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NH man goes to federal prison for sharing child abuse images
A Somersworth man has been sentenced to more than five years in federal prison for possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material.
Mark E. Butler, 46, was arrested last year after federal agents seized electronic devices Butler used to obtain child abuse images and distribute them using social media apps, emails and text messages, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's office.
Butler was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 66 months in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release. He also has to pay $6,000 in restitution.
The case was investigated by federal, state and local police agencies, and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office.
“Protecting children is a paramount priority and those who engage in child exploitation will be prosecuted and we will seek significant sentences as demonstrated in this case,” said U.S. Attorney Jane Young.
For more information about law enforcement efforts to protect children from online exploitation and abuse, visit: projectsafechildhood.gov.
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2022-12-20T19:14:06Z
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www.unionleader.com
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NH man goes to federal prison for sharing child abuse images | Crime | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/nh-man-goes-to-federal-prison-for-sharing-child-abuse-images/article_93aa3836-980a-5ccc-852c-d345aca60c36.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/nh-man-goes-to-federal-prison-for-sharing-child-abuse-images/article_93aa3836-980a-5ccc-852c-d345aca60c36.html
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By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Dan Lamothe The Washington Post
From the moment President Biden's Afghanistan pullout began to go wrong - chaos at Kabul's airport, 13 U.S. service members killed by a suicide bombing, Afghans falling to their deaths from departing planes - the White House braced for withering congressional inquiries.
But it never had to face one from an empowered opposition - until now. While much attention is focused on Republicans' plans to investigate Biden's son Hunter, some White House and other administration officials privately say an Afghanistan probe could prove more emotionally difficult and politically damaging.
The White House can - and plans to - dismiss any investigation into Hunter Biden as a conspiratorial witch hunt, but even Democrats concede that Congress has a right to scrutinize a troubled military action that resulted in American and Afghan deaths. Democrats may argue Hunter Biden's business dealings aren't of concern to ordinary Americans, but few would say the same of the Afghan pullout.
The investigation would probably gear up just as President Biden launches his reelection campaign early next year. The August 2021 withdrawal was a low point in Biden's presidency, sending his approval ratings into a tailspin as desperate scenes from Kabul aired across the world, and the probe would probably resurface such troubling issues as the fate of Afghan interpreters who worked for the United States but were left behind.
"From the moment the events of August 2021 happened, there was a knowledge at the moment that investigations would happen . . . because it got so much public scrutiny," one former White House official said. "It's also an issue where they look back to 2021, and the point at which the president's approval rating dropped was around Afghanistan, so it brings back the worst moment."
Biden's pullout of U.S. forces from Afghanistan after more than 20 years of war fulfilled a major campaign promise and a longtime goal. The president argued that the Afghanistan operation, launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had lost its original purpose and become a costly, futile exercise in nation-building.
White House officials also cite the recent killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri - one of the world's most wanted terrorists and a key planner of the Sept. 11 attacks - in a U.S. drone strike. The administration's ability to carry out such an operation, despite no longer having troops on the ground, was a vindication of the decision to withdraw, White House officials say, though it also highlighted a new world in which Zawahiri could live in downtown Kabul a short distance from the former U.S. Embassy.
Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said Austin and other Defense Department leaders "have testified extensively in open and closed hearings about the war in Afghanistan, including the U.S. drawdown and evacuation." The department, she said, "respects the important oversight role that Congress plays, and will continue to work with the Congress on important national defense issues and to respond appropriately to legitimate Congressional inquiries, just as we always do."
One White House official said the administration has spent months preparing for a potential Afghanistan probe and is confident that officials can answer any potential questions. Some likely to be called to Capitol Hill - including Austin, Blinken and Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - have answered questions before and know what they are likely to be asked.
"I would hope that Democrats defend the president's decision to leave Afghanistan, and I would hope we push back on this completely false, made-up narrative that there was a way to leave Afghanistan amidst the unanticipated overnight collapse of the Afghan government in a way that was neat and tidy," said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), an ally of the White House.
Murphy said Biden's critics imagine a mythical scenario that was never in the cards, an "unrealistic, fantastical belief that withdrawal, under the circumstances, could have been done in a way that didn't involve some really tough negative outcomes."
In August, the Republican minority on the House Foreign Affairs Committee released the findings of its own inquiry, concluding that a failure of planning left American leaders with only bad options once the Taliban took control. Biden disregarded the concerns of senior U.S. military officials that withdrawing American forces could lead to Taliban gains, the report concluded, adding that he "lied" about the advice he received.
Administration officials rejected the report's findings, saying they conducted extensive planning and pre-positioned U.S. troops in the Middle East to be ready in the event of a crisis. They also note that it was President Donald Trump who struck a deal with the Taliban in 2020 to withdraw U.S. troops, saying that if they had not followed through, the Taliban would have stepped up its attacks, leading to a deadly intensification of the war.
Democrats also warn that if Republicans make their investigation overly partisan, they will overreach and their efforts will backfire. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and supports a broad investigation, said that while many Republicans understand the importance of a neutral, bipartisan accounting, he fears it is "the partisans who are going to run the place."
As Republicans mull their options, one possibility is a joint investigation by the House Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees. That would let investigators question all the relevant agencies, said Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), rather than conducting "siloed" investigations in which each committee speaks only with the agency it oversees.
Waltz, who served in Afghanistan with the Army and is now on the Armed Services Committee, said a joint investigation of some kind would "probably be the only way" to go, though he added that the decision is in the hands of House Republican leaders.
While administration officials have highlighted the grueling evacuation as a "historic achievement" that removed more than 120,000 people in 17 days, it also put thousands of U.S. troops and diplomatic personnel in peril as throngs of desperate people tried to reach the airport and armed Taliban fighters posted security just outside. About 170 Afghans, as well as the 13 U.S. troops, were killed in the suicide bombing attributed to the Islamic State on the airport's outskirts; that attack was followed days later by a botched American drone strike that killed 10 civilians.
U.S. military documents released to The Washington Post in February detailed an internal conflict between the Defense and State departments over how to carry out the withdrawal. Military personnel would have been "much better prepared" to mount an orderly evacuation if "policymakers had paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground," Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, the top U.S. commander during the evacuation, later told Army investigators.
"I think that's a deliberate effort to dilute the amount of time that can be spent on the withdrawal decisions," Waltz said.
But Democrats, including some who have criticized the Biden administration, said there is value in reminding Americans that the war stretched for 20 years under two Republican and two Democratic presidents. Moulton, for example, said he supports an investigation that scrutinizes the "entirety of the conflict."
"Look, there's a lot of accountability to go around here," he said. "There will be a lot of Republicans and Democrats who don't want to examine this issue and say it's just consigned to the past, because they don't want to get their own party in trouble. But this is about doing right by our troops and ensuring that the mistakes in Afghanistan aren't made again."
Moulton said that the American effort in Afghanistan "didn't go to hell in a handbasket with the withdrawal" and that the country does not need a "narrow investigation focused on just President Biden." Problematic decisions were made before then, he said, including Trump's choice to sign a deal with the Taliban that undercut the Afghan government and called for all U.S. troops to withdraw in 2021.
"If this just becomes an effort to score political points," Moulton said, "we all lose."
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2022-12-20T19:14:06Z
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www.unionleader.com
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GOP's looming Afghanistan probe worries Biden aides | National | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/national/gops-looming-afghanistan-probe-worries-biden-aides/article_ae9657ed-6fdf-5740-b9d2-a88ef560d631.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/national/gops-looming-afghanistan-probe-worries-biden-aides/article_ae9657ed-6fdf-5740-b9d2-a88ef560d631.html
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Liesa Johannssen-Koppitz/Bloomberg
Elon Musk is actively searching for a new chief executive officer for Twitter Inc., CNBC's David Faber reported, after the billionaire lost a straw poll he posted on the social media site that asked users whether he should relinquish his role as head of the company.
More than 10 million votes, or 57.5%, were in favor of Musk stepping down, according to results that came in Monday morning. Musk committed to abide by the results when he launched the survey, but nearly a day later he had tweeted more than 10 times without directly addressing the outcome. Musk responded to a tweet suggesting the poll may have been manipulated by bots with a single word: "interesting."
Musk's dramatic offer came shortly after he attended the World Cup final match in Qatar, triggering a wave of trending topics such as "VOTE YES" and "CEO of Twitter." He didn't identify an alternative leader and went so far as to say anyone capable of doing the job wouldn't want it.
After losing the initial poll, Musk, who's also chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., retweeted promotional material for the car company and for Twitter's Blue for Business service. He also responded to an article about rival Toyota Motor Corp.'s criticism of electric vehicles with a simple "Wow."
The stock of Tesla, by far Musk's most valuable holding, has plummeted since the Twitter acquisition and critics have argued he's spending too much time on the social media company.
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2022-12-20T19:14:23Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Musk actively looking for new ceo after losing poll, CNBC says | Science & Technology | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/scitech/musk-actively-looking-for-new-ceo-after-losing-poll-cnbc-says/article_6ecc3a94-1e6a-5025-830f-65c9a341d224.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/scitech/musk-actively-looking-for-new-ceo-after-losing-poll-cnbc-says/article_6ecc3a94-1e6a-5025-830f-65c9a341d224.html
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Terry Hall of British band The Specials performs as part of celebrations before the London 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremony at Hyde Park, London, Aug. 12, 2012.
Ki Price/REUTERS
LONDON - Terry Hall, lead singer of British ska band The Specials, whose often politically charged hits in the late 1970s and early 1980s included "Gangsters" and "Ghost Town," has died aged 63, his former band members said.
"But the onstage demeanor of their lead singer was a reminder that they were in the serious business of challenging our perception of who we were in the late 1970s."
Hall was famous for his deadpan delivery, staring expressionless into the television cameras as he sang, while the rest of the band leapt about behind him, dressed in their trademark suits, porkpie hats and loafer shoes.
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2022-12-20T20:54:59Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Terry Hall, singer with ska band The Specials, dies aged 63 | Back Page | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/terry-hall-singer-with-ska-band-the-specials-dies-aged-63/article_2cd7b124-ad17-561f-a4e2-ebf9d5f56061.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/terry-hall-singer-with-ska-band-the-specials-dies-aged-63/article_2cd7b124-ad17-561f-a4e2-ebf9d5f56061.html
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COPENHAGEN -- Pop singer Justin Bieber lashed out at H&M over clothes featuring the Canadian artist's image and lyrics, saying the Swedish fashion retailer had not obtained his approval.
The online store of the world's second biggest fashion retailer is offering hoodies, T-shirts and sweatshirts with pictures of Bieber or quotes from his lyrics such as "I miss you more than life" from the song "Ghost" for prices between $49.80-$114.
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2022-12-20T22:35:08Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Justin Bieber slams H&M "trash" merchandise featuring his image | Back Page | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/justin-bieber-slams-h-m-trash-merchandise-featuring-his-image/article_5c16a573-e808-5c6d-8c34-a53e23038d25.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/justin-bieber-slams-h-m-trash-merchandise-featuring-his-image/article_5c16a573-e808-5c6d-8c34-a53e23038d25.html
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William Farnsworth
Police are looking for a Manchester man on a felony charge of animal cruelty after they say he beat a puppy to death last weekend.
William Farnsworth, 29, is also wanted for witness tampering and falsifying evidence, according to a news release from Manchester police.
Police on Sunday got a report of animal cruelty involving a 5-month-old pit bull puppy. Investigators learned that the puppy had been attacked and had died from its injuries the previous day, and they identified Farnsworth as the suspect.
Officials are asking anyone with information about the case to call Manchester police at 603-668-8711.
Farnsworth has been in trouble before, including a 2018 arrest for burglary, resisting arrest and simple assault. A Manchester officer was injured while trying to apprehend him in that incident.
When he was 21, he was arrested twice in one day, for being involved in a hit-and-run and being a habitual offender, according to published reports.
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2022-12-20T22:35:21Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Manchester man wanted for allegedly killing pit bull puppy | Crime | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/manchester-man-wanted-for-allegedly-killing-pit-bull-puppy/article_e9914417-3abf-5788-8f83-461eace5d62b.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/manchester-man-wanted-for-allegedly-killing-pit-bull-puppy/article_e9914417-3abf-5788-8f83-461eace5d62b.html
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Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September after a seven-decade reign, had been the only British monarch to be featured on a bank note, according to Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England. The bank did not have permission to use a monarch’s face until a few years into the queen’s reign.
The United Kingdom Treasury gave the bank permission in 1956 to use the queen’s portrait in a new series of notes, according to the bank’s website. It wasn’t until 1960 that her grace’s face first graced a bill, which was a 1-pound note. It was followed by a 10-shilling note the next year.
“It was a formal, regal image, and was criticised for being a severe and unrealistic likeness,” according to the bank’s website. People found the portrait used on a redesigned 5-pound note in 1963 and a 10-pound in 1964 much more natural.
The Bank of England announced that new polymer notes featuring the king will be printed in denominations of 5, 10, 20 and 50 pounds.
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2022-12-21T00:14:11Z
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www.unionleader.com
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King Charles III becomes second monarch to appear on English money | Back Page | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/king-charles-iii-becomes-second-monarch-to-appear-on-english-money/article_f9358c03-f5f4-5a61-9491-fb098a0d4c76.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/king-charles-iii-becomes-second-monarch-to-appear-on-english-money/article_f9358c03-f5f4-5a61-9491-fb098a0d4c76.html
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A nonprofit based in Utah is offering pre-kindergarten aged children in New Hampshire the opportunity to get ready for school next fall for free, using federal grant money.
At no cost to parents or caregivers, Waterford Upstart offers an at-home, adaptive, kindergarten readiness online program that combines the science of learning, the power of mentoring, and technology to deliver access, excellence and equity in early education for kids.
Through a New Hampshire emergency Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) grant, Waterford Upstart has enough funds to provide 900 laptops to New Hampshire families of pre-K students, internet via a loaned hotspot, family education coaching and access to the Waterford Upstart online learning program — at no cost to families.
Waterford.org is a nonprofit educational organization that teaches math, science and literacy and created Waterford Upstart, launched in 2009,
Back in March, the New Hampshire Department of Education announced ESSER dollars were available to fund kindergarten-readiness initiatives. In making the announcement, Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut said Waterford has contributed to students' success.
"Millions of children and families have benefited from the ongoing research, development and enhancement of the curriculum in schools, homes and learning centers around the world," Edelblut said in a statement. "The Waterford Upstart program helps close the well-documented preschool access gap, providing proven school-readiness support for children most at risk of school failure."
Waterford is looking for pre-K families to register New Hampshire children by Jan. 31, and participate in the program through May 28, 2023.
Once registered, a laptop -- which the family can keep -- is sent directly to the home with an internet hotspot, if needed, and the child can start immediately.
There’s no income or location requirements, and the program is open to all students who will be entering kindergarten in the fall of 2023, a Waterford press release reports.
Families interested in participating in the pre-K program can register at waterford.org/upstart or call 1-888-982-9898 for more information.
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2022-12-21T00:14:30Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Nonprofit offers free laptops, internet to NH families with pre-K kids | Education | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/education/nonprofit-offers-free-laptops-internet-to-nh-families-with-pre-k-kids/article_29056b07-4c94-5498-92bb-2fd713e00263.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/education/nonprofit-offers-free-laptops-internet-to-nh-families-with-pre-k-kids/article_29056b07-4c94-5498-92bb-2fd713e00263.html
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Michelle Robinson of Manchester gestures to Santa Claus, who was ringing a bell for the Salvation Army Kettle Campaign at Hobby Lobby on South Willow Street in Manchester on Tuesday.
Santa Claus rings a bell for the Salvation Army Kettle Campaign at Hobby Lobby on South Willow Street in Manchester on Tuesday.
Mary Helen McGerath of Londonderry gives for Santa Claus, who was ringing a bell for the Salvation Army Kettle Campaign at Hobby Lobby on South Willow Street in Manchester on Tuesday.
People react to Santa Claus, who was ringing a bell for the Salvation Army Kettle Campaign at Hobby Lobby on South Willow Street in Manchester on Dec. 20, 2022.
