A Black Lives Matter protest more accessible to those in the disabled community is being organized for next Friday in Portsmouth.
The United States is a two-party system. But there have been a couple of exceptions, most notably Green Party candidate Ralph Nader in 2000 and Reform Party Candidate Ross Perot in the 1990’s.
But efforts on behalf of the political organization, No Labels, are geared towards another exception in history – the potential implementation of an independent Presidential Unity ticket on the 2024 ballot.
Natalie Laflamme, a successful Concord-based attorney who graduated in the Berlin High School Class of 2007, finds herself in a bit of a paradox. Educated in one of New Hampshire’s poorest school districts, she launched a successful law career and is now partnering with well-known New Hampshire attorney and politician Andru Volinksy in the latest legal challenge to the state’s system of education funding.
Two women, who won an appeal to the New Hampshire Supreme Court over evictions, are moving on with their lives and into new apartments, after reaching agreements Thursday with their landlord.
Crystal Tejeda Soto, 48, and Audrey Rackliff, 44, were in 9th Circuit Court – District Division – Manchester on Thursday where their cases were sent back by the Supreme Court for further hearings.
Two women who appealed court rulings ordering their eviction last year from their rundown apartments are back in 9th Circuit Court – Manchester on Thursday (May 4, 2023) after the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in their favor last month.
When Megan Oxland was substitute teaching she felt unprotected and undervalued, she says. Oxland, a Sunapee resident, is a certified teacher who had worked full-time in a classroom in the past, but as a substitute she was paid the same as people with no specialized training.
"I was getting paid exactly the same as anyone off the street, but my level of education was much higher than many other subs who were working,” she said. “How do you keep your work ethic up when you aren’t getting paid what you’re worth?”
Around the country, schools are getting creative with solutions to address what educators call a chronic shortage of substitute teachers. In New Mexico, the Governor called members of the National Guard into classrooms in 2022. In Oklahoma and North Carolina certain state employees can take paid time off in order to substitute.
When Kimberly Bleier or one of her three children wake up not feeling well, Bleier is “instantly in panic mode,” thinking not about their health, but about her students at Concord High School.
Bleier, who teaches social studies to grades 9 through 12, knows that if she can’t go to school, one of three things will happen. Ideally, a substitute teacher will be called in for the day. But that’s uncertain due to an ongoing substitute teacher shortage. More likely, colleagues will forgo their prep periods to cover her classes. Rarely, if lots of teachers are out, there’s what Bleier calls a “warehouse situation,” where one adult oversees multiple classrooms of students in the cafeteria or another area of the school.
After thousands of overdose deaths and millions of dollars in economic disruptions due to the opioid abuse crisis, New Hampshire is on track to receive roughly $310 million to address some consequences of the crisis.
“These cases are geared toward stopping the next person from dying and to make sure there is help available to them,” said Deputy Attorney General James Boffetti. “It’s meant to help the living, keep them alive and stop this crisis.”
Each week, employees of The Keene Serenity Center provide about 80 rides to people who are in recovery from substance-use disorder through its transportation program.
Recently, these journeys have included taking someone to Boston for eye surgery, delivering groceries to a person who has health challenges, and helping someone who hasn’t held down a job for ten years get to work each day, said Sam Lake, executive director of the Keene Serenity Center.
The New Hampshire Judicial Branch made its case for more judges and court staff in front of the House Judiciary and Children and Family Law Committees recently by pointing to a 2022 weighted caseload assessment that shows the need for 32 new clerical staff and 18 new judges—17 in the state’s circuit court.
The Judicial Branch’s request to the legislature for more judges and staff for fiscal years ‘24 and ‘25 comes as complaints about the court’s ability to handle cases promptly have continued. Last year, HB 1346, calling for the establishment of a commission to investigate the Judicial Branch’s family court system and how it handles cases, was killed.
Around 1,000 people currently housed in motels and hotels across the state amid the ongoing housing crunch are desperate to find affordable housing now that the funding covering their rooms is ending.
“They’re breaking down,” said Jessica Margeson, tenants’ rights advocate with the Granite State Organizing Project, of people housed at the Comfort Inn. “They have no place to go.”
Two women, housed for months in area hotels at the government’s expense, are desperately looking for places to live now that the NH Emergency Rental Assistance funding is ending.
Nicole Eastman, 35, living at the Comfort Inn with three of her four teenage daughters for the past seven months, is having no luck finding an apartment. Neither is Roxanne Hunt, 58, who for 17 months has made her home at the Fairfield Inn in Hooksett.
The classic New England town meeting, a form of government unique to our region, was considered by Norman Rockwell to be one of the purest expressions of free speech, immortalized in his famous series "The Four Freedoms."
But since the 1990s, some New Hampshire towns have abandoned their annual town meeting for election-day balloting at the polls on the second Tuesday in March. No one can deny that the Official Ballot Law of 1995, known as SB2, has led to larger voter turnout during town meeting season, but there's also no denying that something's been lost in the process.
Over the past two years, Sarah McPhee and Kirsten Durzy have heard scores of stories about Granite Stater’s lives during the pandemic. There was the new mom who delivered her child at the height of the pandemic; a woman diagnosed with breast cancer who had to muster a socially distanced support system; and the healthcare worker who spoke about his pain after caring for COVID victims.
COVID-19, itself, was bad enough. But this season we’re also dealing with a tough flu variant and RSV. What should you know? And what can you do to keep yourself and your family safe? Host Melanie Plenda speaks with Dr. Aalok Khole, an infectious disease specialist at Cheshire Medical Center in Keene.
As financial pressures push news outlets to take a hard look at their payroll, alternative funding sources have come into play as a way to bolster reporting positions. At The Keene Sentinel, Olivia Belanger holds one of those positions. She leads the paper’s Health Lab, and she said the position doesn’t just add another position, it allows whoever holds that position to do a different kind of work.
Universities can be hubs for innovative thought, products and even spin-out businesses. The University of New Hampshire is no exception, and has actually created an ecosystem to accelerate future high tech leaders, companies and socially responsible nonprofits.
For this latest episode of Get Tech Smart, I feature three guests from UNH:
Marc Eichenberger Chief Business Development and Innovation Officer, UNHInnovation
Jeffrey Lapak, Director, UNH InterOperability Lab and COVID Lab Operations
Dot Sheehan, Founder, President, and CEO, OPERATION HAT TRICK.
