A Black Lives Matter protest more accessible to those in the disabled community is being organized for next Friday in Portsmouth.
Three state reps who have championed children’s rights in the legislature were honored with the Jack Lightfoot Voice for Children Award at a child advocacy conference in Concord Friday. Representatives Pat Long, Kim Rice and Mary Beth Walz, who all most recently stood up against House Bill 1431 that would have established a “Parental Bill of Rights,” were the recipients of the award that has been given out annually since the 1980s.
Loren Selig felt compelled to join a protest outside the Sig Sauer firearms headquarters Friday following the killing of 19 children and two teachers at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school this week. Protesters called for an end to manufacturing assault-style weapons and for legislation to require background checks and other measures.
The State We’re In host Melanie Plenda, director of Research and Analysis for Citizens Count and host of the podcast "$100 Plus Mileage” Anna Brown, Assistant Professor at Plymouth State University Dr. John Lappie, Republican state Rep. Ross Berry representing south Manchester and Litchfield, and Democrat state Rep. Marjorie Smith representing Durham, discuss Congressional redistricting, what the competing proposals are and what it means for New Hampshire.
Mentoring developmentally disabled youth in New Hampshire may not seem like a logical career step for a former bank manager from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
But for Bienfait, a Congolese immigrant -- he declines to use his last name for reasons of personal safety -- the job is highly satisfying.
According to studies cited by Lauren McKown at Report for America, which provides funding for reporters to tackle pressing issues and missing areas of local coverage: Just 17 percent of what’s in a local newspaper is local news – the rest is wire and national reports. Roughly 36,000 reporters were let go during COVID-19, and hardest hit were outlets in rural communities and communities of color.
At a time when information flows more freely than ever, the local news industry finds itself at a crossroads. The advertising and subscription model that held up the industry for so long has consistently been chipped away over the past two decades. The financial challenges have only accelerated over the past few years with the pandemic, and more recently with new pressures from inflation. Across the nation and here in New Hampshire, that’s meant far fewer reporters to dig into local and statewide issues. And in some communities, it’s meant no reporter or news publication at all.
The State We’re In host Melanie Plenda, NH Business and Economics Affairs Commissioner Taylor Caswell, Business New Hampshire Magazine Reporter Judi Currie and Boston Globe Real Estate Reporter Catherine Carlock discuss what New Hampshire and Massachusetts are considering to address the shortage of affordable housing in the region.
Alisa Druzba works in rural health, but over the past few years she noticed another issue permeating her work. “Transportation comes up in every conversation,” said Druzba, director of the New Hampshire Office of Rural Health & Primary Care, part of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
Even before the pandemic, schools struggled with eruptions of violence. As the pandemic wanes, those eruptions seem even more frequent. What’s going on in schools and what can be done to help? School psychologist and consultant Dr. Nate Jones joins The State We’re In host Melanie Plenda to discuss the issues.
News updates, photos and videos coming out of Ukraine have been horrifying. Watching millions flee their homes during the fighting has been equally heartbreaking. One granite Stater studying in Europe is doing what she can to help the refugees pouring into Poland. Wolfeboro natives Rebecca Connelly and her father, Jamie, about Rebecca's work helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland.
This has been a busy week in the legislature, as both the House and the Senate wrap up their work for Crossover Day — the deadline for House bills to make their way to the Senate and Senate bills to make their way to the House. Anna Brown, the director of Research and Analysis for Citizens Count and host of the podcast “$100 Plus Mileage,” and New Hampshire Bulletin Reporter Ethan DeWitt talk with The State We’re In host Melanie Plenda about what Crossover Day is and what it means for Granite Staters.
It was winter. It was snowing in New Hampshire. She was driving on a highway.
A pick-up truck pulled beside her car. The driver gave her the middle finger. Behind her, the driver of another vehicle did the same.
“At first I wondered, ‘What have I done wrong?’ But then I thought, ‘OK, I’m not a white person. I forgot about that.’ If people can do that to me, what about my friends?”
"If I were to write a futuristic dystopian novel, it would begin with a deadly pandemic as a backdrop. The schools in my dystopian novel would be infested with violence and apathy," said Freeman, an English teacher at Nashua High School North. "Hundreds of teacherless students a day would be herded like cattle into viral holding pens to wait out the day, because there was no one available to come in and teach them."
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.