Salvation Army Kettle Campaign
Two holiday donation drives -- the ubiquitous Salvation Army red kettles and the Union Leader Santa Fund -- are in line to raise $250,000 in donations this year.
The estimates come as donations reach a critical point, the last week before Christmas.
“People are being very generous,” said Maj. Colin D. DeVault, commander of the Salvation Army's Manchester Corps.
On Dec. 17 -- eight days before Christmas -- the Army had tallied $94,000 in donations from red kettles. The goal: $134,000.
Meanwhile, the Union Leader Santa Fund for the Salvation Army logged $104,500 as of last week and is on its way to an estimated collection of $145,000 to $150,000, a company official said.
“Seems like the mood is very giving this year and people want to spread cheer,” said Billy Wilson, events and public relations manager for the New Hampshire Union Leader.
While the number of donations is about the same as 2021, the average donation is up, he said. Several donations hit the $10,000 mark.
The Salvation Army's Christmas-season collection helps fund programs year-round, such as a summer camp, after-school education programs and the popular Kids Cafe.
Its most public effort, however, is the Santa Fund. The highlight of that effort took place on Sunday and Monday, when the Salvation Army Toy Shop distributed toys to nearly 1,100 needy families.
“The whole process was very nice, clean and straightforward,” said G.V., a step-mom of two girls, ages 6 and 10.
This was the first time she has turned to the Salvation Army for help on Christmas. G.V. said she felt embarrassed, but the Salvation Army people were very welcoming.
“It was very emotional,” she said.
She picked up stuffed animals, books and board games for the girls.
“We’re going to do it all on Christmas Day,” she said.
DeVault said donations are stronger than at the same time last year, but he stressed that 2021 donations had fallen off.
“We ended up far below where we needed to be,” DeVault said. He started his position this past summer, so he said he’s not in a position to comment on last year’s shortfall.
The number of days is dwindling for red kettles. In most locations, Christmas Eve will be the last day, though teams will be out in front of New Hampshire liquor stores on New Year’s Eve.
“It’s going to be difficult to make (the $134,000 goal), but not impossible,” DeVault said.
The giving push comes as the strong economy makes workers hard to find. In fact, donations have been impacted by the challenge of finding volunteers and workers to man the kettles, DeVault said.
“When we’re out there, people will give,” he said.
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2022-12-21T00:14:36Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Salvation Army hopes Santa Fund, kettles will push donations past $250,000 mark | Santa Fund | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/human_interest/santa_fund/salvation-army-hopes-santa-fund-kettles-will-push-donations-past-250-000-mark/article_86a1ea59-0a87-546b-891b-9f69a554b322.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/human_interest/santa_fund/salvation-army-hopes-santa-fund-kettles-will-push-donations-past-250-000-mark/article_86a1ea59-0a87-546b-891b-9f69a554b322.html
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Jillian Duggan is seen in Carroll County Superior Court on Tuesday where she pleaded guilty to providing the fentanyl that on Jan. 30 caused the overdose death of Ashlie Hersom in Conway.
OSSIPEE — A Rhode Island woman with New Hampshire roots was sentenced Tuesday to between 12-24 years in prison for providing what prosecutor’s described as “high potency” fentanyl that on Jan. 30 caused the overdose death of a single mother of two in Conway.
Ashlie Hersom, 34, died after ingesting fentanyl that, according to court records and Assistant Carroll County Attorney Jeffrey Garrett Tynes, was provided by Jillian B. Duggan, 32, of 11 Bond St., Providence, Rhode Island.
Duggan, whose lawyer said she was originally from the Conway area, obtained the fentanyl in Massachusetts and took it with her to Maine, where she later gave it to two men who delivered it to Hersom by placing it in her mailbox.
Hersom was “an amazing single mom,” said her mother, Robin Foster, in a statement read into the record by a victim’s advocate. “It was not her (Hersom’s) time” said Foster, who added that, “I can’t go into her room.”
“You took my daughter’s life,” Foster told Duggan. “There is no forgiveness for such a loss.”
Duggan said, “I do pray for them (Hersom’s family) to forgive me.” She apologized and said she was ready to accept the “full consequences” of her actions.
Duggan said she was an addict who had relapsed and sold drugs to support her habit.
Tynes dismissed that idea, and said she was “profiteering” from the sale of drugs. He said Duggan knew how powerful the fentanyl she provided to Hersom was, even taking the precaution of warning one of the men who brought it to Hersom, that she should not take the drugs while alone.
Even after learning of Hersom’s death, Duggan continued to deal drugs, said Tynes, which is why he was recommending that Duggan serve between 15 and 30 years in prison, with two years suspended from both the minimum and maximum.
After hearing from Tynes and defense attorney John MacLachlan, who sought a five-year minimum sentence for his client, Carroll County Superior Court Judge Mark D. Attorri took a brief recess and returned with a sentence that he noted tended more toward the state’s recommendation.
He ordered Duggan to serve 12-24 years in the New Hampshire Correctional Facility for Women, with three years suspended from both ends of the term. He also ruled that, pending good behavior, Duggan could be eligible for up to 21 months of “earned-time reductions.”
“It’s the best, most just sentence that I think I can come up with,” Attorri explained, adding that his heart went out to Hersom, whose children were now being taken care of by Foster — which is why Foster was unable to be in court on Tuesday.
Similarly, Attorri said he had compassion for Duggan, who has a child, and who has cooperated fully with authorities since her arrest in April.
Regardless, “We have simply got to send the message that this will not be dealt with leniently,” Attorri said.
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2022-12-21T01:49:19Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Woman gets 12-24 years for providing fatal fentanyl dose | Crime | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/woman-gets-12-24-years-for-providing-fatal-fentanyl-dose/article_c4aff411-8545-5bd1-bdec-de9692cc4736.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/woman-gets-12-24-years-for-providing-fatal-fentanyl-dose/article_c4aff411-8545-5bd1-bdec-de9692cc4736.html
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Commissioner of Safety Robert Quinn speaks at a press conference at the Interstate 93 Hooksett Welcome Center earlier this year.
New Hampshire Safety Commissioner Robert Quinn, one of the top law enforcement officials in the state, had subordinates improperly access a restricted database for personal reasons, according to a former Safety Department employee.
Quinn, a former state police colonel who has been safety commissioner for 3½ years, remains on the job, though complaints about his alleged actions reached Gov. Chris Sununu.
“Several weeks ago,” wrote Sununu spokesman Ben Vihstadt, “our office was in touch with the Attorney General’s office.” Vihstadt said the governor’s office confirmed that the matter had been thoroughly reviewed and that no further action was warranted.
“To answer otherwise could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,” wrote Formella spokesman Michael Garrity in an email to the Union Leader.
It’s unclear whether state police conducted an internal investigation. The Union Leader asked for any records relating to any such investigation. Quinn’s office said it had no such records while stressing it was not confirming or denying the existence of any internal investigation.
A former civilian supervisor with the state police told the Union Leader that an attorney general’s investigator spoke to her at length about the case and followed up with two phone calls.
“It’s just time to do the right thing. It’s time to put this to bed,” said Foss, who had been with state police for 20 years and who supervised seven employees in the Unit of Permits and Licensing. The unit’s primary responsibility is GunLine, which relies on the FBI criminal background check system to approve or deny handgun purchases in the state.
Arteaga’s request was “less of a request and more of an order” because it was relayed from high in the department’s chain of command, Furey wrote.
“I was very hesitant because I know we aren’t supposed to run people without proper cause but again, it did not feel like something I could say no to without receiving a bit of backlash,” Furey wrote.
A packet of information that included the Furey and Foss emails also was provided anonymously to Gov. Chris Sununu, Formella’s office, the FBI and other news media, according to an unsigned cover letter accompanying the material.
“She’s not doing it for money. She’s doing it to expose wrongdoing in the highest echelon of the Department of Safety,” said Amodeo-Vickery, whose past clients include Veterans Administration whistleblowers and Salem police officials.
The investigation was closed and a note placed in Foss’s personnel file with no further discipline, according to Amodeo-Vickery, her attorney.
Foss wrote in an email to her superior, Lt. Victor Muzzey, that the search could be flagged in the 2022 departmental audit of the system’s use.
The federal and state governments tightly maintain, control and share databases containing information about citizens’ criminal and mental health history.
“You just can’t do it because you’re curious about a guy,” said Bedford Police Chief John Bryfonski, president of the New Hampshire Association of Police Chiefs.
“If you’re caught doing it, not only are you going to get fired, you’re going to get criminally charged,” said Bryfonski, who spoke in generalities about the system.
A former colleague of Arteaga’s, retired Trooper Chris Decker, said Arteaga confided in him after the records search. An attorney general investigator wanted to speak to Arteaga, and the trooper was afraid, Decker said.
“I said, ‘Mike, if they charge you, witness No. 1 in your defense is going to be Bob Quinn. There’s no way they’re going to charge you,’ and I was right,” said Decker, who left the state police in January after being injured.
According to Decker, Arteaga became involved after he was called into the office of John Marasco, then a state police major. Marasco sat Arteaga down, gave him a cellphone and walked out of his office, Decker said, recalling Arteaga’s story.
“Why would a commissioner talk to a trooper? That would be like the president of the United States talking to a private. It doesn’t happen,” Decker said.
State authorities have taken the unusual step of dropping felony charges against a former Ossipee police sergeant accused of illegally using d…
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2022-12-21T01:49:31Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Safety Commissioner accused of improper background check | State | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/state/safety-commissioner-accused-of-improper-background-check/article_31ce8864-4f7a-5d73-b105-5941573641b6.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/state/safety-commissioner-accused-of-improper-background-check/article_31ce8864-4f7a-5d73-b105-5941573641b6.html
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University of New Hampshire head coach Rick Santos
Mark Bolton/Union Leader
State of Sports: A list for Santa, on behalf of the NH sports fan
Thank you for those Friday night NHIAA football playoff games we asked for last year. They were long overdue, and were a much better gift than socks.
Here’s this year’s list. It’s lengthy, but please know these presents will please a large number of people. Let’s call it a “Holiday Wish List for the New Hampshire Sports Fan.”
These gifts won’t fit into a stocking and can’t be put into a box under the tree, but just knowing you’ll use whatever influence you have to help provide them will make for a better holiday season. Please do what you can …
• A strong recruiting class for UNH football coach Rick Santos.
It would have been unrealistic to ask for more from this year’s UNH football team. The Wildcats won a share of the Colonial Athletic Association championship, qualified for the FCS playoffs and even won a playoff game at home. Perhaps more important than all that was the fact that this team seemed to play to its potential in most games.
We’re used to winning football here in New Hampshire, and some talented newcomers would help keep the momentum heading in the right direction. It would also help secure the foundation for success in future years. Most of the key pieces on this year’s team will return next season, but there are holes to fill. We’d even be OK with it if those holes are plugged with players from the transfer portal.
• Healthy and productive baseball seasons for Cody Morissette (Marlins) and Grant Lavigne (Rockies).
The pro potential for each of these players was obvious in 2017, when Morissette helped Exeter defeat Lavigne’s Bedford team 7-6 in the NHIAA Division I championship game.
• Fewer players on All-State teams.
We once had one team (per sport) for the entire state. Then we went to one team per division. Then second team and honorable mention selections were added. Now, in some sports, we do all of that for each conference within a division.
This year’s Division IV football “All-State Team” had 17 linebackers and four quarterbacks for an eight-team division. No doubt all of those chosen are excellent players, but it’s time we did right by the kids and put some meaning back into these awards. Nominate players for a position, vote and the winner is your All-State quarterback, running back, linebacker, etc. No need for anything beyond that.
• Additional Thanksgiving Day high school football games.
Thanksgiving football is a community event that brings people together for the holiday. Plus, it’s always great when a team can end its season with a meaningful game, and Thanksgiving rivalries provide that.
• A (relatively) warm and dry spring.
This is an annual request from the New Hampshire golf community.
• Fewer parents who bark at officials.
This is probably too much to ask, but there’s a problem when a parent wants it more than the athlete. Officials aren’t beyond reproach and they probably expect a certain amount of noise from the stands, but there’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed. Better behavior from fans might help with the shortage of officials we have in some sports as well.
• The UNH men’s hockey team in the NCAA Regionals in Manchester.
The regionals are scheduled to be played at SNHU Arena in 2023 and 2025. We’d take either year.
• More boys basketball/girls basketball doubleheaders at the high school level.
This usually creates a better atmosphere, and there’s no reason boys and girls teams can’t share the spotlight a little more often.
• A best-of-three series in the first round of the NHIAA baseball playoffs.
They came close to adopting this in Division I a few years back. It would reward depth — especially pitching depth — and, if done right, the tournament wouldn’t have to be extended. This would drastically reduce the number of teams with one dominant pitcher but little else from advancing to the quarterfinals.
• Very few postponed games this winter.
Life becomes a little more difficult for everyone when we can’t stay on schedule. Plus, postponed games usually means bad weather.
• No signing day ceremonies at high schools unless warranted.
Signing day was created by the media. When an athlete signing with a college program was newsworthy, a signing day ceremony was held so that player, his or her coach and the media could get the necessary business done (interviews, etc.) at one place at the same time. It was efficient.
If a school wants to celebrate its athletes who will be continuing their athletic careers at the college level, by all means do so. Just don’t disguise it as a signing day ceremony. We’ve been to some of these events where an athlete doesn’t even have anything to sign, but scribbles on a blank piece of paper for the sole reason of providing a photo opportunity.
If you have an athlete going to a big-time school in a prominent sport, then you may want to consider having a signing day ceremony. Otherwise, it’s best to honor these athletes in some other way.
• Three divisions in NHIAA football.
The list wouldn’t be complete without this request. The NHIAA will use a four-division format next season, but after that, change could be coming and some fear there will be a push for a fifth division.
The current setup isn’t bad, other than the fact that there are very few competitive games in Division IV. Only four Division IV games in the last two years have been decided by seven points or fewer.
If another division were added, most of these teams would just slide to Division V and the problem would continue. Plus we’ve already tried five divisions (even six at one point) and, for the most part, we ended up with a dominant team or two in each division. You know what they say about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
A better solution would be to merge Division III (enrollment 426-550) with Division IV (enrollment 1-425). At the very least, that would give teams more competitive games on their schedule.
Before you shoot it down, think back to when Division II merged with Division I in 2013 to form the current Division I. Back then many people were adamant that schools like Goffstown, Londonderry and Winnacunnet wouldn’t be able to compete. Since then, those schools have won four Division I titles and have made seven appearances in the Division I championship game.
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2022-12-21T01:49:59Z
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www.unionleader.com
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State of Sports: A list for Santa, on behalf of the NH sports fan | Sports | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/state-of-sports-a-list-for-santa-on-behalf-of-the-nh-sports-fan/article_cb0d0210-99ab-5126-9551-6f20bd9ee85b.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/state-of-sports-a-list-for-santa-on-behalf-of-the-nh-sports-fan/article_cb0d0210-99ab-5126-9551-6f20bd9ee85b.html
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Honor veterans by helping the living
To the Editor: Each Christmas we see local cemeteries and Arlington National Cemetery decked out with Christmas wreaths, which look really nice but I have to say that as a veteran I question its merit.
While this is well intended, I think that the amount of money spent — even if much of the material is donated — could be better served by helping living veterans who suffer from PTSD, brain injuries, loss of limbs and the ability to care for their families.
If the value of each wreath is estimated at $10 dollars, the 257,000 wreaths going to Arlington amounts to $2,570,000. I may be the only person in New Hampshire who feels this way but maybe this amount of money could be put to a better use helping living veterans.
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2022-12-21T07:21:19Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Letter: Honor veterans by helping the living | Letters to the Editor | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-honor-veterans-by-helping-the-living/article_a913dfae-4ea3-573c-baf3-4d153edb03d6.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-honor-veterans-by-helping-the-living/article_a913dfae-4ea3-573c-baf3-4d153edb03d6.html
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FILE PHOTO: Patriot missile defence system is seen at Sliac Airport, in Sliac, near Zvolen, Slovakia, May 6, 2022.
