A fire of unknown origin damaged the second floor and attic of a home near downtown yesterday morning, forcing a refugee family from Liberia to seek shelter elsewhere for the foreseeable future.

The 55-year-old Concord man charged Friday with raping a young girl he met through a single parenting support group was arrested yesterday by the Hooksett police on new charges that he raped the girl in that town as well.

PSNH'S LARGEST FORAY into renewable energy, the wood-fired boiler built in Portsmouth in 2006, has reached a milestone. On Jan. 30, Northern Wood Power at Schiller Station produced its 1 billionth kilowatt hour of energy, the utility said in a statement.

THEY'VE BEEN CLEANED, reframed and re-hung, but the floral panels hanging in the Concord Public Library aren't new. They were painted in 1936 by Penacook resident Margaret Masson, a project funded by the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration.

After 23 years with the Hillsboro Police Department, David Roarick will take the reins as chief this week.

Councilors last night unanimously agreed to sell part of the former Penacook tannery site to a Vermont developer for a new Concord Hospital building.

Neighbors of William and Judith Small, the Epsom couple whose home was demolished in a three-alarm blaze last week, have set up a fund to help the pair get back on their feet.

Dartmouth College will lay off 38 nonteaching employees now and a similar number in April to help cut the school's budget by $100 million over two years, President Jim Yong Kim said yesterday.

District 1 Executive Councilor Ray Burton raised $65,000 in one night at a Meredith fundraiser, according to his campaign.

State hospitals and health care providers are still calculating the impact of impending cuts to their funding. But, they warn, providers will not shoulder the cuts alone. Eventually, the cost of the services will be borne by average people through higher insurance premiums.

FairPoint Communications Inc. would shed about $1.8 billion in debt, out of a total of $2.8 billion, under a reorganization plan the troubled telecommunications company filed yesterday with a federal bankruptcy court. But the company said it is still committed to increasing broadband internet access in northern New England.

A superior court judge yesterday granted a request from Concord developer Kevin Guay to delay his civil trial related to charges he polluted Penacook Lake.