A Black Lives Matter protest more accessible to those in the disabled community is being organized for next Friday in Portsmouth.
Cybersecurity is a buzzword we’ve all heard, but what does it exactly entail? What is the state of digital security at the start of 2023, and how can the average person best protect themselves against cyber threats?
For this episode of Get Tech Smart, we invited CEO Patrick Hynds and CTO Duane Laflotte of Pulsar Security to shed some light on the world of cybersecurity and provide tips on staying safe online.
The price of gas affects so many things beyond our ability to fill our tanks, from the cost of food to your next vacation. Gas prices have dropped a few cents a gallon in the last week. Will it continue? Or will there be more pain at the pump? Discussing the price of gas with The State We’re In host Melanie Plenda are Business NH Magazine Editor Matt Mowry and AAA of Northern New England spokesman Pat Moody.
It’s Sunshine Week, the annual initiative spearheaded by the News Leaders Association to educate the public on open government and the dangers of excessive secrecy. Gilles Bissonnette from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, Right-to-Know New Hampshire’s Carla Gericke, and Concord Monitor reporter Cassidy Jensen discuss New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know Law, how it’s applied, and how it can be improved with The State We’re In host Melanie Plenda.
There are many ways to prepare for town meeting. Get a copy of your town’s annual report, and read up on the issues that you’ll be discussing. Grab a cushion, snacks and water — this might take a while. Then, remind yourself that you’re participating in one of the most direct forms of democracy globally.
New COVID cases and hospitalizations in New Hampshire dropped again over the past week, as the winter surge continues to recede.
The state averaged 425 new cases per day in the week ending Tuesday, compared to 745 a week earlier — a 43 percent drop — according to data from the N.H. Department of Health and Human Services.
Throughout January, Granite Staters in emotional and mental health crisis reached out 4,152 times to a new program designed to streamline mental health services in the state.
“It has taken us a bit by surprise. It’s a pretty heavy response,” said Eric Eason, an account executive with Beacon Health Solutions (cq), a national company that was awarded the contract for administering New Hampshire’s Rapid Response Access Point.
Cryptocurrencies are privately developed and maintained digital products for making and accepting financial payments and protecting wealth. They are intended to replace government currencies, such as the dollar-based currency provided by the U.S. Treasury. By far the most widely accepted and used cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, introduced in 2009. Millions of individuals and entities worldwide hold or have held investments in Bitcoin, and tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals and entities engage in Bitcoin “mining” (the process of creating new Bitcoin by solving computational puzzles).
Eaton, New Hampshire is a place where a town official agrees to talk about a local controversy but insists on making eggplant parmesan for the occasion, where a reticent citizen who doesn’t want to be interviewed does so by “respectfully declining,” and where visitors to the Little White Church are reminded to check their politics at the door.
But it’s also a place where longtime friends have ceased speaking to one another, where name-calling attacks appear in the letters to the editor section of the local newspaper, and where a Confederate flag, a gay pride flag, a Black Lives Matter flag, a middle finger flag and other banners compete, flapping idly like the remnants of a recent war.
With a search for 7-year-old Harmony Montgomery ongoing for weeks now, the question still being asked, but for which the answer remains elusive, is how does a child go missing for more than two years and neither police nor child protection services know about it?
“The more provocative question would be who noticed the child when she wasn’t missing,” said Moira O’Neill, Director of the New Hampshire Office of the Child Advocate, which has oversight for the state Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF). She is not seeking reappointment to her post which expires on Jan. 31, 2022.
"In recent weeks, the number of new cases and hospitalizations has surged across our state and we continue to operate at or near capacity as a result," says Dr. Tom Wold, Chief Medical Officer at Portsmouth Regional Hospital.
The surge is hurting hospitals at two levels, doctors say, both increasing the burdens on their staff and reducing the number of staff available to meet the community's needs.
According to data from the state’s official COVID response dashboard, New Hampshire averaged 1,495 new cases per day for the week ending Tuesday, up 41 percent from 1,057 a week earlier. The seven-day average for the share of antigen and PCR tests coming back positive was 20.6 percent, up from 15.2 percent a week ago. A total of 503 people were hospitalized for the diseases as of Wednesday, including 359 people with active infections and 144 people who are no longer infectious but still need critical care. (This last type is now being referred to in state data reports as "COVID-recovering.")
According to data from the state’s official COVID response dashboard, New Hampshire averaged 992 new cases per day for the week ending Wednesday, down 14 percent from a week earlier. The seven-day average share of antigen and PCR tests coming back positive was 15.2 percent, up from 13.2 percent a week ago. 384 people were hospitalized for the disease as of Wednesday, down slightly from 399 the previous week.
A 2018 Center for American Progress analysis found that more than half of Americans live in a childcare desert. And now add a pandemic that has stretched almost two years to the scarcity of spaces and ever-rising cost, and the stress for both child care providers and those looking for a facility has increased exponentially.
Nearly two months before she was shot in the head after leaving her job at a sail manufacturer in Salem, Massachusetts, a 33-year-old Hampton woman filed a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend, a Wilton man who police say shot her and then killed himself on Monday night.
The woman, who is still alive and in critical condition at a Boston hospital, has not been identified.
Major changes would be required in the way New Hampshire conducts elections under bills proposed by Republican state legislators, many of whom have questioned the integrity of the last statewide vote.
Perhaps the biggest change would come under House Bill 1064, sponsored by Rep. Mark Alliegro, R-Campton, which would require every ballot to be counted by hand. A total of 814,000 votes were cast in last year’s election, and 80 percent of the ballots were tallied by optical scan machines. About one-third of the state’s municipalities count by hand.
Republicans were quite successful in the 2020 general election in New Hampshire, but that hasn’t stopped some members of the GOP from claiming significant voter fraud.
“I think there was a tremendous amount of fraud across this country and in every state,” GOP Senate candidate Don Bolduc said. “I do know in the state of New Hampshire we have big problems with election integrity.”
Last month, hospitals across New Hampshire announced they were raising their wage floors as part of a “market adjustment” to stay competitive amid a labor shortage by offering a minimum $15 to $17 an hour.
But that’s only part of the story. Most registered nurses already get paid roughly twice as much as that, and third-party staffing agencies commissioned by local hospitals are now offering up to $200 an hour for travelling nurse rates.
First, when everyone was stuck in their homes, many people wanted a new dog or cat because they figured they had the time to train and acclimate the animal, and spend time with them.
Then, about a year later, shelters started seeing an influx of surrendered pets. The reasons varied, according to animal shelter workers.
A total of 5,862 health care workers have contracted COVID-19 in New Hampshire since the pandemic began, 87 have been hospitalized and 10 have died, according to state statistics.
But that hasn’t stopped a vocal group of nurses and others in the medical industry from loudly objecting to vaccination requirements, even at the risk of losing their jobs.
A study of nearly 2,000 American parents published this month in the journal Pediatrics found that 42% were somewhat or very unlikely to vaccinate their children; compared to 46% of parents who were somewhat or very likely to vaccinate. Twelve percent of parents said they were unsure. The FDA is expected to give emergency use authorization for the Pfizer vaccine for children ages five and older soon, but many parents are still wary of signing their children up when the vaccine becomes available. That has left healthcare workers scrambling to address the most common concerns from parents.