Soldiers take part in training on a U.S. Army Patriot surface-to-air missile launcher at Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates.
By Dan Lamothe and Karen DeYoung The Washington Post
FILE PHOTO: Patriot missile defence system is seen at Sliac Airport, near Zvolen
The visit, during which Zelensky will visit Biden at the White House and address a joint session of Congress, comes as Russia carries out a relentless campaign of airstrikes on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure and electrical grid, which has plunged much of the country into darkness.
Ukraine is to receive one Patriot battery, which has up to eight launchers each that hold between four and 16 missiles, depending on the type of munition used. U.S. forces will train Ukrainians to operate and maintain the system in a third country, probably Germany. "This will take some time," the official said, "but Ukrainian troops will take that training back to their country to operate this battery." It is unlikely that the air defense system will arrive in Ukraine before spring.
Zelensky's trip is designed to solidify ongoing U.S. support for Ukraine, particularly during the difficult winter ahead. "This week is extremely important for Ukraine - in order to get through this winter and next year," Zelensky said Tuesday in his nightly address to the country.
"We will definitely endure," he said. "We will definitely get the necessary support for Ukraine."
The administration anticipates bipartisan congressional passage of more than $40 billion in additional funding for Ukraine for 2023, the senior official said. Biden "will reinforce the fundamental message on this trip, to President Zelensky, directly to the Ukrainian people, the American people and the world publicly, that the United States will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes," the official said.
"This isn't about sending a message to a particular political party," the official said. "This is about sending a message to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and sending a message to the world that America will be there for Ukraine for as long as it takes."
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2022-12-21T14:36:18Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Biden administration to send Patriot missile system to Ukraine | Military | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/military/biden-administration-to-send-patriot-missile-system-to-ukraine/article_094f03c0-1da0-5e76-b795-125467e3eaea.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/military/biden-administration-to-send-patriot-missile-system-to-ukraine/article_094f03c0-1da0-5e76-b795-125467e3eaea.html
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Photos and letters from U.S. service members, collected by Afghan interpreter Abdul Rashid Shirzad, are seen July 1, 2021, in Kabul after his application for a U.S. visa was denied.
Paula Bronstein/The Washington Post
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., speaks during a defense hearing on Capitol Hill in this 2021 file photo.
By J.P. Lawrence Stars and Stripes
A program that resettles Afghan interpreters who worked with U.S. forces is no longer on the chopping block, congressional lawmakers said Tuesday.
A last-minute deal led to the Senate adding provisions extending the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program through 2024 into the omnibus spending bill that funds the federal government, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said in an email.
"I appreciate the round-the-clock work of numerous lawmakers to see this through, which will protect the path to safety that we promised our Afghan allies who served beside U.S. troops and diplomats in Afghanistan," Shaheen said Tuesday.
The program's end date has been changed to Dec. 31, 2024, and an additional 4,000 visas have been allotted, according to the omnibus bill text released Tuesday.
The number of allotments is in line with previous reauthorizations, which has typically averaged around 4,000 a year since 2017.
Language extending the SIV program had been removed from the separate National Defense Authorization Act, an statement accompanying that bill in December said.
The move led to sharp criticism by Democrats and advocacy groups directed at Republican lawmakers said to be against the program, specifically Sen. Charles Grassley.
The Iowa Republican has long raised objections over what he has said were lax criteria for SIV program eligibility. Grassley's office declined comment Tuesday, but in an interview in August a spokesman said other Republicans in the Senate and House had voiced similar concerns.
The program, which began in 2009, resettles Afghans and Iraqis and their family members who face risks to their lives because of their previous work with the U.S. government. The SIV program received $1 billion from the Senate in 2021 as part of an emergency spending bill.
Although Iraqi interpreters who worked with U.S. troops are also eligible for the visas, Afghans make up the vast majority of applicants, especially after the Taliban conquered the U.S.-backed government in Kabul last year.
Jeff Phaneuf, advocacy chief at the Virginia-based nonprofit No One Left Behind, applauded the Senate's renewal and extension of the SIV program in the omnibus bill.
"More remains to be done to aid the thousands of our combat allies still left behind," Phaneuf said, adding he hopes lawmakers will establish a permanent SIV program for past and future interpreters.
Another bill, the Afghan Adjustment Act, which provides permanent legal status to Afghans outside the SIV program or the asylum system, remains under debate in Congress.
CNN reported Monday night that the legislation will not be included in the omnibus bill because of Grassley's objections at the committee level.
The bill faces opposition by some Republicans, who say the security procedures in it are not stringent enough.
Resettlement advocacy groups on Tuesday decried the omission of the Afghan Adjustment Act in the Senate's omnibus package.
"Despite many legislative opportunities and three separate White House requests, Afghans in the U.S. will remain subject to the anxiety and stress of unnecessary legal limbo," said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, in an emailed statement Tuesday.
"The glaring omission of this bill is an epic failure to seize on practical solutions that enjoy broad, bipartisan support," Vignarajah added.
Jeremy Butler, head of the New York-based group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, on Tuesday called the exclusion of the Afghan Adjustment Act from the spending bill "a tragic mistake."
Advocates for the SIV program and the Afghan Adjustment Act have described the actions as part of keeping promises to those who aided U.S. troops during their 20-year war in Afghanistan.
Besides the Afghans who worked as interpreters, the U.S. employed tens of thousands of third-country nationals on its bases in Afghanistan. It is likely that many of those workers or their families never received compensation for injuries and deaths due to them under the Defense Base Act, a Brown University study released Tuesday found.
The study by the Costs of War project found at least a dozen instances of Nepali workers who weren't properly compensated, after conducting interviews and reviewing documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
From 2009 to 2021, the Labor Department fined contractors employing third-country national base workers who failed to report claims six times, which amounted to a combined total penalty of $3,250, the study found.
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2022-12-21T14:36:24Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Congress reaches deal to save U.S. visa program for war interpreters | Military | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/military/congress-reaches-deal-to-save-u-s-visa-program-for-war-interpreters/article_e6f09d70-4339-5993-9288-1f2fcababba2.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/military/congress-reaches-deal-to-save-u-s-visa-program-for-war-interpreters/article_e6f09d70-4339-5993-9288-1f2fcababba2.html
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Ukrainian servicemen ride an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), as a local resident walks an empty street, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Lyman, Donetsk region, Ukraine December 20, 2022.
By John Hudson, Tyler Pager, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Marianna Sotomayor The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday plans to appear in Washington to meet with President Joe Biden and visit Capitol Hill, according to people with knowledge of the plan - a trip that will mark Zelensky's first public international appearance since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Biden and Zelensky are scheduled to meet at the White House, according to a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the visit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was not yet publicly announced. The White House declined to comment.
Zelensky also plans to meet with congressional leaders to thank lawmakers for including funding for Ukraine in a spending package they are looking to pass this week, according to a congressional aide with knowledge of the plan.
He is expected to address members of Congress, and lawmakers are rescheduling plans to be in Washington, according to a second congressional aide with knowledge of the plan. The aides spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
The visit comes as the Biden administration is expected to announce a new military aid package for Ukraine as early as Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the plans. The package is expected to include a Patriot missile battery, this person said.
Punchbowl News first reported on plans for Zelensky's appearance.
Without disclosing Zelensky's visit, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sent a letter to her colleagues Tuesday, asking lawmakers to be "physically present" for a "very special focus on Democracy" on Wednesday night. The letter set off a scramble among lawmakers who had already left Washington.
Dozens of members of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus were also left in the dark about the plans, even though their group is always aware of discussions between the United States and Zelensky's administration, according to several who, like other interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to outline private deliberations.
House members and aides were shocked to hear that Zelensky might visit the Capitol on Wednesday, a day when the Senate is hoping to get out of town after passing a year-long government funding bill. Zelensky will appear before Congress at a time when Capitol Hill Republicans have begun to express deep displeasure with America funding their ongoing war with Russia.
Both the House and Senate must vote to pass resolutions that allow for a joint session to Congress. The earliest the House would vote is Wednesday evening.
The planned trip to Capitol Hill comes amid a busy stretch of year-end business for the Democratic-controlled Congress, which is seeking to pass a sweeping government funding bill that includes an additional $44.9 billion in emergency military and economic assistance for Ukraine.
Zelensky on Tuesday made an unexpected visit to troops defending Bakhmut, currently the site of some of the bloodiest fighting in the war. In remarks Tuesday, Zelensky said this week is "extremely important for Ukraine - in order to get through this winter and next year. In order to gain the necessary support and for the Ukrainian flag to finally prevail on all sections of our border."
He added, "Our fighters gave me our flag today and asked to pass it on to those whose decisions are very important for Ukraine, for all our warriors. We will definitely do it. We will definitely endure. We will definitely get the necessary support for Ukraine!"
Zelensky's travel plans to the United States were kept extremely close out of concern that his security could be compromised. Congressional aides worried that the information of his travel getting out could have immediately endangered his chances of leaving Ukraine, people with knowledge of the situation said.
Biden has made holding together a Western coalition supporting Ukraine a central mission of his presidency. Although all of the countries in the coalition are grappling with the economic consequences of the war, they have shown few signs of withdrawing or softening their support even as heat prices rise during the winter.
Biden and Zelensky have spoken numerous times since Russia's invasion began in February, sometimes talking as frequently as every couple of weeks. While the two have had a friendly relationship and have gone to great lengths to praise each other in public, the relationship also has had moments of tension.
In the conflict's first months, for instance, Zelensky often lambasted the United States and other Western countries for not doing enough, even after Congress and the White House approved multibillion-dollar aid and weapons packages.
While Biden understood as a fellow politician that Zelensky had to advocate forcefully for his people, he also told the Ukrainian leader privately that it would be hard for him to keep asking Congress for money if Zelensky appeared ungrateful and kept saying it was not enough, according to a former White House official with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private call.
In another call this summer, Zelensky told Biden the United States needed to do more. Biden stopped the Ukrainian leader and reminded him that the effects of the war were not lost on Americans, who were paying higher gas prices amid record inflation, according to a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private call.
Still, the White House has voiced unwavering support for Ukraine. When asked how long the United States can be expected to pour billions into the war effort, Biden and his top aides frequently say, "As long as it takes."
Biden has also made clear he will not force Zelensky to a negotiation with Russia before he is ready. "Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine" has become a common refrain of the president.
Biden earlier this month said that he would be willing to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine - but stressed that such a discussion is not imminent because Putin has not shown a willingness to seek a peaceful resolution and has employed horrific tactics against Ukrainian civilians.
"I'm prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if there is an interest in him deciding he's looking for a way to end the war," Biden said. "If that's the case, in consultation with my French and NATO friends, I'll be happy to sit down with Mr. Putin to see what he has in mind. He hasn't done that."
On Capitol Hill, several members and aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations saw the last-minute invite to Zelensky as Pelosi's final major act as speaker. Throughout the course of the year, Pelosi has made several trips around the world to countries she has championed as fighters of democracy, from Ukraine to Taiwan.
Several members who were in town for other meetings were planning to leave town Wednesday ahead of a cross-country snowstorm or stay home and vote remotely to pass the yearly government funding bill. Given Zelensky's planned visit, many have delayed their flights or decided it is worth the trip back to Washington to honor him in person.
The Washington Post's Liz Goodwin and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.
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2022-12-21T14:36:36Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Zelensky slated to meet Biden, appear in Congress on Wednesday | Military | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/military/zelensky-slated-to-meet-biden-appear-in-congress-on-wednesday/article_45ebd7f0-370a-5866-9488-d72f57bb3cbc.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/military/zelensky-slated-to-meet-biden-appear-in-congress-on-wednesday/article_45ebd7f0-370a-5866-9488-d72f57bb3cbc.html
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FILE PHOTO: Sam Bankman-Fried, who founded and led FTX until a liquidity crunch forced the cryptocurrency exchange to declare bankruptcy, is escorted out of the Magistrate Court building after his arrest, in Nassau, Bahamas December 13, 2022.
By Randy Billings Portland Press Herald, Maine
Most of Bankman-Fried's donations went to Democrats and Democrat-aligned political action committees throughout the U.S., including the Maine Democratic Party, which received $10,000 this year.
Party spokesperson Jacob Stern said the party hasn't decided whether to keep the money or donate it to charity.
"We are continuing to monitor the FTX situation as it evolves," Stern said. "The party has not yet decided on a course of action."
Collins was one of the few Republicans to receive donations from Bankman-Fried, who contributed $17,400 to the senator's campaign committee in 2021. All but $5,800 was returned because it exceeded contribution limits, a spokesperson said.
"$5,800 will be donated to charity before year end," Collins spokesperson Annie Clark said in an email. "The rest was returned because of contributions over the limit."
On Monday, Bankman-Fried's attorney said his client has agreed to be extradited to the U.S., where he will be tried.
Most of Bankman-Fried's donations went to Democrat-aligned super PACs, which can accept and spend unlimited sums of money, according to federal campaign finance reports.
"Our legal counsel is actively working to obtain clear and correct instructions on how to return this donation," Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman Gus Bickford said in an email. "As soon as that process is complete the funds will be returned."
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2022-12-21T14:36:42Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Democrats undecided on returning Bankman-Fried's donation | Voters First | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/voters/democrats-undecided-on-returning-bankman-frieds-donation/article_aab14046-def2-58fa-a754-85c93c43bd91.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/voters/democrats-undecided-on-returning-bankman-frieds-donation/article_aab14046-def2-58fa-a754-85c93c43bd91.html
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Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during an annual meeting of the Defence Ministry Board in Moscow, Russia, December 21, 2022.
"The country and government is giving everything that the army asks for - everything," Putin told top military officials at the Defense Ministry's annual meeting in Moscow on Wednesday. "I trust that there will be an appropriate response and the results will be achieved."
The commitment to spare no expense on the war will be a strain on government finances as the proceeds from energy exports come under pressure from price restrictions imposed by the U.S. and its allies. While Russia is running a record current-account surplus this year, the flow of money is expected to weaken in 2023 as sales of gas to Europe plunge and Group of Seven sanctions curb Russia's oil revenue.
The Kremlin leader addressed his military chiefs as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky prepared to meet U.S. counterpart Joe Biden in Washington on his first trip outside Ukraine since Russia's Feb. 24 invasion began. Biden will unveil almost $2 billion more in assistance and announce moves to deliver a Patriot missile battery to help Ukraine build up its air defenses against a campaign of Russian strikes aimed at knocking out heat, power and water supplies during the winter.
In a largely low-key address devoid of forecasts of imminent success, Putin sought to deflect blame for what he called the "shared tragedy" of the war that he began, repeating claims that the conflict was unavoidable even as Ukraine and its U.S. and European allies had repeatedly made clear before the invasion that there was no threat to Russia's security.
Putin spoke a day after he conceded in a message to Russia's spy agencies that the situation in four partly-occupied regions of southeastern Ukraine was "extremely difficult." A successful Ukrainian counteroffensive is wresting back control of an increasing amount of the territory including the city of Kherson, the only regional capital Russia seized during the war.
After abandoning earlier efforts to seize Kyiv and topple Zelenskiy, Putin has focused on the southeast of Ukraine, including on securing a land bridge from Russia to the Crimea peninsula he annexed in 2014. Bolstered by billions of dollars in U.S. and European military supplies and financial aid, Ukrainian authorities have sounded increasingly confident that they can defeat Russia's invasion and regain all of the territories taken in the war.
Even as he promised a blank check for spending to achieve victory, Putin insisted Russia won't emulate the Soviet Union's experience of militarizing its society and economy to service the army.
"We will not repeat the mistakes of the past, when in the interests of increasing defense capability where necessary and where it was not really necessary in fact, we destroyed our economy," he said. "We simply don't need this."
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2022-12-21T17:22:22Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Putin pledges unlimited spending to ensure victory in Ukraine | Military | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/military/putin-pledges-unlimited-spending-to-ensure-victory-in-ukraine/article_a9ed3c56-08d9-5733-acf6-b08ebe1c792d.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/military/putin-pledges-unlimited-spending-to-ensure-victory-in-ukraine/article_a9ed3c56-08d9-5733-acf6-b08ebe1c792d.html
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CBS celebrates Paul Simon
“HOMEWARD BOUND: A Grammy Salute to the Songs of Paul Simon” (9 p.m., CBS) features performances from several generations of artists inspired by the singer and composer of “The Sound of Silence” and so many other 20th century hits.
