News

Thursday marks the restart of widespread testing for PFAS chemicals in New Hampshire’s public water supplies, after a year-long delay due to a lawsuit from PFAS-maker 3M.

PFAS are industrial chemicals, widely found in groundwater and linked to health problems including liver and kidney disease, high cholesterol and reproductive, developmental and immune issues, as well as potentially some cancers.

A new emissions inventory for the city of Concord points to potential climate change solutions as the state capital works to sharply lower its greenhouse gas emissions.

Concord’s city council set its climate change goals in 2018. They want all electricity used locally to come from renewable sources by 2030, and the same for heating, cooling and transportation by 2050.

After eight years as chancellor of the University System of New Hampshire, Todd Leach will step down from his role at the end of 2020.

Starting next July, Leach will transition to a five-year appointment at the University of New Hampshire.

At NHPR, we want to make sure you have the information you need to cast your vote safely and securely this fall, with some changes in place due to COVID-19. We also want to know if New Hampshire voters are running into any challenges when trying to cast a ballot. That’s where you can help.

NHPR is continuing to cover the developing story around coronavirus in New Hampshire. Bookmark this page for the latest updates, including case numbers and other important news of the day. Click here for all of our COVID-19 coverage.

A New Hampshire man will face more time in prison stemming from a monthslong armed standoff with U.S. marshals in 2007 over a tax evasion conviction that led to the discovery of explosives and booby traps on his property.

President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden debate for the first time tonight, Tuesday, Sept. 29. It's the first of three presidential debates and it's moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News. NHPR will broadcast live coverage of the debate, which starts at 9 p.m.

Editor's note: This story was updated to reflect changes UNH made, after this piece was first published, to how it publicized the absentee voting events.

University of New Hampshire students will be able to register and vote absentee on campus in October. It's part of a strategy to cut down on crowding and long lines at Durham's polling place, which is often one of the busiest in the state during high-turnout elections. 

Outside spending has started to pour into the race for New Hampshire governor. It comes as Gov. Chris Sununu enjoys a large cash advantage over Democratic rival Dan Feltes.

A federal jury delivered a guilty verdict Monday to a prominent white supremacist from Keene accused of making online threats against another neo-Nazi.

Jurors found Christopher Cantwell guilty of criminal threatening and extortion after he threatened to rape the wife of a man who he believed had been harassing him online. 

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Two people died while out on trails in the White Mountains this weekend.

A man from Massachusetts was climbing at Rumney Rocks when his equipment malfunctioned during a descent and he fell more than 50 feet to the ground. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Another man died Saturday evening after falling from Arethusa Falls in Livermore, near Crawford Notch.

New Hampshire will offer a new federal grant program to rehabilitate some of its dozens of so-called “high hazard” dams – ones that would threaten life and property if they failed.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency launched the program this year, giving New Hampshire close to half a million dollars to give to towns, nonprofits and dam owners.

The Environmental Protection Agency has approved a new ocean dumping site for dredged material just off the Seacoast, after a years-long permitting process.

The site is in federal waters past the Isles of Shoals, about 14 miles directly east of Wallis Sands State Beach. It covers a circle just over a mile and a half in diameter, in water about 300 feet deep.

Several hundred people gathered in Concord Friday evening in a peaceful protest to honor Breonna Taylor, the woman shot to death by police officers in her Louisville, Kentucky home last spring. The gathering on the steps of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, organized by local chapters of Black Lives Matter, was treated as both a call to action and a solemn vigil.  

New Hampshire identified its first case of COVID-19 on March 2. NHPR has been tracking new developments since then, as the number of confirmed cases and testing capacity — at public and private labs — has expanded.

  A new report for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows a lot more people could be getting help from the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan, but states are rarely using Medicaid to cover it.

The findings show that 5 percent of narcan treatments in the U.S. are covered by Medicaid. This trend holds true in New Hampshire, which has some of the highest overdose death rates in the country. Bahar Adili helped write the report.

New Hampshire is taking the rare step of banning most campfires and smoking near public woodlands to prevent forest fires as drought conditions get worse.

The new ban prohibits the burning of debris on public property, as well as most kinds of campfires. Also banned are the smoking of pipes, cigars or cigarettes on or near public woodlands and trails.

To become a more inclusive movement, environmentalists are re-examining the past. Today on Outside/In, part two of our series looking back at the environmental movement's problematic anxiety around "overpopulation." 

Because when people talk about overpopulation … what are they really talking about? 

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is being remembered in a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, where she will lie in state in Statuary Hall. Watch the ceremony.

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Some long-term care facilities are slowly reopening to allow visits from family members, recognizing that residents have been suffering both emotionally and physically after months of isolation.  The facilities have been doing so according to guidelines released recently by the state, as well as by federal authorities. 

Still, it can be a precarious balancing act: Allowing more people in – especially when adequate testing is lacking – can mean introducing the virus.  

The governor’s economic reopening task force unanimously approved Thursday a recommendation that would give New Hampshire stores the option to operate at full capacity, as well as new guidelines for the state's ski areas.

Part of New Hampshire has entered an extreme drought for only the second time in 20 years.

The extreme conditions center on the Dover area and extend in a circle from Great Bay, to near Concord, up to the Lakes Region.

The rest of the state is in severe drought, with moderate conditions in the Upper Valley and Monadnock Valley.