Sam Evans-Brown

State and Managed Care company officials met today with the executive council to discuss the contract that would change the state’s Medicaid Program. The councilors have serious concerns, and many questions.

The $2.2 billion dollar proposed contract is the biggest in the history of the state. Supporters say Managed Medicaid would streamline services for the some 130,000 people in the program. Health-care providers worry the new contract may hurt their patients and their business.

A bill that would allow communities to ask for a one-year moratorium on refugee resettlement has made it to a Senate Committee, but critics of the bill are piling up.

The senate is considering a proposed constitutional amendment that would bar a personal income tax.

The amendment passed the house but is facing head-winds in the Senate.

Top Senate Republicans seemed skeptical during a hearing on the income tax ban.

They say they’re focused on putting an education funding constitutional amendment before the voters next fall.

Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley put House Majority Leader DJ Bettencourt on the defensive, asking if he thought the House is overwhelming the public with amendments.

Dartmouth has named its medical school the Geisel  School of Medicine. The school’s philanthropist namesake is one of the college’s most famous alums: Dr. Seuss. Theodore Geisel did not get his “doctor” title at Dartmouth College – he gave it to himself later as a satirist – but he did pick up his penname, Seuss, at the Ivy League school.

A Senate Committee has recommended killing a bill passed by the House of Representatives that would make it easier to challenge voters at the polls.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced cuts to the catch limits on Atlantic Cod for the 2012 fishing year. But New Hampshire fishermen got a reprieve, since the cuts could have been much worse.

The Department of Transportation announced that the cost of EZ pass transponders will drop by more than half starting in April. The transponders will soon cost $8.90 cents, down from $20.95.

DoT Spokesman Bill Boynton says the drop in price will not only help new EZ pass users, but anyone needing to replace a transponder as well.

An official with Obama administration came to Manchester today to tout the achievements of the Affordable Care Act.

At an event organized by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, New Hampshire residents told their stories of how the health-care law had improved their lives.

The New Hampshire Senate passed a bill sponsored by school choice advocates that would create a tax credit for businesses that donate to scholarship organizations.

Many public school educators oppose the measure saying that it would sap schools of already scarce resources, but opponents in the senate tried to block the bill by calling into question its constitutionality.

Correction: an earlier version of the story stated the tax credits would initially be capped at $3.4 million. 

The New Hampshire Senate is set to vote tomorrow on a controversial bill that would create a tax credit for businesses that donate to private school scholarship organizations. The bill’s supporters are confident that it will pass.

The state agency responsible for protecting forests from wildfires is warning that state forests are more at risk of burning this year.

Forest Ranger Bryan Nowell says state forests are now seeing conditions that usually are more typical of mid-April.

"That's due to the fact that pretty much since the first of the year we haven’t had a lot of snow events or rain events, so all the leaves and brush and debris that’s come down over the winter has been there drying all winter long," Nowell says.