Participants include Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Eric Church, Rhiannon Giddens, Susanna Hoffs, the Jonas Brothers, Angelique Kidjo, Ledisi, Little Big Town, Dave Matthews, Brad Paisley, Billy Porter and others.
In addition to the decades’ worth of music he performed with partner Art Garfunkel and as a solo artist, Simon was associated with seminal and groundbreaking moments in film and television history.
The music of Simon and Garfunkel was essential to the success of “The Graduate,” director Mike Nichols’ 1967 film comedy starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. It could be argued that “The Graduate” and “Bonnie & Clyde,” released the same year, mark a turning point in movie history, ending the Hays Code that had limited filmmakers’ freedom since the 1930s and ushering in a new generation of filmmakers.
While now seen as a classic, “The Graduate” was also a box-office hit. Adjusted for inflation, it remains one of the highest-grossing comedy films of all time.
A decade later, Simon had a small but pivotal role in Woody Allen’s 1977 comedy “Annie Hall,” another hugely influential film. Without “Annie Hall,” there is no “Diner,” “Seinfeld” or “Friends,” and all the comedies that copied them.
Simon was also an essential player in the first season of “Saturday Night Live,” in 1975, appearing both as musical guest, host and participant in memorable comedy sketches.
• Disney+ streams the National Geographic documentary “The Flagmakers,” a 35-minute look at the Eder Flag factory in Wisconsin, the largest flag distributor in operation in the United States.
Filmmakers Cynthia Wade (“Gutsy”, “Freeheld”) and Sharon Liese (“Transhood”) interview the workers — mostly recent immigrants from places as diverse as Serbia and Iraq — who have their own personal take on the meaning of what America and its flag means to them. We also speak with Barb, from a family with long roots in the Midwest, and SugarRay, a Black man from Milwaukee with complicated feelings about the American dream.
This effort to identify issues like immigration and diversity with patriotism reminds me of the loud backlash to the Coke commercial produced for the 2014 Super Bowl, which featured Americans from every background singing “America the Beautiful” in their own native languages.
The commercial fit into Coke’s long tradition of aspirational visions of inclusion, and was titled “Together Is Beautiful.” The reaction was swift and ugly, with many complaining that singing the song in anything but English was un-American. It seemed like a tempest in a teapot (or a soda can) at the time, but in many ways, this was an opening “culture war” salvo in a rise of overt nationalism and xenophobic populism that would bear bitter fruit in the 2016 presidential election.
• Netflix streams the third season of “Emily in Paris,” while Prime Video introduces the third season of “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan.”
• Jimmy Fallon, Willie Nelson, Billy Ray Cyrus and Miley Cyrus share songs on the 2022 special “Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas” (8 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG). Disguised as a “making of” documentary, “Magic” follows Parton as she insists on rejecting the fake tinsel of most specials and emphasizing her Tennessee roots.
• A winner emerges on the final celebrity holiday “Lego Masters” special of the season (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG).
• A holiday vacation unravels in the 2022 romance “Single and Ready to Jingle” (8 p.m., Lifetime, TV-PG).
• A wife’s desire to take out a second mortgage to finance her doll business lands before “Money Court” (10 p.m., CNBC, TV-PG).
Three wanted men adopt a newborn after the baby’s mother dies in director John Ford’s 1948 fable “3 Godfathers” (6:15 p.m., TCM, TV-G), a cowboy variation on the Three Wise Men story, shot in Death Valley, starring John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz and Harry Carey Jr.
“The Price Is Right at Night” (8 p.m., CBS, r, TV-PG) ... Death and custody on “The Conners” (8 p.m., ABC, r, TV-14) ... Beverly’s insecurity gets old on “The Goldbergs” (8:30 p.m., ABC, r, TV-PG).
On two episodes of “Abbott Elementary” (ABC, r): a trip to the principal’s office (9 p.m., TV-PG); up in smoke (9:30 p.m., TV-14) ... Celebrities spin on “The Wheel” (10 p.m., NBC) ... Categories given on “The $100,000 Pyramid” (10 p.m., ABC, r, TV-14).
Daniel Craig and Josh Johnson drop by “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” (11:35 p.m., CBS, r) ... Jimmy Fallon welcomes Dolly Parton, Claire Foy, DOMi & JD Beck and Mac Demarco on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC, r) ... Pierce Brosnan, Sharon Horgan and Craig Finn & the Uptown Controllers are scheduled to visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC, r).
WASHINGTON - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday plans to appear in Washington to meet with President Joe Biden and visit Capitol Hill, according to people with knowledge of the plan - a trip that will mark Zelensky's first public international appearance since Russia invaded…
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2022-12-21T19:48:32Z
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www.unionleader.com
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CBS celebrates Paul Simon | | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/cbs-celebrates-paul-simon/article_1b1b0c28-034f-5136-85fc-02f3cb6b5e4f.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/cbs-celebrates-paul-simon/article_1b1b0c28-034f-5136-85fc-02f3cb6b5e4f.html
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The victim, whose identity is yet to be disclosed, died in a hospital shortly after suffering "what were described as stab wounds," law enforcement officials said.
Emergency services responded to the wounded man at approximately 12:17 a.m. Sunday after being flagged down by bystanders in Toronto's York Street and University Avenue area, Detective Sgt. Terry Browne said in a news conference Tuesday.
He identified the 59-year-old victim only as a Toronto resident who had been living in the city's shelter system since late fall. "He does have a very supportive family in the area, so I would not necessarily call him homeless, maybe just recently on some hard luck," Browne said.
Browne gave few details about the homicide investigation launched by Toronto police following the 59-year-old's death, but said officials believe his alleged assailants met on social media and "come from varying parts of the city."
"I wouldn't describe them as a gang at this point, but what alleged to have occurred that evening would be consistent with what we traditionally call a swarming," he said.
"We don't know how or why they met on that evening, or why the destination was downtown Toronto," he told reporters, appealing for witnesses who were in the area from 10 p.m. on Saturday to share relevant information with investigators.
"We have information to believe that this same group of eight young women were involved in an altercation earlier, before becoming involved in this altercation," he said. "If you were a victim or had contact with these individuals, we'd like to hear from you."
"I think they would be easily identifiable because these two interactions involved what would be described as criminal behavior," Browne said.
York Regional Police have previously issued public safety warnings about "swarmings," in which a group of people approach a victim - often to rob that person. Earlier this year, Toronto police launched Operation Beehave in response to what they described as a "significant volume of swarming-style robberies" in the nearby city of Vaughan. "In all of these incidents, victims reported being swarmed and robbed by a large group of young people in the evening hours," police said at the time.
As part of the July crackdown, officials announced charges against 12 minors in relation to "a string of swarming-style robberies."
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2022-12-21T19:48:44Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Eight girls charged with stabbing Toronto man dead in 'swarming' attack | Crime | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/eight-girls-charged-with-stabbing-toronto-man-dead-in-swarming-attack/article_3f2f4db1-1339-5f19-8e8c-743a4ce2e99d.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/eight-girls-charged-with-stabbing-toronto-man-dead-in-swarming-attack/article_3f2f4db1-1339-5f19-8e8c-743a4ce2e99d.html
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By Nate Gartrell Bay Area News Group
Samuel Holquin, 49, was indicted by a federal grand jury earlier this month on two counts of witness retaliation and two counts of making false statements to the FBI. The lead witness retaliation charge on its own carries a maximum of 20 years in federal prison.
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2022-12-21T19:48:50Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Hells Angels ‘associate’ charged with retaliating against ex-member who testified in RICO murder case | Crime | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/hells-angels-associate-charged-with-retaliating-against-ex-member-who-testified-in-rico-murder-case/article_3a022eca-d5ac-5944-9591-e486f25eefca.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/hells-angels-associate-charged-with-retaliating-against-ex-member-who-testified-in-rico-murder-case/article_3a022eca-d5ac-5944-9591-e486f25eefca.html
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President-elect Donald J. Trump talks to members of the media after a meeting with military leadership at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2016.
Workers load boxes of newspapers and other items into a truck inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021, in Washington, D.C.
President Donald Trump holds up a letter purportedly from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as he leads a meeting of his Cabinet, on Jan. 2, 2019, in Washington, D.C.
A worker walks along a road at the Mar-a-Lago club in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 17, 2016.
By Devlin Barrett, Jacqueline Alemany, Perry Stein, Josh Dawsey, Ann E. Marimow and Carol D. Leonnig The Washington Post
FBI officials had a lot to worry about in late July as they discussed whether to search one of Donald Trump's homes for evidence of crimes. Two concerns were paramount: Any search warrant should be authorized by the attorney general himself, and they did not want the former president to be at Mar-a-Lago when it happened.
It is standard FBI practice to remove and detain a homeowner while their property is being searched. And while the nation's top law enforcement officials were willing to take the once-inconceivable step of getting a court order to search not just Trump's office but also his residence, they wanted to avoid doing anything that required them to physically remove Trump from his home, leaving the 45th commander in chief standing in his driveway like a suspected drug dealer or white-collar crook.
The FBI also was wary of the remote possibility of a "blue on blue" confrontation - between the federal agents searching the location and the Secret Service agents who guard the former president, according to people familiar with the matter, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.
"Executing a search like that is sensational enough. Doing it without the former president there is probably the best good-faith effort you can make to reducing the probability of it becoming even more sensationalized," said Jeffrey Cortese, a former FBI supervisor. "They would want to get in and get out without any complications."
While the Jan. 6 investigation was drawing more headlines, fueled by a series of closely watched prime-time hearings on Capitol Hill, the Justice Department's decisions about the Mar-a-Lago case put the agency more directly on a collision course with Trump. The nation's top law enforcement officials knew any misstep could have devastating long-term consequences for the Justice Department, the FBI and the country.
This account of the documents investigation, described by people familiar with the internal workings of the case, shows key and previously unreported moments when authorities decided they had no choice but to take action, and describes the attempts they made to minimize legal risk and avoid mistakes. Their path - from the realization early this year that some classified documents taken to Mar-a-Lago contained nuclear secrets to Garland's decision last month to appoint a special counsel - illustrates the stark challenges of conducting a criminal probe when the person under investigation is a former president.
Just reaching the decision to seek a court-approved search warrant had presented difficulties. In mid- and late July, lawyers at the Justice Department's national security division were frustrated with FBI agents at the Washington Field Office, some of whom still weren't certain there was enough legal justification to conduct a search, people familiar with the situation said. To those lawyers, the doubts expressed by some agents marked another instance in which FBI officials seemed skeptical or gun-shy about investigating Trump in the documents case.
Inside the top echelons of both the Justice Department and FBI, these people said, everyone understood that a search of Trump's home would be a fateful step - an acknowledgment that the department, which still bore the political scars of past Trump cases, was conducting its most intrusive investigation yet of the real estate developer turned politician.
Garland, who had vowed to keep partisan politics out of Justice Department decisions, kept close tabs through his senior deputies on what the FBI was doing. Conscious of painful rifts between Justice Department leadership and the FBI during the Trump and Obama eras, he hoped to ensure there was no daylight between the investigators and the prosecutors on this case - and that prosecutors, not investigators, were the ultimate decision-makers.
But given Trump's many prior battles with the Justice Department and the FBI over investigations into links between Russian officials and members of his 2016 campaign, his transition team and his administration; and possible obstruction of those investigations, officials had little doubt they would come under sustained public attack from Trump and his supporters if they moved forward, people familiar with the situation said.
"Love letters" - and a nuclear discovery
In May 2021, with Trump a few months out of office, Archives officials grew worried that some of those records - which legally belong to the public - appeared to be missing. Items widely reported about in the news, such as correspondence from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, were nowhere to be found when archivists looked through their cache of Trump documents.
Trump lawyer Alex Cannon notified the Archives by late December that Trump's legal team had identified a dozen boxes of material, including a letter from President Barack Obama and letters from the North Korean leader, that would be returned to the government. Upon opening what turned out to be 15 boxes, archivists immediately spotted highly classified papers.
FBI officials were skeptical when Archives officials called them on Feb. 7, 2022 -- reluctant to get pulled into a dispute about historical records or become an enforcement arm for the Presidential Records Act, people familiar with the discussions said.
Agents were also persuaded that it mattered if there were sensitive government documents in the boxes, including what one person described as information classified under the Atomic Energy Act, which covers secrets related to nuclear weapons. Some of the paperwork in the boxes was designated as formerly restricted data - a clunky bureaucratic term that also describes secrets related to nuclear matters. Even though the label contains the word "formerly," such information is still classified.
The FBI knew "as early as the end of February that there were documents at the secret level that were designated as formerly restricted data," one person familiar with the matter said.
That was a key distinction. Trump has claimed he could declassify things at will - "even by thinking about it. . . . There doesn't have to be a process, as I understand it." Many national security lawyers have publicly disputed that claim. But while a president does have the power to carry out a declassification process for certain documents, the situation is different for material covered by the AEA. Declassifying such documents requires formal approval from other parts of the government.
For the FBI to look at the material the Archives was describing required approval from President Biden's White House counsel, according to the Presidential Records Act. That took until April, and it wasn't the only procedural hurdle. Archives officials also had to notify Trump of their intention to let agents go through the classified documents.
Law enforcement officials initially saw little point to launching an investigation in which, even before the case was opened, the potential target of the probe would be notified. Once that did happen, Trump's lawyers argued for more time and were able to put off the FBI review for a number of weeks, to the frustration of both the Archives and the Justice Department.
In mid-May, FBI agents finally reviewed the boxes sent to the Archives and confirmed the agency's findings: They contained 184 classified documents - more than 700 total pages worth of secrets.
So the FBI dove in, if only to control a leak or "spillage" of classified material and get the sensitive papers back under government lock and key. To that end, prosecutors secured a grand jury subpoena to Trump's office demanding the return of all manner of classified documents, including a category for any secrets about nuclear weapons.
When intelligence officers, military officials or special agents get security clearances, they have to sign documents swearing they will follow classification rules and not mishandle sensitive material. Prosecutors often use those signed statements when they charge people for mishandling classified information. But presidents don't go through that same paperwork process.
To investigators, the vast property presented security concerns beyond the storage of highly classified information in a private home rather than a secure government facility. As a private club, it welcomes not just members but also their guests, often with little or no vetting. The estate is a popular venue for weddings and political fundraisers, with Trump often on hand to welcome guests and eat - including his infamous dinner last month with antisemitic rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and white supremacist and antisemite Nick Fuentes.
Bratt's team was handed a tightly taped envelope that contained 38 classified documents and a sworn statement signed by Christina Bobb, a lawyer who had only very recently taken on the role of custodian of records for Trump's office. The statement insisted that a "diligent search" had been conducted for any material with classified markings.
But there were signs that Trump's team might be concealing something. When Bratt's team visited the basement storage room where many of Trump's White House boxes were kept, they were not allowed to open the containers and look inside, according to court papers.
Agents had interviewed Walt Nauta, a former White House valet who followed Trump to Florida to continue working for him. Nauta told the agents when first approached that he knew nothing about classified documents, or the boxes that contained them. But the more people the FBI spoke to, the more they doubted that claim. When agents interviewed Nauta a second time, he told a much different story: that he'd moved boxes from the storage room to Trump's residence, after the subpoena was served, and that he'd done so at Trump's request, according to people familiar with the matter.
With Nauta's account, the investigation that had sputtered to life months earlier started barreling forward, gathering evidence and momentum, according to people familiar with the case.
For a significant stretch of mid-2022, Garland received almost daily updates on the investigation's progress, these people said. He relied on staffers with experience as Supreme Court law clerks and litigators to scrutinize legal papers for any potential vulnerability. Early in his tenure as attorney general, Garland's trademark attention to detail struck some Justice Department officials as unnecessary micromanaging. But when it came to Mar-a-Lago, people familiar with the situation said, that degree of care seemed like an advantage.
