Josh Rogers

New data compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education show salaries continue to rise for leaders of New Hampshire colleges and universities. 

Will his total compensation of more than $1.1 million dollars, Dartmouth's Phil Hanlon is the highest paid college administrator in New Hampshire, the 44th best paid private college president in the country.

The new legislature will be sworn in and pick a Secretary of State on Wednesday. Bill Gardner has been Secretary of State for 42 years, and for most of that time his re-election has been inevitable.

Not this year. 

The state is ramping up efforts to get drivers to obtain licenses that comply with the federal standard known as REAL-ID. Relatively few people in New Hampshire now have such licenses.

New Hampshire was among the few states that fought the 9/11-inspired federal standard that became law in 2005. 

The domestic violence case against Jeff Woodburn, the former Democratic leader of the state Senate, is moving to Superior Court.

The latest order indicates the investigation into Woodburn may have started after a tip from a fellow lawmaker.

The lawyer for Jeff Woodburn's alleged victim says Woodburn's defense has pushed the idea that her client went to the police out of revenge over the failure of their relationship.

Attorney Patricia LaFrance says she'd argued that's not the case in court and in pleadings.

The woman poised to become the next New Hampshire Senate President has no plans to say who she'll vote for in the race for Secretary of State.

The race pitting 42-year incumbent Bill Gardner against former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern is a topic she'd prefer to avoid.

Donna Soucy had just finished inspecting the renovations to the Senate Chamber where which she'll soon preside. As leader of the Senate, her endorsement in the secretary of state race could be pivotal. I flagged her down and asked if she had a minute to talk.

Five former New Hampshire governors  -- Republicans John Sununu, Judd Gregg, Steve Merrill Craig Benson, and Democrat John Lynch -- want lawmakers to give Secretary of State Bill Gardner another term. The ex-governors say putting Colin Van Ostern in the job would place the independence of the office and the state’s presidential primary at risk.

Former Governor John Lynch already spoke of Gardner’s behalf before the House Democratic Caucus voted 179 to 23  to back Van Ostern over Gardner.

Lawmakers new and old new swarmed the New Hampshire State House Tuesday for orientation.

For those new to the State House, orientation week is a time to get one's bearings.

"I want a day up here when there are no committees so I can walk around, and say, 'Oh this is here, and that's there.'"

For those not so new to Concord, this week is a time to adjust to new realities.

A recount last week affirmed that Democrat Jon Morgan of Brentwood beat incumbent Republican Bill Gannon of Sandown by 105 votes out of the almost 26,000 cast in the race for New Hampshire Senate District 23.

Gannon and other Republicans had questioned  whether the Democrat met the seven-year residency requirement laid out in the state constitution.

Steve Shurtleff has been House Democratic leader for six years and Democrats gave him an easy win over Hampton progressive Renny Cushing. After the 182-43 vote, Shurtleff said earning the confidence of his caucus, which, pending recounts, will hold a 34-seat majority in the House, means a lot.

"I'm very touched, as someone who grew up here in Concord, seeing the State House so many times, to be the nominee for speaker is a great honor."

Governor Chris Sununu has tapped a Republican former colleague on the Executive Council to join New Hampshire's Superior Court. St. Hilaire of Concord is now a top manager at the state Liquor Commission.

Apart from serving as general counsel to the commission, St. Hilaire has been a city prosecutor, won election as Merrimack county attorney, and worked in private practice and as a state hearings officer.

From 2011-2013, he served alongside Governor Sununu on the Executive Council.

Governor Chris Sununu won second term in Concord on Tuesday. He beat Democrat Molly Kelly by racking up votes in GOP towns and holding steady or better in the state’s two largest cities.

But Sununu will now have to work with a state legislature and executive council under Democratic control.

Chris Sununu is popular incumbent governor from a political family of national prominence. He also enjoys the social aspects of poltics.

You’d think he’d be a prolific political fundraiser.

But a look at Sununu’s fundraising totals for this election – about $1.5 million – would prove you wrong.

Republican Governor Chris Sununu holds a comfortable lead over Democratic challenger Molly Kelly. That's according to a new UNH poll that finds Sununu ejoying stronger partisan support, but says Democrats are more motivated to vote.

Click here to read the poll results

Fifty percent of those polled by UNH say they plan to vote for Sununu; 39 percent say they'll vote for Kelly.

Governor Chris Sununu is entering the final stretch of his reelection effort with a $200,000 financial edge over Democratic challenger Molly Kelly. But Kelly has outraised Sununu 3 to 1 since the state primary.

Sununu’s campaign has collected close to $1.5 million in overall donations but only $110,000 since last month’s primary. Kelly, meanwhile has hauled in nearly $350,000 over the same period. The bulk of Kelly’s money is derived from donations less than $100.

Hospitals will operate seven of the nine hubs at the center of the Sununu administration's newly designed approach to treating substance abuse. But despite the promise of millions of dollars in aid, no hospitals in Manchester or Nashua chose to participate in the program.

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams stressed the role the overdose reversing drug Naloxone needs to play in reducing opioid deaths. Adams was in Concord to address an opioid forum convened by Dartmouth-Hitchcock.

Adams told a ballroom full of people steeped in New Hampshire's opioid epidemic that a lethal drug overdose takes place every 11 seconds in America, and that 50 percent of them happen at home.

Adams says the numbers underscore the need for more people to make a habit of carrying medicine that can undo overdoses.

Governor Chris Sununu says he can't judge Brett Kavanaugh's judicial temperament based on Kavanaugh's testimony before the U.S. Senate. 

Sununu signed a letter supporting Kavanaugh's nomination shortly after it was announced. Molly Kelly, his Democratic challenger, was deadset against Kavanaugh from the start. During a visit to a Concord health Clinic, Kelly said that adding Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court puts abortion rights at risk, and Sununu knows it.

Newly released court documents use Whitefield State Senator Jeff Woodburn's personal diaries to corroborate the domestic violence charges faced by the former Senate Democratic Leader.

According to an affidavit filed by a state investigator, last Christmas Day Woodburn wrote in his diary that he was "focused on my failure to control my anger,"  "It is becoming regular and it scares me."

In an earlier entry, from that August, Woodburn describes kicking the door off the dryer after an argument that included his partner throwing his clothes out on the lawn.