has been important in pushing [...]
5.8m patients have to go to A&E each year because no GP can see them June 30, 2014 Each year, it is estimated that 5.8m people in England have to go to accident and emergency (A&E) with non-emergency problems because there is no GP available to see them. Research published in the British Journal of General Practice showed that for the financial year starting in 2012 and ending in 2013, approximately 26.5 per [...]
Steve Baker MP: Markets are hooked on kremlinology June 30, 2014 Bank of England staffers once used to a series of questions from MPs on parochial constituency matters have had to up their game. Steve Baker, the Conservative member for Wycombe, has just joined the Treasury Select Committee, and has brought with him a refreshing style of interrogation. I spoke to Baker just after his first [...]
The most Earth-like planet yet: Gliese 832c June 30, 2014 Could there be a planet supporting life beyond our solar system? Scientists from the University of New South Wales in Australia have discovered the most likely candidate yet. 16 light years away lies a planet called Gliese 832c. With a mass five times that of Earth's, it absorbs stellar energy from its central star, Gliese [...]
Orkut: How Facebook killed Google’s original social network June 30, 2014 Google’s original social network Orkut was bigger than Facebook in emerging markets such as Brazil and India just a couple of years ago. Now Google’s closing it down. Brazilians love social media- it’s the second biggest market for Facebook outside the US when it comes to user numbers and one of YouTube’s top five markets [...]
Emojli: What’s so great about the emoji-based social network? June 30, 2014 Emoticons frequently supplement online conversations, but have you ever considered communicating in emojis alone? A new app is being developed to let you do just that. Emojli will allow users to communciate in emojis – and only emojis. An iOS app is on the way, and its developers claim it will be able to fix [...]
In pictures: The car causing a fuss at Lloyd’s of London today June 30, 2014 Anyone wondering what the besuited crowd around the bottom of the Lloyd's building were looking at this afternoon can wonder no more, it was a very fast car – a Formula E car to be precise. Why is it outside the Lloyd’s Building? Amlin, the Lloyd’s-based reinsurance company, is to sponsor and work closely [...]
Japan’s industrial output rises just 0.5 pc June 30, 2014 Fears that Shinzo Abe's plans for the Japanese economy are running out of steam were stoked today by news that Japanese industrial output rose just 0.5 per cent in May, less that the 0.9 per cent rise that many were expecting. The figures were better than those posted for April, when output declined 2.8 per cent, but [...]
3 reasons not to hold your breath for an investment boom June 30, 2014 Even as global growth strengthens and with interest rates still at historically very low levels, capital investment will continue to stagnate and decline during the foreseeable future, according to a depressing report from Standard & Poor’s this morning. Stronger growth, the enormous hoards of cash held by corporates worldwide (which more than doubled in the [...]
Bitcoin now legal alternative to US dollar in California June 30, 2014 The governor of California has signed assembly bill 129, which gives Bitcoin and other digital currencies the status of legal money. Jerry Brown's signature has finally clarified Bitcoin as valid form of payment in the golden state after AB-129 was passed in February by the California Senate Banking and Financial Institutions Committee by a 7-1 [...]