During the Obama administration, Garland had been considered to succeed Robert S. Mueller III as FBI director, a position ultimately filled by James B. Comey in 2013. Three years later, Comey would play an outsize role in the presidential contest between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Trump, announcing just days before voters headed to the polls that Clinton - for the second time in a little over a year - was under investigation.
In doing so, Comey broke with law enforcement traditions surrounding investigations and elections, and was harshly criticized. The 2016 investigations of Clinton and Trump were marred by the FBI's distrust of Justice Department leaders, and reflected a growing distance between the two key arms of federal law enforcement.
As spring turned to summer, and the Justice Department concluded that Trump probably had not turned over all the secret documents he possessed, prosecutors began to contemplate adding to the list of potential charges against Trump: obstruction of justice, if he deliberately flouted the subpoena; and destruction of government documents, if that's what he'd done rather than return them.
That meant considering whether to get a search warrant for the former president's home and office - an unprecedented action that was sure to enrage Trump, his supporters, and his most ardent backers in Congress, and risked tarnishing the Justice Department's reputation in exactly the way Garland had feared.
Over many weeks of discussions, senior FBI officials made clear that they would only do a search if it was authorized by the attorney general himself. If the Justice Department and FBI were going to take the giant leap of sending agents into Trump's home to seize documents, they were going to make that leap together, hand in hand. Senior Justice Department officials agreed, according to people familiar with the conversations.
But there were, these people said, tensions at that time between the Justice Department's national security prosecution team, which was led by Matthew Olsen, and some agents at the FBI's Washington Field Office, which was led at the time by Steven D'Antuono. The lawyers, these people said, felt they had amassed more than enough probable cause to ask a judge to approve a search of Mar-a-Lago. Some agents at the field office weren't certain. Eventually, the Justice Department lawyers prevailed.
Around that time, some law enforcement officials still held out hope that they would not have to conduct a search if Trump's legal team changed course and was more forthcoming. Prosecutors were also still working to get security footage from Mar-a-Lago - footage that would ultimately confirm some of what Nauta, the Trump aide, had said about moving boxes.
"We had been talking for a long time, asking for a long time. At some point, you're not asking anymore," one person familiar with the investigation said about the decision to seek the warrant.
Three days later, deliberately dressed down in khakis and polo shirts to try to lower their profile, agents showed up at Mar-a-Lago with the warrant. They spent hours combing Trump's storage room, residence and office, finding 103 classified documents - some in Trump's desk, according to court papers. They also took about 13,000 nonclassified documents as part of the investigation.
Combined with the documents previously recovered from the boxes sent to the Archives and the envelope turned over in June, the former president had kept at least 325 classified items at his private club and resort. Sixty were marked top secret, according to court papers. Some included highly classified information about a foreign country's nuclear capabilities, Iran's missile program and U.S. intelligence-gathering aimed at China, according to people familiar with their contents.
Trump denounced the "raid" as a violation of his rights, and political targeting of a likely presidential candidate. As the news of the operation consumed public attention, Trump escalated his attacks on the investigators, suggesting - without any supporting information - that the FBI had planted evidence, and that as president he had declassified "everything" found by agents. National security experts noted that declassified documents usually have additional markings indicating they are no longer secret.
Three days after the search- amid a marked increase in threatening statements about federal law enforcement across the country, much of it in response to the Mar-a-Lago operation - a gunman tried to attack the FBI office in Cincinnati. The 42-year-old Navy veteran, who had previously been on the FBI's radar as a possible far-right extremist, was fatally shot by police after a chase led to a six-hour roadside standoff.
"The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants," he said. "Every day they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights. They do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves."
In the aftermath of the search, Trump's lawyers fought to have an outside legal expert, known as a special master, review the documents taken by FBI agents to see if any should be withheld from investigators. That demand, initially granted by a federal judge in Florida before an appeals court overruled her, delayed some elements of the investigation.
A review of the seized classified documents did not reveal an apparent financial motive for taking them. As best as investigators were able to determine in the months following the search, Trump's motive in refusing to return the material seemed to be primarily ego, and petulance, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Justice Department's special counsel regulation was originally designed to give the public confidence that prosecutors could fairly investigate a case even when there is a political conflict of interest for leaders of the agency. By 2022, however, many senior law enforcement officials had privately expressed doubts that the role carries much credibility with the American public anymore.
Two special counsels were appointed during the Trump administration - one who investigated connections between Russia and the Trump campaign, as well as the president's own conduct, and another to investigate the people who investigated those things. In the beginning, each appointment was hailed by partisans as a political death knell for high-profile figures. But both disappointed their biggest fans when they failed to topple those targets.
With Trump running, and Biden saying he would likely seek reelection, Garland said he had little choice but to appoint a special counsel, citing "extraordinary circumstances" and the need to maintain public trust. He chose Jack Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor who once headed the Justice Department's public integrity section and has spent recent years as a Kosovo war crimes prosecutor at The Hague.
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2022-12-21T19:49:08Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Skepticism before a search: Inside the Trump Mar-a-Lago documents investigation | National | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/national/skepticism-before-a-search-inside-the-trump-mar-a-lago-documents-investigation/article_e2408dc6-c0a1-50a3-b2de-7a16b9edb47e.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/national/skepticism-before-a-search-inside-the-trump-mar-a-lago-documents-investigation/article_e2408dc6-c0a1-50a3-b2de-7a16b9edb47e.html
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Country prepares for winter 'bomb cyclone' ahead of holiday travel rush
Chicago is in the crosshairs of a powerful winter storm that could become a "bomb cyclone" -- with deep snow, searing winds and an Arctic chill -- threatening to disrupt Christmas travel for millions of people in the U.S.
While Chicago, a major U.S. air hub, may only get 5 inches of snow, it will be hit with winds that could make temperatures feel like minus 35F, according to the National Weather Service.
"Over two-thirds of the country has something related to this system," said David Roth, a senior branch forecaster at the U.S. Weather Prediction Center. "About the only places not impacted are parts of the Great Basin, the Southwest, Hawaii and Puerto Rico."
Roth said the storm will strengthen as it moves east and will certainly meet the criteria needed to be classified as a bomb cyclone. The classic definition is when a storm's central pressure, a measure of its strength, drops 24 millibars in 24 hours.
Chasing the storm -- which will also hit eastern Canada and trigger storms across the Great Lakes -- is a cold front that will send temperatures plunging for the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. That will drive a frigid wedge as far south as Texas and central Florida, boosting energy demand as people turn up their thermostats to beat the chill.
The Texas energy grid is being closely watched because another sharp cold event brought it to its knees in February 2021. This current event isn't expected to last as long. The low in Dallas is forecast to hit 11F, with the wind-chill making it feel closer to minus 6F in places.
Readings in Manhattan's Central Park will hit a high of 54F Friday before dropping to 15F later, the weather service said. A high-wind watch, with gusts of as much as 65 miles per hour, has been issued for Boston and parts of New England. There is a chance of widespread power outages across much of the U.S.
WASHINGTON -- The congressional panel probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol said Wednesday it would delay by at least one day the release of its final report making the case that former President Donald Trump should face criminal charges of inciting the deadly riot.
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2022-12-21T22:10:06Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Country prepares for winter 'bomb cyclone' ahead of holiday travel rush | | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/country-prepares-for-winter-bomb-cyclone-ahead-of-holiday-travel-rush/article_21417383-56bd-5353-9572-e951085691d4.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/country-prepares-for-winter-bomb-cyclone-ahead-of-holiday-travel-rush/article_21417383-56bd-5353-9572-e951085691d4.html
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The state’s highest court has ruled that a judge has to take a mulligan after incorrect jury instructions preceded a $5 million decision against a Kingston country club over the number of “errant golf balls” hitting a neighbor’s house.
Then, following a trial, Plymouth County Judge William White Jr. awarded the pair $100,000 in property damage and $3.4 million in emotional distress damages, plus fees.
Further, White ruled that the club was henceforth “prohibited from operating its golf course in any manner that permits, causes or results in golf balls being propelled onto Plaintiffs’ improved property.”
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2022-12-21T22:10:24Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Top Massachusetts court throws out $5 million verdict for neighbors of golf course angry at errant balls | Back Page | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/top-massachusetts-court-throws-out-5-million-verdict-for-neighbors-of-golf-course-angry-at/article_2f510bed-8841-529c-b935-af804fc76d02.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/top-massachusetts-court-throws-out-5-million-verdict-for-neighbors-of-golf-course-angry-at/article_2f510bed-8841-529c-b935-af804fc76d02.html
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Former Laconia State School property sale clears Exec Council
CONCORD — On a 3-2 vote, the Executive Council on Wednesday approved the $21.5 million sale of the former Laconia State School property to private developers despite financial questions about some of the project's key members.
Councilor Cinde Warmington, D-Concord, said a two-week delay of the vote helped secure Laconia Mayor Andrew Hosmer’s support for the project, after developers addressed some concerns the city had.
City officials wanted to retain access to athletic fields over the parcel and permission to keep on site a shelter for the homeless through the winter months.
But Councilor Ted Gatsas, R-Manchester, criticized state officials' refusal to seek and provide the council with detailed financials on the key investors in the $500 million project, which includes nearly 1,900 units of housing and a convention center/hotel complex.
“I certain believe in my heart and being in the real estate investment business for 30 years that we are going to see this project back before us.”
Councilor Joe Kenney, R-Wakefield, noted that even if the development plan does not go forward, the project's first phase -- demolishing abandoned buildings and upgrading water and sewer lines -- will increase the value's property.
“We don’t know what is going to pop out of this as we travel down the Yellow Brick Road on this development project,” Kenney said. “I hope we get to Emerald City.”
The development will include 340 single-family, duplex or triplex homes, half of which will be priced as “entry-level,” 108 condominiums, 500 apartments -- 120 designated as “workforce housing” -- and 350 townhouses.
The site also will have 360 units of independent living units for seniors, along with 230 assisted-care units.
Along with housing, the project envisions a convention center that seats 1,000 people and urgent care, childcare and pharmacy facilities on the site.
Half of the property will remain undeveloped and taxed under the state's current-use law, which values property in its natural state rather than its potential real estate value officials said.
The state will net $20.4 million from the purchase. CBRE, an international real estate firm, will receive $1.1 million or 5% as its commission for acting as the state’s agent that marketed the property over the past year.
“I think there should be a few more weeks to iron out some issues,” Wheeler said.
“I’m not prepared to vote for this today but that doesn’t mean I am against it.”
Robynne Alexander, the general manager of the development team, had been sued over a much smaller housing project in Manchester and only last week paid back taxes that had been owed on that property.
https://www.inforuptcy.com/browse-filings/new-hampshire-bankruptcy-court/1:17-bk-10591/bankruptcy-case-sanctuary-care-llc-and-sanctuary-at-rye-operations-llc
When the developers released the names of other key investors, one of them Jonathan McCoy, developed a a senior complex, Sanctuary Care in Rye, which went bankrupt in 2017 after allegations that he had used project funds on personal expenses.
McC.
Administrative Services Commissioner Charles Arlinghaus said the state never intended to do a deep dive on the personal finances of the investors in this project.
"No one has looked at her personal financial records and that is not something we intend to be doing,” Arlinghaus said.
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2022-12-21T22:10:42Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Former Laconia State School property sale clears Exec Council | State | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/state/former-laconia-state-school-property-sale-clears-exec-council/article_a7ec28fe-a621-53f1-8bc3-7b022f9eb1e5.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/state/former-laconia-state-school-property-sale-clears-exec-council/article_a7ec28fe-a621-53f1-8bc3-7b022f9eb1e5.html
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A Rochester man has pleaded guilty in federal court to wire fraud, for using an elderly woman’s credit cards to make purchases at numerous shops and online stores.
Craig Corriveau, 51, stole more than $83,000 from the victim, including spending more than $30,000 to purchase guns and ammunition, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case.
Authorities say Corriveau used the victim’s personal identifying information, including her Social Security number, maiden name and date of birth, to add himself as an authorized user on her credit card account. He was also able to access the victim’s bank accounts and used her funds to make payments on his credit card purchases.
Officials said the purchases were made between March 2019 and July 2021, at retailers including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Target, Home Depot, Bob’s Discount Furniture, Wayfair, Etsy and Amazon.
When police executed a search warrant at Corriveau’s East Rochester home, they found some of the goods Corriveau had purchased using the woman’s credit cards, the release said.
Corriveau is scheduled for sentencing next March.
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2022-12-22T00:15:22Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Rochester man admits charging more than $83,000 on elderly victim's credit cards | Crime | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/rochester-man-admits-charging-more-than-83-000-on-elderly-victims-credit-cards/article_ca57abee-5397-5a98-8399-798e6afe0010.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/rochester-man-admits-charging-more-than-83-000-on-elderly-victims-credit-cards/article_ca57abee-5397-5a98-8399-798e6afe0010.html
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Christopher MacDonald
Manchester school district spokesman Andrew Toland confirmed Wednesday that Parker-Varney Elementary School Principal Christopher MacDonald is “currently on leave,” saying Assistant Principal Andrew Sims is “in the building with direct support” from a network director.
“We cannot comment further at this time due to privacy concerns,” Toland wrote in an email.
Board of School Committee Vice Chairman Jim O’Connell confirmed MacDonald is out on paid leave, and has been for “a couple months.”
O’Connell said he couldn’t comment any further on the situation.
A person who wished to remain anonymous said this week they have been trying to get a meeting with MacDonald, their nephew's principal, for months.
“Every time I call I get that he is not there, not once have we received an email about where he is at,” the person said. “No one seems to know. I don't believe people vanish.”
MacDonald was named principal at Parker-Varney Elementary School in July, after completing a sabbatical and with 12 years of administrative experience in Manchester schools.
He was named principal of the now-closed Hallsville Elementary School in Manchester in 2018 by former superintendent of schools Bolgen Vargas. Prior to that he served as assistant principal at Manchester’s Northwest Elementary School for 10 years.
His career in education also includes eight years teaching third and fourth grades in Hooksett.
He earned undergraduate degrees in education and psychology from Westfield State University, a masters in educational administration from the University of New Hampshire and Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies from Plymouth State University.
As of this summer, he was working toward completing a doctoral degree at Southern New Hampshire University.
An attempt to reach MacDonald for comment on Wednesday was unsuccessful.
MacDonald replaced Kelly Espinola, who left Parker-Varney earlier this summer to take over as principal at Southside Middle School.
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2022-12-22T00:15:28Z
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Parker-Varney principal on paid leave | Education | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/education/parker-varney-principal-on-paid-leave/article_c8d513f7-d0e9-5dc5-a742-e043a6eba02b.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/education/parker-varney-principal-on-paid-leave/article_c8d513f7-d0e9-5dc5-a742-e043a6eba02b.html
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The congressional panel probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol said Wednesday it would delay by at least one day the release of its final report making the case that former President Donald Trump should face criminal charges of inciting the deadly riot.
“Rather than honor his constitutional obligation to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ President Trump instead plotted to overturn the election outcome,” the House panel said in the 160-page summary of the report.
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2022-12-22T00:15:34Z
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Capitol riot committee delays releasing final report on assault by Trump backers | National | unionleader.com
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Twitter was previously tracking toward a “negative cash flow situation of $3 billion per year” before the cost cuts, Musk said on Wednesday in a Twitter Spaces audio chat.
Musk said Twitter was previously on track to spend $5 billion next year.
With $12.5 billion in debt due to the acquisition, Twitter was facing a net cash outflow of $6.5 billion with revenue of about $3 billion next year. That amounted to negative cash flow of $3 billion, Musk said, adding that Twitter has $1 billion in cash.
Twitter’s annual revenue in 2021 was $5 billion and in February, the company forecast that 2022 revenue would grow in the low-to-mid 20% range.
“I said, yeah, we should do that,” Musk said.
