1. New Hampshire Not Alone In Health Exchange Setbacks

In the four weeks since the Boston Marathon bombings, the One Fund set up to collect donations for victims has raised more than twenty-eight million dollars. The decision on how that money gets distributed goes to Kenneth Feinberg, the so-called “great decider”. 

At public hearings held last week at the Boston Public Library, Feinberg stated that there is not enough money in the One Fund to satisfy everyone. Here to discuss how dollars get assigned to tragedies is Juliette Kayyem, national security and foreign policy columnist for the Boston Globe. She’s former assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs at the department of homeland security.

After every errant tweet from another major news outlet, or the announcement of fresh layoffs from another print newsroom, many shake their heads and talk about the good old days, before false reports of WMD’s and internet news aggregators. We remember a time when Edward R. Murrow and other icons of objectivity were our revered national watchdogs, serving up the truth...one newspaper column or TV broadcast at a time.   But what if our idealistic view of American journalism's "golden age" is nothing but a nostalgic myth?  Todd Gitlin teaches journalism and communications at Columbia University. His recent article “The Myth of Journalism’s Golden Age” was recently featured in the Utne Reader.

The New Hampshire House makes its first key vote as the casino bill is voted on by a supercommittee comprised of the House Finance and Ways & Means Committees; various amendments will be considered on Tuesday, with a committee vote and recommendation coming Wednesday. The New Hampshire Senate, meanwhile, continues to work on its budget, and the Senate Finance Committee prepares to hear from some of the larger state agencies - Health & Human Services, Transportation, and Environmental Services - on their budget needs.

As the national economic mood picks up will New Hampshire join the party?  U.S. unemployment is tracking downward, the stock market is going up, and housing trends look strong in many parts of the country. Meanwhile, here in the Granite State, the recovery’s been steady but lackluster. We’ll look at where the economic promise and perils may be found, moving forward.  

Guests:

U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte continued her calls this weekend for a full-scale investigation of the attacks on a U.S. compound in Benghazi.

Appearing Sunday morning on CBS’s Face the Nation, Ayotte denied accusations by Democrats that demands by Republicans for more information about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s role are politically motivated.

The Air Traffic Control tower at Boire Field in Nashua will remain open at least through September.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Friday that the FAA would be able to keep 149 low activity contract towers open through the end of the fiscal year.

That includes the tower in Nashua, which was originally on the list of towers slated to close in June because of across the board spending cuts known as the sequester.

After an improvement from 2011 to 2012, the perception of the New Hampshire economy has remained relatively unchanged over the past year.

That’s according to the latest Business and Industry Association Report on Consumer Confidence, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.

Monday, May 13

>>>The Fretless  at the Colebrook Country Club ~  Colebrook, NH, ~ 7pm ~ www.gnwca.org 603-237-9302, 603-246-8998

Friday, May 17

>>>Delbert McClinton w/ The Dusty Gray Band at the Flying Monkey ~ Plymouth, NH ~ 7:30pm ~ www.flyingmonkeynh.com