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By ETHAN DeWITT

When homeless residents request housing assistance from Keene, the city must help, even when shelters are full. As the number of New Hampshire’s homeless has grown, that has become increasingly expensive.During the fiscal year that ended in June 2023,...

By ETHAN DeWITT

As campus demonstrations protesting Israeli actions in Gaza continue across the country, New Hampshire lawmakers are seeking to regulate how public colleges and universities respond to questions of free speech. House Bill 1305 would insert freedom of...

By ETHAN DeWITT

Sue Nastasi lost her birth certificate years ago. “Beats me where it is,” she said. But getting it back is not a simple matter. Nastasi was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in a hospital that doesn’t exist any more, under a different name, she said. She...

By ETHAN DeWITT

New Hampshire’s cannabis legalization effort has reached a tricky crossroads.A year after Gov. Chris Sununu announced he would support a legalization approach that meets a number of strict conditions, the New Hampshire House has passed a bill. That...

By ETHAN DeWITT

When homeless residents request housing assistance from Keene, the city must help, even when shelters are full. As the number of New Hampshire’s homeless has grown, that has become increasingly expensive.During the fiscal year that ended in June 2023,...

By ETHAN DeWITT

For years, Concord had a less-than-ideal policy for new mothers who were city employees: short-term disability insurance. After giving birth, the moms could use their six to eight weeks of annual disability leave for recovery and newborn bonding.New...

By ETHAN DeWITT

In July 2004, a national real estate company attempted to end a lease with one of its Nashua tenants. They did not explain the decision, but they gave her six weeks to leave.The tenant, Kasha Dziewisz, refused. She had paid rent on time and had not...

By ETHAN DeWITT

The New Hampshire House approved a bill to bar transgender girls from participating in female sports teams in K-12 schools and public colleges and universities, in a 189-182 vote that drew criticism from LGBTQ+ rights groups.House Bill 1205 would...

By ETHAN DeWITT

Since the mask debates of COVID-19, New Hampshire schools have become fervent battlegrounds for ideological debates around race, sexuality, and gender identity. And last Thursday’s House session was no exception. Over a series of floor votes,...

By ETHAN DeWITT

The New Hampshire Department of Safety is seeking to spend nearly $500,000 in federal money to raise awareness of distracted driving and increase the number of State Police patrols on highways.The request, approved by the Joint Legislative Fiscal...

By ETHAN DeWITT

The House narrowly approved a bill Thursday that would eliminate any exceptions to the state’s voter ID laws and require documentary proof of citizenship to vote, 189-185. The bill, House Bill 1569, would require a person registering to vote to...

By ETHAN DeWITT

The New Hampshire Supreme Court granted a stay over a school funding lawsuit decision Wednesday, hitting pause on a sweeping order that would force the state to double its spending on public schools. Without comment, all five justices concurred with...

By ETHAN DeWITT

The goal behind the bill is bold: Allow any property owner to build residential housing units in a commercial zone – whether the zone allows for it already or not.Proponents of the legislation, House Bill 1053, argue it is a way to fast-track the...

By ETHAN DeWITT

More than a decade ago, a Democratic-majority New Hampshire Legislature passed a short-lived effort to reduce the number of people jailed for violating their parole. Today, amid new data showing high proportions of parole violators behind bars, some...

By ETHAN DeWITT

In 2019, Keene’s Human Services Department recorded just one individual and one family formally asking the city for help with their housing. A year later, that number rose dramatically: 51 individuals and 20 families asked for housing assistance in...

By ETHAN DeWITT

When New Hampshire lawmakers consolidated the state’s public retirement systems in 1967, they offered cities and towns a deal: Add municipal employees to the system, and the state would pick up 35 percent of the cost.At the time, the offer was deemed...

By ETHAN DeWITT

Last year, Concord boosted the salaries of its police department by nearly $1 million above and beyond contractual raises.Those pay increases carried a hidden cost through rising contribution rates to the New Hampshire Retirement System, which will...

By ETHAN DeWITT

As national concern over sex trafficking grows, advocates in New Hampshire are focusing on one problem area: massage parlors.A number of massage outlets across the Granite State may be fronts for prostitution, victims’ advocates allege, citing...

By ETHAN DeWITT

Barring any last minute delays, the New Hampshire Senate looks set to take up a veto override vote and repeal New Hampshire’s death penalty Thursday morning.And with 17 of 24 senators previously voting in favor of the repeal bill – which Gov. Chris...

By ETHAN DeWITT

To the plaintiff, the settlement is no small sum: $275,000 paid by New Hampshire taxpayers after Ashley Rossiter brought a wrongful termination lawsuit against the state’s Division for Children, Youth and Families. But Rossiter says the message is...