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2022-12-22T02:17:24Z
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Elon Musk expects Twitter to be 'cash flow break-even' next year | Business | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/elon-musk-expects-twitter-to-be-cash-flow-break-even-next-year/article_504744a8-aeb7-5c75-9a12-54f0d59e011b.html
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The Republican-led Executive Council voted, 3-2, Wednesday to prematurely end a $5.5 million study into the cost to restore commuter rail service from Boston, Mass. through Manchester. State officials said they will divert $1.5 million left to spend on the project for other commuter services.
CONCORD — The Republican-led Executive Council voted Wednesday to terminate a $5.5 million engineering and financial study on restoring commuter rail service from Boston through Manchester.
Councilor David Wheeler, R-Milford, said stopping the work now would allow the Department of Transportation to divert $1.5 million that remains unspent to other mass transit services.
“I think it is time to stop the bleeding in this project. I don’t think this is going anywhere,” Wheeler said.
“It’s time to pull the plug, and I don’t want to pay for engineering for a project that isn’t going to happen for the next two years.”
Councilors Ted Gatsas, R-Manchester, and Joe Kenney, R-Wakefield, joined Wheeler to block the project.
Councilor Janet Stevens, R-Rye, and Cinde Warmington, D-Concord, wanted to continue it.
The rejection came after the vendor, AECOM Technical Services, Inc. of Manchester, asked the council to extend the completion date for the study from the end of January to the end of September.
Transportation Commissioner Bill Cass said part of the reason the vendor needed more time was the potential sale of the former Sears store at the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua.
The store abuts the site where Nashua city officials want to locate a train station for the project.
Real estate industry leaders confirmed an agreement last month to sell the building but did not identify the prospective buyer.
Cass said city officials in Nashua and Manchester have agreed to locate and support passenger train stations on publicly owned property.
Colin Booth, communications director for the New Hampshire Democratic Party, noted Wheeler and Gatsas represent Nashua and Manchester, respectively, where city officials and business leaders have long supported the project.
“Sabotaging popular infrastructure projects and holding them up as proof of government intractability; Republican playbook to the letter,” Booth said in a statement.
The three Democratic nominees who opposed Wheeler, Gatsas and Kenney in the November election all endorsed the project.
Revival possible
Greg Moore, state director of the fiscally conservative Americans for Prosperity, praised the council’s decision.
“Commuter rail has always been and will always remain a boondoggle for New Hampshire taxpayers. Putting an end to this expensive fantasy now is the right move,” Moore said.
“Granite Staters know that the state needs 21st-century transportation solutions, not projects that benefit few residents but cost us hundreds of millions of dollars.”
After the vote, Gov. Chris Sununu said the DOT would receive a report on the work the vendor has done to date. Supporters of the project could use those details to lobby for it to be included in the next 10-year highway plan, he said.
Work on the next highway plan starts with a planning process in the summer of 2023 and culminates in a proposal that Sununu must submit to the Legislature for final action during the 2024 legislative session.
Cass noted the vendor was planning to submit an interim report by the end of January.
He said ending the work early may mean not enough detailed information will be available for supporters to make their case for it in the future.
“Once the consultant finishes with the plan, we can figure out what to do,” Cass said.
Federal Transit Administration grants paid for the entire cost of the project.
Cass said what isn’t spent can be diverted to other “commuter transit” purposes under the FTA, as long as they support travel to the Boston metropolitan area.
For example, that could include grants for the commuter buses that travel daily from New Hampshire to Boston.
This year, the Republican-led state House of Representatives endorsed a bill to block spending any state money on the project.
The state Senate, also led by Republicans, rejected it, deciding to wait for the results of the study designed to estimate the annual operating and capital costs for this railroad line.
Wheeler claimed the project would require raising state and local taxes to support it.
“People say they support commuter rail, but they don’t want any part when it comes to paying for it,” Wheeler said.
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2022-12-22T02:17:25Z
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Commuter rail study goes off the tracks | Transportation | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/transportation/commuter-rail-study-goes-off-the-tracks/article_7d42a639-1fb1-5cce-81d7-a3e7d119ed12.html
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A longtime Portsmouth restaurant accused of overserving alcohol to a man who was later involved in a fatal rollover on Thanksgiving had its liquor license reinstated by a judge pending a future hearing.
In the meantime, Portsmouth Gas Light Co., a pizza bar and nightclub, is promoting its “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” New Year’s Eve party.
Tyler N. Troy, 22, of Northwood, crashed a 2018 Porsche Macan around 1:17 a.m. on Nov. 24 with five other people in the car, according to state police. Drew Ceppetelli, 21, of Barrington, died in the crash.
State police say based upon preliminary investigation at the scene “excessive speed and impairment” were identified as potential factors in the crash. No charges have been filed as the investigation continues, according to state police.
The New Hampshire Liquor Commission suspended the restaurant’s license on Dec. 10 until a hearing scheduled for Dec. 23, citing the “failure to monitor the quantity of alcohol served to patrons” and “serving an individual who is showing signs of intoxication.”
The liquor commission alleges the restaurant allowed Troy, “who was visibly intoxicated, to consume an alcoholic beverage, which resulted in a fatal motor vehicle crash.”
The restaurant sought injunctive relief on Dec. 12 in Rockingham Superior Court with Judge Andrew Schulman granting a temporary restraining order the next day.
PDS Restaurateurs Inc. opened Portsmouth Gas Light Co. in 1989, serving more than a million people, according to court documents.
Jonathan Flagg, an attorney representing PDS, argued in the civil complaint that the state is only able to suspend a license for 24 hours without a hearing.
Nathan Kenison-Marvin, assistant attorney general, wrote Flagg’s argument was based on an erroneous understanding of the law and the emergency order trumps the statute.
Flagg said the company had multiple Christmas parties booked and would lose “substantial additional revenue.” No evidence of the allegations was provided to the company.
“There is no health, safety, or welfare urgency upon which the defendant bases its demands because otherwise the defendant would have said so,” court documents read. “Even if there were such urgency, the defendant may only suspend plaintiff’s liquor license for 24-hours, not for the next 13 days until December 23, 2022.”
Schulman ruled that “the commission did not include a specific verbal finding that ‘public health, safety or welfare requires emergency action’” in the order.
“The commission’s deputy chief of enforcement told the court that she was unaware of any prior violations by the plaintiff,” Schulman wrote. “There is no alleged history of over-service. There is no allegation (in either the notice of suspension or in the commission’s offer of proof) of egregious behavior — such as deliberately overserving or acting with reckless disregard.”
In a phone interview Wednesday, Flagg said the Portsmouth Gas Light Co. is a family-owned business, which took all the proper precautions when serving alcohol that night.
“They are just as devastated by this tragedy as anybody else,” he said.
The bartenders on duty on average had between 10 and 12 years of experience. The training has gone above and beyond what the commission requires, Flagg said.
“Every night they have a meeting after work and say, ‘What did we learn? What can we do better?’” he said. “You’re not in business for 33 years by being reckless, so they are very careful about it.”
Flagg said he hasn’t received any information to prepare for the required hearing.
E.J. Powers, a spokesman for the commission, said no date has been set for the hearing.
“The investigation regarding the sale and service of alcohol to Tyler Troy on Nov. 23, 2022 is still under investigation,” he said.
No other licenses have been suspended as part of the fatal crash, Powers said.
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2022-12-22T02:17:27Z
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Portsmouth restaurant challenges liquor license suspension after fatal crash | Courts | unionleader.com
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The Executive Council voted, 3-2, to approve the sale of the former Laconia State School property for $21.5 million to a development team that plans to build housing and a convention center/hotel complex on the site. This is an architectural rendering of the completed project.
CONCORD — On a 3-2 vote, the Executive Council on Wednesday approved the $21.5 million sale of the former Laconia State School property to private developers despite financial questions about some of the project’s key members.
Councilor Cinde Warmington, D-Concord, said a two-week delay of the vote helped secure Laconia Mayor Andrew Hosmer’s support for the project after developers addressed some concerns the city had.
City officials wanted to retain access to athletic fields via the parcel, the use of a water tower and to keep a homeless shelter on the site through the winter months.
But Councilor Ted Gatsas, R-Manchester, criticized state officials’ refusal to seek detailed financial data on the key investors in the $500 million project, which includes nearly 1,900 units of housing and a convention center/hotel complex.
He predicted the development group will prove financially unable to pull off the project.
“I certainly believe in my heart, and being in the real estate investment business for 30 years, that we are going to see this project back before us.”
Councilor Joe Kenney, R-Wakefield, noted that even if the development plan does not go forward, the project’s first phase — demolishing abandoned buildings and upgrading water and sewer lines — will increase the property’s value.
“We don’t know what is going to pop out of this as we travel down the Yellow Brick Road on this development project,” Kenney said. “I hope we get to the Emerald City.”
“I’m not prepared to vote for this today, but that doesn’t mean I am against it,” Wheeler said.
Robynne Alexander, the general manager of the development team, had been sued over a much smaller housing project in downtown Manchester and last week paid back taxes on that property.
Developers last week released the names of other key partners in Legacy at Laconia LLC, which included prominent builders, lawyers and architects who have completed many large commercial developments in New Hampshire.
One of the investors, Jonathan McCoy, lost a senior housing complex, Sanctuary Care in Rye, after it went bankrupt in 2017.
A court-appointed trustee claimed McCoy had misspent more than $200,000 in project funds on personal expenses.
McCoy denied those allegations, and the trustee’s case against McCoy was settled for $11,000 in 2020.
Administrative Services Commissioner Charles Arlinghaus said the state had never intended to do a deep dive on the personal finances of those financially backing this plan.
State officials were aware of the lawsuit against Alexander and were satisfied with her assurances that it would be resolved and not impact this project, he said.
“No one has looked at her personal financial records, and that is not something we intend to be doing,” Arlinghaus said.
The developers thanked Sununu and the council for showing confidence in their proposal.
“Our focus now is to roll up our sleeves and raise the funds to close this transaction,” said spokesman Scott Tranchmontagne. “We are confident we will succeed.”
Details of development
The development will include 340 single-family, duplex or triplex homes, half of which will be priced as “entry-level,” 108 condominiums, 500 apartments — 120 designated as “workforce housing” — and 350 townhouses.
The site also will have 360 units of independent living units for seniors, along with 230 assisted-care units, which McCoy will spearhead, according to a spokesman for the developers.
Along with housing, the project includes a 1,000-seat convention center and a 250-room hotel, as well as urgent care, child care and pharmacy facilities on site.
Half of the property will remain undeveloped and taxed under the state’s current-use law, which values property in its natural state rather than at its potential developable value, officials said.
The state will net $20.4 million from the purchase. CBRE, an international real estate firm, will receive a 5% commission — or $1.1 million — for marketing the property on the state’s behalf for the past year.
The state has owned part of the property for 120 years. It was home to a state school for the developmentally disabled until its closure in January 1991.
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2022-12-22T02:17:27Z
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Former Laconia State School property sale clears Executive Council | State | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/state/former-laconia-state-school-property-sale-clears-executive-council/article_a7ec28fe-a621-53f1-8bc3-7b022f9eb1e5.html
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January happenings at Londonderry post
January happenings at American Legion Post 27, 6 Sargent Road, behind the fire station on Mammoth Roadin Londonderry:
• Comedy show, Saturday, Jan. 7, dinner at 6 p.m. and show at 8. Contact the Post to buy tickets at 603-437-6613.
• Monthly general meeting, Monday, Jan. 9, at 7:30 p.m. All members welcome to attend.
• Karaoke with DJ Sharon, Friday, Jan. 13, 7:30-11 p.m. Non-members interested in joining Post 27 are welcome to attend.
• Every Sunday during football season food is being served for $10 at 3 p.m. The menu will change weekly and will be posted on Facebook, at the Post and via email.
In addition to active duty personnel and veterans, the Legion family also consists of people with no military service. Men whose father, spouse or grandfather that served are eligible. Women who are the grandmother, mother, sister, spouse as well as direct and adopted female descendants of a service member can join. The American Legion’s primary mission is to enhance the well-being of America’s veterans, their families, our military and our communities by our devotion to mutual helpfulness.
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2022-12-22T02:17:44Z
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January happenings at Londonderry post | Veterans | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/veterans/january-happenings-at-londonderry-post/article_07f9ba0d-392e-5684-ae3d-2671fc702b2a.html
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SWAM volunteer Suzanne Fischer, left, and SWAM Assistant Director Matt Foster, right, present Gold Star Mother Joyce Bertolino with a plaque in honor of her son, U.S. Marine Pfc. Matthew L. Bertolino.
Provided by SWAM
SWAM volunteer Suzanne Fischer, left, presented retired Air Force Lt. Col. Howie Steadman with a Never Forget Plaque in honor of U.S. Army Capt. Jonathan D. Grassbaugh.
Provided by Swim with a Mission
Gold Star Mother Joyce Bertolino
HAMPSTEAD — Swim With A Mission presented two Never Forget Plaques to Hampstead Town Hall on Monday, Dec. 12, in memory of two Hampstead fallen service members from the Global War On Terror: U.S. Marine Pfc. Matthew Bertolino and U.S. Army Capt. Jonathan Grassbaugh.
Gold Star Mother Joyce Bertolino was in attendance to accept a plaque in honor of her son, Pfc. Bertolino, who was killed Feb. 9, 2006, when the vehicle in which he was traveling in rolled over during a combat patrol near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, during Operation Enduring Freedom. Bertolino entered the service through the Marine Corps Delayed Entry Program on Sept. 30, 2004.
He started his initial training on Jan. 26, 2005, at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, in Parris Island, South Carolina.
Pfc. Bertolino grew up in Hampstead with his parents and two older sisters. His smile was described as the kind that could light up a room, and if he was laughing, you wanted to laugh along with him.
He loved being outdoors, where he could practice his passions of landscaping, carpentry, playing sports and working on his Jeep. He was proud to be an American and a Marine.
Air Force retired Lt. Col. Howie Steadman, Chairman of Patriotic Purposes in Hampstead, accepted the plaque in honor of Capt. Grassbaugh.
He was assigned to the 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C. He died April 7, 2007, in Zaganiyah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated near his unit.
After attending Hampstead Central School and graduating from Hampstead Middle School, Grassbaugh went on to attend and excel at Phillips Exeter Academy and then Johns Hopkins University, where he was a member of the ROTC Color Guard and Pershing Rifles, a military fraternity.
During his senior year at Johns Hopkins, Grassbaugh served as ROTC Battalion Commander, where he won the national two-man duet drill team competition — and met his wife, Jenna, a freshman who had just joined the ROTC program. During a special school assembly to honor Grassbaugh’s life at Phillips Exeter, his brother Jason gave a heartwarming speech.
He said, “Jon didn’t think there were many true moral dilemmas. He felt that if you had such a dilemma, you probably knew what was right inside. You just had to find the courage to act on it. My friends, your decisions in the future will have the ability to change the world and make it a better place. My brother strove to do that every day, to try to make the world a better place for the people near him.”
Steadman and SWAM Volunteer Suzanne Fischer coordinated the presentation, which took place during the monthly Hampstead board of selectmen meeting.
The plaques will be displayed in the lobby of Town Hall, where the public can view them and honor their service.
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2022-12-22T02:17:50Z
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SWAM presents Never Forget Plaque to Gold Star Mother at the Hampstead town hall | Veterans | unionleader.com
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Juston McKinney is searching for the bright spots of life both in his latest comedy special on YouTube and his upcoming year-in-review series of shows in Portsmouth and Manchester.
Juston McKinney
P.T. Sullivan
Newmarket comedian Juston McKinney is back for an eighth year with his end-of-year wrap-up shows in Portsmouth and Manchester.
NH comic Juston McKinney dropkicks 2022 before the ball even drops in Times Square
It’s in that wide-eyed look of disbelief, and that little crack in his voice as exasperation clearly mounts.
“The pandemic, a divided political climate, inflation … The best story I could find coming out from 2022 was about a planet-killing asteroid that’s hiding behind the sun (and) could hit Earth. But that’s a ways out, so we’ve got to find a way to have fun,” says wry Newmarket comedian Juston McKinney.
His annual year-in-review shows in Portsmouth and Manchester are a balm to anyone feeling bombarded by life.
