Lauren Chooljian

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way many of us do our jobs, including those of us here at NHPR - it's kept our reporters from getting out and recording your voices as much as usual.

So we’ve asked people to step in for us, to record their own lives and share how daily life has been interrupted in big and small ways.

High school graduations typically follow a pretty familiar script: Graduates sitting side by side in caps and gowns, each one getting a handshake from the principal as they receive their diploma.

But in this unprecedented year, high schools across New Hampshire have had to go back to the drawing board to figure out what they can pull off that’s both safe and celebratory.

This past week, some New Hampshire business owners were faced with a big decision: How do I balance the survival of my business with public health concerns?

NHPR’s Lauren Chooljian talked with several business owners this week to see how they made that choice.

Living in Manhattan, Adrianna Benn thinks she’s growing up faster than most 15-year-olds. Her mom, Leila Benn, calls it a “fast life” and says Adrianna’s friends are “advanced.” Credit cards, phones, Ubers to fancy sushi restaurants -- at 15 years old.

“I feel like living in New York, I have to keep up with everyone and I don’t really like it,” Adrianna said on the phone recently, sitting on the couch with her mom in their Upper East Side apartment. “Everyone is so mature. They act like they’re in their 20s at a frat party or something.”

It's been a tough week for New Hampshire students, teachers and parents.

Governor Chris Sununu officially closed schools for the rest of the academic year, which means seniors like Cadence Solsky of Concord will spend their last semester of high school at home.  

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Many businesses across New Hampshire are closed right now because of the coronavirus pandemic.

But some are busier than ever.

Birthing centers are in that last group. The small, midwife-led facilities are getting inundated with calls from expectant parents. The new patients say they’re concerned that the hospital will no longer be a safe place to deliver their baby so they’re looking to change their birth plan.

But all this new attention is putting a strain on midwives as they try to maintain a more personalized birth experience.

Katie Rivera is scared. She’s 38 weeks pregnant, sitting in her car in a doctor’s office parking lot. She’s far enough along now that she’s supposed to see her doctor every week.

She used to like these appointments - they were calming. She’d bring her 2-year-old Elle, the nurses would give Elle stickers - it was nice. 

But now, Elle’s not allowed. Katie is waiting until the last possible second to go in there, to minimize any potential exposure.

It was just a week before the opening night of Pinkerton Academy's production of Children of Eden, and the cast was hard at work in the chorus room, running through the entire musical from start to finish for the first time.

Senior Emma Cahoon was Eve, her first lead role ever in the school’s spring musical, and she remembers the exact moment in the rehearsal when things went wrong.

Things are feeling pretty heavy right now. Whether you are practicing social distancing at home, caring for a loved one who is ill or trying to make sense of an uncertain and fast-evolving public health crisis — it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. 

Pete Buttigieg's campaign spent the last weekend before the New Hampshire primary highlighting big crowds and rising poll numbers. But that boost in attention doesn't guarantee smooth sailing from here for the former mayor of South Bend, Ind.

A crowd at a political rally, of course, can’t tell you everything. It can’t tell you for sure which candidate is going to win on Tuesday, and it can hint at a sense of potential successes or problems on Primary Day.

A lot of New Hampshire voters still have no idea who they’ll support in the presidential primary: recent polling indicates just 30 percent of likely Democratic voters here have made up their minds.

Some say they’re looking inward, and as they do, anger has become a major factor in their decision.

Some of the Democratic candidates running for president this year are banking on a myth.

It’s a famous one: That New Hampshire gives little known candidates a real chance at the White House.

But in 2020, is there still any truth to that?

The scene outside the SNHU Arena in Manchester looked pretty much like every other Trump rally you’ve seen on TV: thousands of people in bright red hats, street vendors selling Trump gear.

But the difference was the line of people who wound around Elm Street - many wearing Red Sox shirts matched with their Make America Great Again hats.

It’s been nearly 30 years since Pamela Smart was sentenced to life in prison for being an accomplice in the 1990 murder of her husband, Gregg. Since then, interest in one of New Hampshire’s most notorious murder cases has seemingly never waned, and the four then-teenage boys who confessed to being involved in the murder have been let out of prison.

This week, Smart, now 51, is making another attempt at freedom, using the only legal avenue she has left: Her attorney is petitioning Gov. Chris Sununu and the New Hampshire Executive Council to commute her life sentence and give her the possibility of parole.

  President Donald Trump might have a Republican challenger in 2020.

Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld was in New Hampshire to announce he has launched a presidential exploratory committee. He’s the first Republican to throw a hat at least close to the 2020 ring.

New Hampshire Republicans had a brutally honest conversation this weekend about the state party’s dysfunction, and how it led to being “outspent, out-organized and out-messaged” by Democrats in the midterm elections.

The New Hampshire House of Representatives is now a gun-free zone.

The new Democratic majority led an effort Wednesday to ban deadly weapons from the House chamber - the largest public space at the State House - and in surrounding rooms. The vote was 220 to 163, marking one of the first pieces of official business this session.