News

Victor Kumin, Harvard graduate with a degree in Chemistry, helped create the Atomic Bomb under direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer. He lives in Warner, New Hampshire with his wife, the former U.S. Poet Laureate, Maxine Kumin. The two exchanged 575 letters back and forth during their courtship. These letters will be the subject of an article, written by Maxine, in the September 2012 issue of the American Scholar.

Tonight, more than 4400 delegates and alternates from across the country are gathering on the Republican National Convention floor in Tampa to name Mitt Romney their nominee for president.   And New Hampshire’s delegation will have some of the best seats in the house. 

All Things Considered host Brady Carlson spoke earlier today with delegate Tom Rath.  He’s a former state attorney general and now a top Romney adviser, who spoke with NHPR from the convention floor.

This week the Department of Education says it will release details of New Hampshire’s application for a waiver for flexibility from the controversial federal education law, No Child Left Behind. The DOE will release a draft on Thursday, and submit the final waiver application to the federal department of education the following week.

A public meeting in Dover raised questions about how the non profit Local Government Center improperly collected and retained insurance funds it maintained for state and local employees and retirees. 

New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention, joined by a Hudson businessman.

Most schools around the state begin classes this week.  The state’s largest district in Manchester begins classes Wednesday.  The district has more than 15,00 students at 22 schools.  But they begin the school year after a year of suffering some of the state’s most severe budget cuts.

When the first school bells ring, Wednesday morning, students in Manchester will come back to school with fewer teachers.

For most New Hampshire students Tuesday or Wednesday is the first day of school. For some New Hampshire schools “day-one” really is day-one.

For those kids headed starting classes tomorrow, like Andrew Pollak, emotions are mixed.

"It’s gonna be scary but fun," says Pollock, "because who knows what’s gonna happen tomorrow, it could be anything!"

A year ago Tropical Storm Irene devastated parts of Northern New Hampshire. One hard-hit business was the Crawford Notch campground, which was cut off from the rest of the state for three days by the storm.

Campground owner, Richard Garabedian, watched Tropical Storm Irene wash away 1.6 acres of his riverside campground, and the only roads that connected his business to the rest of the state.

He chuckles and says, "I still don’t sleep when it rains."

One year after Tropical Storm Irene, the recovery process is still in high gear.  

It’s partly about pounding nails and painting walls, but it’s also about planning – and deciding what can be done to minimize the devastation of future storms.

Peter Edlund’s office has four wheels and gets about 40 miles to the gallon.  

As construction analyst for Central Vermont Community Action, Edlund oversees the work of rebuilding homes around the state damaged by Irene.  He spends his days in his car and today he’s in Moretown.

It took almost two dozen volunteers to carry an injured woman out of the White Mountains late Thursday, according to a news release from New Hampshire Fish and Game.

Mary Jean Mork, 61, injured her leg on the last day of a five-day trip from Franconia Ridge to the Zealand Road in Bethlehem.

Her husband, Michael Donahue, went to the Appalachian Mountain Club hut for help because there is no cellular coverage in the area. The AMC huts have high-powered radios.

No candidate in the  2012 gubernatorial race benefited more from a major loophole in New Hampshire's political-finance regulations than Republican Kevin Smith. 

State election law limits corporate campaign contributions to $7,000 per election cycle, the same as individual donors. But nothing in the law prohibits multiple limited-liability companies controlled by the same individual to donate on behalf of each LLC, making it easy for wealthy donors to exceed the statutory limits.

There’s a new effort underway to attract businesses to the North Country with the prospect of cheaper energy.

NHPR’s Chris Jensen has the story.

An economic development group has a new way to encourage businesses to come to Coos.

It is taking advantage of a natural gas pipeline from Canada that crosses the county, says Jon Freeman, the president of the Northern Community Investment Corporation.

“Typically the natural gas will cost about one quarter of the price of oil.”

The Bicknell’s thrush is a migratory songbird that winters in the Caribbean but comes to northern New England to breed.

It's long been hard to find in the region – and conservationists say that’s becoming a big problem. In fact, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week it’s considering the Bicknell’s thrush for endangered species status.