He’s been doing his annual year in review, in which he walks audiences through a slide show and commentary of highs and lows of humanity, for about eight years.
But it’s been challenging to find the silver lining in the last three.
He dubbed his 2020 wrap-up shows “Good Riddance,” and when things didn’t get much better in the following 12 months, he summed it up as “2021 Sucked, Too.”
Now 2022 has just left him, well, temporarily speechless in a recent phone interview.
“I don’t have a title card yet … maybe “Thank God, It’s Through: A Year in Review.”
McKinney will play The Music Hall in Portsmouth, at 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 26 and 27, and 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, Dec. 28 and 29, and then move to the Rex Theatre in downtown Manchester for shows at 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 30, and 5 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 31.
McKinney, a Portsmouth native, is a fixture on Granite State stages.
His latest comedy special, “The Bright Side,” was filmed last year at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord.
“This is my fifth one-hour special, and it’s free!” an animated McKinney says, plugging his YouTube Channel.
He blames doubling electric rates, inflation and other financial woes as the reason he’s giving fans — and potential new show-goers — a gift this holiday season. It went up Sept. 1 and as of early this week, it’s gotten nearly 255,000 views.
“People seem to dig it,” he says in an interview that’s once again upbeat despite the state of the world.
He calls the year-end series of shows a beast to put together. It’s not just 365 days to sort through, it’s representing all the quirks of New England living as well.
For his part McKinney spent seven years as a York County Deputy Sheriff patrolling Maine woods before turning to standup as a living. He has appeared on several Comedy Central shows and his TV and movie credits include “The King of Queens,” “The Zoo Keeper” and “Here Comes the Boom.”
He and Jeff Koen shared screenwriting duties and starred in “Suck it Up,” which premiered at the New Hampshire Film Festival in 2019.
And there are laughs in the McKinney household, which includes McKinney’s wife, Jennifer, who works in human resources, and his sons Jack, 15, and Josh, 12.
Around this time of year, a popular Facebook video filmed a few years ago resurfaces during the holiday season. In it, McKinney and Jack, stand outside, the branches of an evergreen in the background framing their winter coats, hats and gloves. McKinney talks about the proper way to pick out a Christmas tree before the ground is covered by a winter storm.
Cut to the basement of their house. “That’s a beauty,” McKinney says encouragingly as Jack troops to the basement and then yanks a pre-lit artificial tree up the steps.
His younger son, Josh, 12, is quick on his feet as well. In a memorable wrestling match in the house, Josh and McKinney were grappling for a hold on the other while doing some competitive trash talking. When McKinney challenged him with “Who’s the best dad in the world?”
Josh’s response was “Not you!”
“I said, ‘How can you say that?’,” McKinney recalls. “And he said, ‘My parents taught me not to lie.”
He relates the story in a phone interview as he dashes to pick up his sons from school. They don’t do school buses because “there are way too many stops.”
McKinney practices a mock apology that drips with sarcasm. “I’m so sorry there is no ‘express bus’ just for you,” he says, before he admitting that taking them to school and picking them up is a regular thing.
Another family member who gets regular play in McKinney’s act is his father, who in early December is usually papering Portsmouth with flyers about the annual Music Hall shows.
But heart surgery and a bout of pneumonia led to a prolonged stay at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“That’s weighing on me a little bit, but it looks good,” McKinney said. “He’s getting better and better. He’s planning to be at one of my shows. He’s never missed one in Portsmouth.”
For ticket information, go right to the venue at palacetheatre.org or themusichall.org. There’s been some hoopla about show-goers inadvertently landing on third-party websites. Tickets are $35 at the Rex and $28-$34 at the Music Hall.
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2022-12-22T02:18:02Z
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NH comic Juston McKinney dropkicks 2022 before the ball even drops in Times Square | Holiday | unionleader.com
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Harris’s death came days before the 50th anniversary of the famous play, which was selected as the greatest moment in league history as part of the NFL 100 celebration in 2019.
The Steelers were scheduled to retire the No. 32 worn by Harris during Saturday’s game against the visiting Las Vegas Raiders — the franchise on the receiving end of the Immaculate Reception. It was to be a culmination of a weekend’s worth of celebration of Harris, with the game to be nationally televised on Christmas Eve night.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Wednesday that it was unclear whether the festivities would be altered.
“It is difficult to find the appropriate words to describe Franco Harris’ impact on the Pittsburgh Steelers, his teammates, the City of Pittsburgh and Steelers Nation,” team president Art Rooney II said in a statement. “From his rookie season, which included the Immaculate Reception, through the next 50 years, Franco brought joy to people on and off the field. He never stopped giving back in so many ways. He touched so many, and he was loved by so many. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Dana, his son Dok, and his extended family at this difficult time.”
Tributes to Harris poured in Wednesday morning.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the league family was “shocked and saddened to learn of the unexpected passing of Franco Harris.”
“He meant so much to Steelers fans as the Hall of Fame running back who helped form the nucleus of the team’s dynasty of the ‘70s but he was much more,” Goodell said. “He was a gentle soul who touched so many in the Pittsburgh community and throughout the entire NFL. Franco changed the way people thought of the Steelers, of Pittsburgh, and of the NFL.
“He will forever live in the hearts of Steelers fans everywhere, his teammates, and the city of Pittsburgh.”
Bradshaw, the Steelers quarterback of the Harris era, told the Tribune-Review in Pittsburgh that he saw Harris two weeks ago as they filmed a feature on the Immaculate Reception in Los Angeles.
“I’ve talked about it so much this morning, it’s kind of like therapy,” Bradshaw said in the phone interview. “I can’t quite put my finger on it. How did this happen? How do you celebrate 50 years of the Immaculate Reception on Friday and (he) gets his number retired at halftime Saturday against the Raiders? Easily, outside of winning Super Bowls, professionally this is the highlight of his career. It would be mine.
“It’s just a shocking state of events.”
Another Steelers legend, Jerome Bettis, also paid tribute.
“Words can’t begin to describe the pain I am feeling,” Bettis tweeted. “Franco will always be a brother, mentor and my definition of greatness. He was a legend on the field and the personification of excellence off of the field — A true class act to look up to and aspire to be like.”
Born March 7, 1950, in Fort Dix, N.J., Harris played college football at Penn State and was a first-round draft pick by the Steelers in 1972.
He remained a presence in Pittsburgh post-retirement, running a food distribution business that provides healthy food for school children. He also worked with Penn State’s School of Hospitality Management, serving as a guest lecturer in hospitality and food service managing among his duties.
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2022-12-22T02:18:27Z
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Hall of Fame RB Franco Harris dies at 72 | Sports | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/hall-of-fame-rb-franco-harris-dies-at-72/article_2440a3f3-5e4a-5a53-9bcb-2b80ea939ba9.html
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Earlier this year, New York City's Department of Parks and Recreation tried to accommodate the influx of people playing America's fastest-growing sport - part tennis, part ping-pong and all the rage. To do so, officials in the spring painted two pickleball courts at Cpl. John A. Seravalli Playground, a one-acre park in the heart of Manhattan's West Village.
Less than a year later, parks officials have now banned pickleball from Seravalli after repeated clashes between players and other parkgoers, especially parents with young children who'd come to Seravalli for years to ride bikes, inline skate and toss a baseball. The battle at Seravalli is but one example of pickleballers stepping on toes as more people decide to play and seek an ever-increasing number of courts on which to do so. Some 10,000 facilities registered with USA Pickleball, the nonprofit governing body of the sport, with an average of three new ones opening every day.
To try to keep up, the department painted the lines for two courts at Seravalli in the spring, Focht said. While officials heard "low rumblings" about conflicts in the early months, those murmurs quieted in the summer as people left town for vacation. But clashes exploded as people returned in late summer and school restarted.
Parents, branding themselves "Families United For Open Play," started a petition in the fall to "Save NYC's Seravalli Playground (a.k.a. Horatio Park) from the Pickleball Takeover." The park had been created 60 years ago as a place for kids to play and for generations served as "a vital community gathering place and the heart and soul of life for many West Village children and families," according to the petition.
Then, pickleballers took over the park in a "sudden land grab," parents said in the petition, which had racked up nearly 3,300 signatures by Wednesday morning, short of its goal of 5,000.
Parents pushing for a full ban on pickleball complained that players dominated the space, endangering children as they lunged to hit wayward balls. Two courts quickly became five, then 10 - as many as 12, one parent told committee members. Parents tried to urge players to contain themselves to the two official courts in a "constant cat-and-mouse game," but pickleballers often overran the playground. Some parents just gave up, she said.
"Our children go into the park, they feel unwelcome and they walk away. It's to the point now where the confrontations are so frequent that my children don't even want to go there anymore."
Pickleballers acknowledged that rogue players had created ad hoc courts, something one of them called "disgusting" at the October meeting. But a full ban wasn't the answer, they argued. Lydia Hirt, a volunteer ambassador for USA Pickleball, pushed parks officials to increase the number of courts at Seravalli from two to four and enforce a partial ban. She suggested allowing play on the proposed four courts at all times and prohibiting play on other courts during peak times - 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends.
Hirt said she often plays early in the morning before work. There's no reason pickleballers couldn't play at the park when children are in school and then skedaddle in the afternoon, she said.
"To me the bottom line is coexistence," she said. "Pickleball is so inclusive, accessible and democratic. It really is a sport for the city of New York, where everybody in all shapes, colors, backgrounds is really welcome to play and participate."
The parks department delivered its verdict on Nov. 30 when officials removed the pickleball lines at Seravalli as they posted a sign at the playground entrance: "Pickleball is no longer allowed in Seravalli Playground." The sign directed players to three nearby places where they could play.
"We were able to come to this what we consider a win-win solution," Manhattan Borough Parks Commissioner Anthony Perez told The Post.
But Hirt, who also moderates an online group of more than 1,100 pickleball players in the West Village, doesn't think she and the pickleballers won - and she's vowed to keep working with officials and parents to get courts back at Seravalli. She said she thinks players, parents and other parkgoers can coexist if they strike a balance somewhere between a ban and pickleball free-for-all.
Focht acknowledged the roughly 70 pickleball courts that the department has created isn't enough to accommodate the sport's meteoric rise in America's largest city. He said he and his colleagues will keep looking for other "underutilized spaces" like J.J. Walker to add courts.
"We serve 8.8 million people and we have limited space, so we have to make strategic decisions on balancing needs amongst all of our constituents and users and patrons," Focht said.
But, he added, that takes time. "Everybody wants everything where they want it, right?"
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2022-12-22T17:43:26Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Pickleballers and parents clashed at a NYC park. Now the sport's banned. | Back Page | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/pickleballers-and-parents-clashed-at-a-nyc-park-now-the-sports-banned/article_9e4481ec-72ef-5806-b9e3-2d21dc5b5b26.html
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The fentanyl overdose death of a 39-year-old woman in San Diego last month is investigated by Homeland Security agent Ed Byrne, right, and Lt. Ken Impellizeri of San Diego Police.
By Lenny Bernstein The Washington Post
"Many of the tools that need we already have," McHugh said. "We just need to be deploying them better."
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2022-12-22T17:43:29Z
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www.unionleader.com
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U.S. life expectancy continued to fall in 2021 as covid, drug deaths surged | Back Page | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/u-s-life-expectancy-continued-to-fall-in-2021-as-covid-drug-deaths-surged/article_12dcb767-08ca-53be-a64b-2c460a935639.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/u-s-life-expectancy-continued-to-fall-in-2021-as-covid-drug-deaths-surged/article_12dcb767-08ca-53be-a64b-2c460a935639.html
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The Reconstruction-era Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel system, the biggest chokepoint between Washington and New Jersey, will be replaced by single-track twin tunnels.
By Michael Laris and Luz Lazo The Washington Post
More than a dozen century-old bridges and tunnels, the creaky backbone of the nation's most important railroad corridor, are set to receive nearly $9 billion in new infrastructure grants, U.S. Department of Transportation officials said this week, marking the biggest step yet to begin overhauling the busy-but-antiquated line running from Washington to Boston.
The list of "major backlog" projects federal officials say they are finally preparing to fund reads like a history of American infrastructure greatness frozen in amber, among them Connecticut's Walk Bridge over the Norwalk River (Grover Cleveland), New Jersey's Sawtooth Bridges between Newark Penn Station and Secaucus Junction (Theodore Roosevelt) and the North River Tunnel beneath the Hudson River (William Howard Taft). All are more than a hundred years old and in desperate need of overhauls.
"I know that may be hard to comprehend, but . . . that's why we call it a backlog," Amit Bose, administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, said in an interview. "These projects have been waiting, waiting to get going - for the next hundred years."
Bose said the $66 billion in rail appropriations in last year's infrastructure law is giving the nation a once-in-a-century chance to repair, rehab or replace the major bridges and tunnels along the Northeast Corridor, an economic and transportation link he calls "one of the country's most significant publicly owned infrastructure assets," while also expanding other routes nationally, as set out by Congress.
"This is absolutely a transformational time for rail in America," Bose said. "It's so important for us to make sure that this $9 billion, and subsequent rounds of funding, go to good use and go to those projects that are ready."
The plans - as federal officials described in interviews, in a project inventory for the Northeast Corridor released last month, and in a formal "Notice of Funding Opportunity" being made public Thursday - are meant to help address the biggest chokepoints along the busy route, ultimately resulting in time savings for hundreds of thousands of travelers in the corridor.
Mitch Warren, executive director of the Northeast Corridor Commission, which was created by Congress a decade ago to develop strategies to improve the stretch, said the $9 billion will bring "the first significant investment for the infrastructure in generations" and will help move a vision for the corridor from a wish list of projects to reality.
He praised the U.S. Department of Transportation for prioritizing investment on the aging bridges and tunnels, which he said are critical for the reliability of trains. The commission's annual report shows that infrastructure failures represent the No. 1 cause of delays in the system.
"If we can modernize and rebuild the infrastructure, we will have much more reliable trains," he said. It will also bring other benefits, he said, including more frequent train service and trip-time improvements.
Amtrak Chief Executive Stephen Gardner said in a statement that the railroad, its partners and its customers "have been waiting for this moment for decades."
"These funds will kick off a new era of investment in the busiest railroad in North America, leading to enhanced reliability, capacity, and safety, while creating thousands of good-paying jobs in communities across the region," Gardner said.
"Americans deserve to have the best rail system in the world, and the investments we are announcing today will serve to modernize the Northeast Corridor for generations of passengers," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement.
Among the projects is the multibillion-dollar replacement of the 149-year-old Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel, a major bottleneck for Amtrak, Maryland's MARC commuter trains and commercial rail traffic that moves through the Northeast Corridor.
Amtrak plans to replace the Reconstruction-era tunnel with single-track twin tunnels that would arc about a half-mile north of the existing tunnel. Trains would travel up to 100 mph. The railroad is completing the design and negotiating property acquisitions, while promising the tunnel - to be named after Maryland native and abolitionist Frederick Douglass - will carry electric-powered trains to reduce environmental impacts on Baltimore neighborhoods along the new route.
"By replacing the B & P tunnel with the Frederick Douglass Tunnel, we can make substantial and meaningful time savings," Bose said.
"It's not a fixed-span bridge. It's a movable bridge and sometimes gets stuck. It causes trains not to cross the bridge," Bose said, adding that fixing it will slice delays and upgrade riders' experience.
"It's hard to say right now what the funding will be, but [the projects] are eligible for up to 80 percent of the total project cost," Bose said. The rest, he noted, would need to come from nonfederal sources.
CONCORD — The Republican-led Executive Council voted Wednesday to terminate a $5.5 million engineering and financial study on restoring commut…
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2022-12-22T17:43:30Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Northeast's century-old rail bridges, tunnels land $9 billion overhaul | Transportation | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/transportation/northeasts-century-old-rail-bridges-tunnels-land-9-billion-overhaul/article_aaa16fbc-b9b7-55f1-b63e-de222912a44b.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/transportation/northeasts-century-old-rail-bridges-tunnels-land-9-billion-overhaul/article_aaa16fbc-b9b7-55f1-b63e-de222912a44b.html
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Sam Bankman-Fried escorted out of the Magistrate's Court in Nassau, Bahamas, on Dec. 21.
