Todd Bookman

Gov. Chris Sununu is ordering a review of the state’s system for treating people in severe mental health crises, after the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled this week the state was violating the statutory rights of those held against their will.

For the past year, businesses and organizations in the state have been required to follow a series of regulations aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19.      

As of Friday at 11:59pm, those restrictions are being lifted, with a single voluntary set of guidelines coming into effect.

Beginning May 7, the state will lift all restrictions on businesses and organizations aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19, and will instead encourage facilities to follow a slate of recommendations.

After a pause of more than one year, New Hampshire’s work-search requirement for people receiving unemployment benefits will resume next month.

New Hampshire Employment Security had suspended, since the start of the pandemic, the policy that requires recipients of benefits to be actively searching for work while receiving benefits.

Four more former employees of a state-run youth detention facility in Manchester have been arrested on sexual assault charges, bringing the total number arrested to 11 as the state continues to investigate decades of alleged abuse. 

The University of New Hampshire is ending a partnership with the Confucius Institute, a controversial educational group funded by the Chinese government.

Confucius Institutes operate at colleges and universities in the U.S., providing Chinese language classes as well as cultural and exchange programs, often at little or no cost to the universities. 

A lawsuit brought by multiple chapters of the ACLU that challenges the constitutionality of Border Patrol checkpoints on Interstate 93 in Woodstock, N.H., will proceed, following a federal judge’s order Thursday that declines the government’s motion to dismiss the case.

Pat Conway appeared before the Executive Council Wednesday during a public hearing as she seeks to serve as a superior court justice.

Conway, a Salem Republican in her fourth term as Rockingham County Attorney, was nominated by Gov. Chris Sununu.

(Updated Thursday at 2pm)

Seven men are facing criminal charges for allegedly sexually abusing minors at the state’s youth detention facility between 1994 and 2005.

The charges against six of the defendants were announced Wednesday by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office, and are part of an ongoing investigation in decades of alleged abuse at what is now called the Sununu Youth Services Center, in Manchester.

In 2003, the last time the New Hampshire Supreme Court took up a case that centered on the interpretation of adultery, the justices ruled it consisted only of out-of-marriage intercourse between people of the opposite sex.

This week, in a unanimous ruling, the court set a new precedent, siding with a man whose ex-wife allegedly had an intimate relationship with another woman.

There were more deaths recorded in New Hampshire in 2020 than in any year in recent history, a bleak result of a pandemic that has upended how residents of the state live and die since COVID-19 first emerged locally last March. 

The sharp rise in fatalities is due in large part to the hundreds of people who died from the coronavirus. But it's also fueled, statisticians and public health experts say, by residents likely delaying necessary health care or lifesaving medical attention. 

A $374,848 payout to New Hampshire Public Radio’s former executive director is mislabeled on the public broadcaster’s recently released tax forms.

The station’s Board of Trustees said the payments to Betsy Gardella, who is described as a consultant on the station’s 990 tax form, were incorrectly disclosed.

For the second time in a month, federal regulators are cracking down on a New Hampshire-based company involved with cryptocurrency that also has ties to the libertarian movement. 

Betsy Gardella, who led New Hampshire Public Radio for more than a dozen years before a sudden retirement in 2018, was paid $374,784 in the year following her departure, according to recently released tax forms.

The payouts were made in 2019. Gardella is classified as a consultant on the tax forms, performing an average of two hours of work per week.

By the end of next week, all New Hampshire residents aged 16 and up will be eligible to register for COVID-19 vaccines, according to an announcement Thursday by Gov. Chris Sununu.

The New Hampshire Department of Justice is clearing a state trooper of any wrongdoing after a traffic stop led to a fatal shootout last December in Dalton.

New Hampshire’s new COVID-19 vaccination scheduling website struggled under heavy demand Monday as residents aged 50 to 64 in the state attempted to schedule their vaccines.

Federal prosecutors are asking a judge to deny bail to libertarian activist Ian Freeman of Keene after his arrest Tuesday, calling him a “sophisticated criminal” with hidden assets who should be considered a flight risk.

A farm consultant from Antrim accused of defrauding a wealthy philanthropist out of $3 million is asking a judge to dismiss the case.

A new state-managed COVID-19 vaccine scheduling website that went live Wednesday appears to be handling demand with no reported technical issues.

The Vaccine & Immunization Network Interface, or VINI, processed more than 6,700 scheduling requests as of 4pm, according to state officials. Eligible residents can access the system at vaccines.nh.gov, or call 2-1-1 for assistance.

Six people, including several associated with the libertarian “Free Keene” movement, were arrested Tuesday on federal money laundering charges.