Tristan Wheelock/Bloomberg
By Ava Benny-Morrison, Allyson Versprille and David Voreacos Bloomberg
"Let me reiterate a call I made last week," Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. "If you participated in misconduct at FTX or Alameda, now is the time to get ahead of it. We are moving quickly and our patience is not eternal."
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which have been investigating FTX's collapse, also sued Wang and Ellison on Wednesday.
The SEC alleged Ellison and Wang participated in a multiyear scheme to defraud FTX investors. Between 2019 and 2022 Ellison - at the direction of Bankman-Fried - manipulated the price of FTX's native token FTT by purchasing large quantities in the open market, according to the SEC complaint.
Ellison, former chief executive of Alameda, Wang and colleague Nishad Singh, were the backbone of Bankman-Fried's inner circle. Singh hasn't been accused of wrongdoing by U.S. authorities. Wang co-founded FTX with Bankman-Fried.
Wang met Bankman-Fried at math camp in high school and was his roommate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Like Bankman-Fried, Wang was also once one of the richest twentysomethings on the planet - with a stake in the business worth as much as $1.6 billion in March, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Bloomberg's Beth Williams contributed to this report.
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2022-12-22T17:43:30Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Bankman-Fried associates flip as FTX founder arrives in NYC | Crime | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/bankman-fried-associates-flip-as-ftx-founder-arrives-in-nyc/article_7181de85-b029-5053-8b9e-642297d9680c.html
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Persistent loss of smell has left some covid-19 survivors yearning for the scent of their freshly bathed child or a waft of their once-favorite meal. It's left others inured to the stink of garbage and accidentally drinking spoiled milk. "Anosmia," as experts call it, is one of long covid's strangest symptoms - and researchers may be one step closer to figuring it out what causes it and how to fix it.
Scientists analyzed samples of olfactory epithelial tissue - where smell cells live - from 24 biopsies, nine of which were from post-covid patients struggling with persistent loss of smell. Although the sample was small, the results suggest that the sensory deficit is linked to an ongoing immune attack on cells responsible for smell - which endures even after the virus is gone - and a decline in the number of olfactory nerve cells.
Loss of smell can have significant implications. It's a mechanism for threat detection - from the gas stove you accidentally left on to the stomach-turning smell of a rotten egg. And it's a sense closely associated with memories.
Carol Yan, an otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon at the University of California San Diego as well as an author of the new study, has treated patients with persistent smell loss. "It's quite devastating for them. And a lot of times, at this point, it's been over two years of smell loss," she says. "They're wondering, 'Why me? Why do I still have smell loss compared to so many of my friends, colleagues, family members who have recovered?'"
Doctors have struggled to explain what causes it. "Clinically, when you look at these patients and you look in their noses, everything looks pristine," she says. "So this is happening on a molecular level."
For Yan, the research about the localized immune response supports other research she's done into platelet-rich plasma as a treatment for smell loss. "What we found in the clinical trial is actually PRP has a greater likelihood of improving outcomes for covid 19-related smell loss compared to placebo," she says, cautioning that PRP, which has anti-inflammatory qualities, isn't "magic bullet" and needs more in-depth research - but seems promising.
And the stakes are high. With smell, Yan says, comes your ability to enjoy food and the environment around you. It even affects how you connect with others. "I've had patients actually come to see me and say 'I'm a little embarrassed to come see you. I didn't think it was a big deal. I just lost my sense of smell, but it's actually impacted my quality of life significantly.'"
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2022-12-22T17:43:46Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Scientists have a theory on covid loss of smell: Damage to nasal cells | Coronavirus | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/health/coronavirus/scientists-have-a-theory-on-covid-loss-of-smell-damage-to-nasal-cells/article_f088e561-15f0-59e7-8923-bfb0a6c76386.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/health/coronavirus/scientists-have-a-theory-on-covid-loss-of-smell-damage-to-nasal-cells/article_f088e561-15f0-59e7-8923-bfb0a6c76386.html
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A national settlement with opioid makers Teva Pharmaceuticals and Allergan will produce $33.3 million for New Hampshire.
That brings the state’s share of various opioid-related settlements this year to at least $163.8 million.
The latest $33.3 million is part of a $6.6 billion national settlement that will include critical business practice changes and transparency requirements.
“This settlement helps hold these companies accountable for their role in contributing to the opioid epidemic and will provide Granite Staters struggling with opioid addiction the services they need to recover,” Gov. Chris Sununu said in a statement.
Teva will pay $20.9 million to New Hampshire and Allergan $12.4 million.
These settlements “will also require these companies to make changes to reduce the risk of addicting patients,” said Attorney General Formella said.
Two major national settlements with major pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens have been announced and are under consideration by the New Hampshire Attorney General's office, with decisions expected by the end of the year.
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2022-12-22T17:43:52Z
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NH to receive $33.3 million in opioid settlements | Health | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/health/nh-to-receive-33-3-million-in-opioid-settlements/article_fdef25f4-6b97-58f5-9b2c-13f4afb4d548.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/health/nh-to-receive-33-3-million-in-opioid-settlements/article_fdef25f4-6b97-58f5-9b2c-13f4afb4d548.html
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By Ellen Nakashima The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - U.S. Cyber Command has begun to make routine use of offensive cyber actions to defend the nation, taking aim this fall at Russian and Iranian hackers before they had a chance to disrupt the midterm elections, according to three U.S. officials.
This year, the command's Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF) went after many of the same foreign entities, including those affiliated with the Russian and Iranian governments and their proxies, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.
In a media roundtable this month at Fort Meade, Md., Gen. Paul Nakasone, who heads both Cybercom and the National Security Agency, the world's most powerful electronic spying agency, talked about how Cybercom went on the offense during the midterms, though he did not specify targets.
"We did conduct operations persistently to make sure that our foreign adversaries couldn't utilize infrastructure to impact us," said Nakasone. "We understood how foreign adversaries utilize infrastructure throughout the world. We had that mapped pretty well. And we wanted to make sure that we took it down at key times."
Nakasone noted that Cybercom's national mission force, aided by NSA, followed a "campaign plan" to deprive the hackers of their tools and networks. "Rest assured," he said. "We were doing operations well before the midterms began, and we were doing operations likely on the day of the midterms." And they continued until the elections were certified, he said.
"This is what 'persistent engagement' is," he added. "This is the idea of understanding your foreign adversaries and operating outside the United States."
In a joint statement, the two agencies said: "We do not comment on cyber operations, plans or activities and wouldn't speculate where and who those cyber operations were directed towards."
Maj. Gen. Joe Hartman, who leads the Cyber National Mission Force, in a news conference Monday sought to demystify offensive operations. "It is certainly one of the things we do on a daily basis," he said, explaining that his team targets the tools a hacker needs to conduct attacks: a computer, an internet connection, malware.
"We do everything we can to make it hard for our adversaries to use that ecosystem to threaten the U.S., allies and partners," he said, speaking at a ceremony to raise CNMF to the status of a "sub-unified" command, similar to Joint Special Operations Command.
Nakasone noted that although there were "plenty of foreign influence operations" in the midterms, compared to previous elections "there was a lessened degree of activity." He did not elaborate on why that may be the case, for instance, whether it's because Russia was occupied elsewhere or because of CNMF's actions.
He did say, however, that he did not see new tactics or tools. "And I saw the same foreign adversaries that I've seen before, a lot of the same ones - the proxies and the elements of the Russian and Iranian governments that do this type of work," he said.
One strategy that Nakasone has carried out is "hunting forward," or examining the computer systems of foreign partners, at their invitation, to look for malware and other tools that adversaries such as Russia use. "When we go to a foreign country, we want to see what adversaries are doing on other networks which might impact us," he explained.
Then Cybercom or NSA shares the malware with cybersecurity companies so they can help their clients in the broader private sector detect and remove it from their networks. "The exposure becomes an antidote," he said. "I am trying to make it as costly for our adversaries to operate in terms of their time, money, and focus."
CNMF carried out hunt forward operations in Ukraine at the beginning of the year before Russia's February invasion, in Lithuania in the spring and Croatia in the summer, officials said. In total the force has deployed 38 times to 21 countries since 2018, officials said.
"Hunt Forward missions give you an ability to understand the importance and the fortitude of what your partner is dealing with," Nakasone said. "It also allows them to up their game with the security of their networks."
Nakasone said CNMF told him in January that the cyberthreat to Ukraine was "really serious" and that at the team's urging, the Ukrainians were moving to shore up defenses. "They've done a lot of work to look at the critical infrastructure and move data from inside Ukraine to cloud storage outside of the country," he said.
Hartman said that since the invasion, CNMF and Ukraine's cyber defenders have exchanged "thousands" of digital warning indicators to help Cybercom learn more about adversaries and Ukraine to thwart cyberattacks.
But the combination of better defense, enabled by heightened information sharing between Ukraine and its partners, as well as smart tactics like moving data to the cloud, helped Kyiv withstand Russia's cyberattacks.
Not to say there's no future risk.
"This is an adversary that is not through," Nakasone said at the Reagan National Defense Forum earlier this month in California. "And we remain very, very vigilant."
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2022-12-22T17:43:58Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Cybercom disrupted Russian and Iranian hackers throughout the midterms | Voters First | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/voters/cybercom-disrupted-russian-and-iranian-hackers-throughout-the-midterms/article_02f9ba7d-3ab4-5935-aacd-40252fc40e48.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/voters/cybercom-disrupted-russian-and-iranian-hackers-throughout-the-midterms/article_02f9ba7d-3ab4-5935-aacd-40252fc40e48.html
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Earlier this year, New York City's Department of Parks and Recreation tried to accommodate the influx of people playing America's fastest-growing sport -- part tennis, part ping-pong and all the rage. To do so, officials in the spring painted two pickleball courts at Cpl. John A. Seravalli Playground, a one-acre park in the heart of Manhattan's West Village.
Less than a year later, parks officials have now banned pickleball from Seravalli after repeated clashes between players and other parkgoers, especially parents with young children who'd come to Seravalli for years to ride bikes, inline skate and toss a baseball.
The battle at Seravalli is but one example of pickleballers stepping on toes as more people decide to play and seek an ever-increasing number of courts on which to do so.
Some 10,000 facilities registered with USA Pickleball, the nonprofit governing body of the sport, with an average of three new ones opening every day.
Once confined to retirement communities, pickleball has exploded and shows no signs of slowing down.
The number of people playing the sport reached nearly 5 million last year, almost double what it was five years ago, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association data cited by NPR.
There are three professional leagues vying for players, customers and advertisers as they jockey for supremacy. And communities are scrambling to find space to build courts for millions of new pickleballers who add to their ranks every day.
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2022-12-22T20:43:30Z
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Pickleballers and parents clashed at a NYC park. Now the sport's banned. | Back Page | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/pickleballers-and-parents-clashed-at-a-nyc-park-now-the-sports-banned/article_57d34323-f64d-5bc5-b521-9331ab5b2b5c.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/pickleballers-and-parents-clashed-at-a-nyc-park-now-the-sports-banned/article_57d34323-f64d-5bc5-b521-9331ab5b2b5c.html
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By Gerry Smith and Julia Love Bloomberg
Alphabet Inc. won the right to broadcast the National Football League's Sunday Ticket games starting with the 2023 season, becoming the latest tech company to snag a piece of America's most-watched sport.
It will be available on both YouTube TV - an online, cable-TV alternative service - and YouTube Primetime Channels, a way to subscribe directly to pay-TV channels like Showtime and Starz. The deal will likely provide YouTube TV, which costs $65 a month, with a significant subscriber boost, analysts say.
NFL Sunday Ticket is available through the end of this season from satellite-TV provider DirecTV, which charges about $300 for the package. YouTube's pricing plans weren't disclosed.
For the NFL, signing with YouTube is a "massive win," said Daniel Cohen, executive vice president of media rights consulting at Octagon.
The league got a good price and built another relationship with a deep-pocketed tech company that could bid on future NFL broadcast rights, Cohen added. In addition to selling Thursday night NFL games to Amazon.com, the league reached a deal with Apple this fall to sponsor its Super Bowl halftime show.
"To the extent that we're partners on that, we will be very helpful," Rob Thun, DirecTV's chief content officer, said in an interview this fall. "To the extent that we're not, we don't really have a lot of skin in the game to help them take on those new customers."
DirecTV is also interested in reselling Sunday Ticket to rural customers who don't have strong enough internet to stream the games, Thun said. Additionally, the company is hoping to keep airing games in bars and restaurants. It recently made a similar arrangement with Amazon for Thursday Night Football.
"It makes a heck of a lot of sense for us to be a partner on the commercial front, given that those relationships have taken years to establish and cultivate," Thun said.
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2022-12-22T20:43:33Z
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www.unionleader.com
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YouTube to pay $14 billion for NFL's Sunday Ticket rights | Back Page | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/youtube-to-pay-14-billion-for-nfls-sunday-ticket-rights/article_b9d3af6d-24c1-5a77-8a32-7588c382cf21.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/youtube-to-pay-14-billion-for-nfls-sunday-ticket-rights/article_b9d3af6d-24c1-5a77-8a32-7588c382cf21.html
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A tableware factory in Newell, West Virginia, on July 22, 2021.
The figures highlight how despite rising interest rates and rapid inflation, consumer and business demand remains solid. A strong labor market and wage growth has underpinned household spending, but it's unclear whether Americans will be able to maintain that spending momentum into 2023.
Meanwhile, a key inflation gauge - the personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy - rose an annualized 4.7% in the third quarter, up slightly from the previous estimate. November monthly data will be released Friday.
Another key official gauge of activity - known as gross domestic income - rose at a 0.8% rate. When averaged with GDP, a measure watched closely by those who determine the timing of recessions, it climbed a firmer 2%.
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2022-12-22T20:43:41Z
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U.S. third-quarter GDP revised higher to 3.2% on firmer spending | Business | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/u-s-third-quarter-gdp-revised-higher-to-3-2-on-firmer-spending/article_f04eaec6-6f41-52ec-bc2c-8cc168821ab1.html
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Pope Francis greets a child and other people as he arrives to lead a special audience to deliver a Christmas message to Vatican workers at the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, December 22, 2022.
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis on Thursday denounced psychological violence and abuse of power in the Church, as the case of a prominent priest accused of exploiting his authority to sexually abuse nuns has rocked the Vatican.
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2022-12-22T20:43:50Z
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Pope denounces psychological abuse as Jesuit case rocks Church | Religion | unionleader.com
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Travelers at Reagan Washington National Airport on Thursday morning. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by John McDonnell.
By Tyler Clifford Reuters
DETROIT — A massive winter storm system enveloped a vast stretch of the United States on Thursday, threatening to upend the travel plans of millions of Americans ahead of what could turn out to be one of the coldest Christmas Days on record in many cities.
Leading into the holiday weekend, the storm is expected to bring blizzard conditions to the Great Lakes region, up to 2 inches of rain followed by a flash freeze on the East Coast, wind gusts of 60 miles per hour and bitter cold as far south as the Mexican border.
As the storm moves over the Great Lakes, a weather phenomenon known as a bomb cyclone is expected to develop due to “the abrupt deepening of this low pressure system,” the National Weather Service said.
In its wake, the cyclone could spawn snowfalls of a half inch an hour and winds of more than 50 mph in the Upper Midwest and interior Northeast, the weather service said.
Philadelphia could see temperatures fall to 15 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, near a previous low from 1943, while Sioux City, Iowa, could end up at minus 14F, surpassing a record from the 1980s.
The American Automobile Association (AAA) estimates 112.7 million people plan to travel 50 miles or more from home between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2, an increase of 3.6 million people over last year and closing in on pre-pandemic numbers.
The frigid air mass that had already enveloped northern states was pushing south through central Oklahoma and northwestern Texas, where the mercury is expected to plunge to about 10F on Thursday. Combined with wind gusts of up to 60 mph, wind chills could go as low as minus 40F.
Georgia on Wednesday joined North Carolina and Kentucky in declaring states of emergency. Temperatures in north Georgia were forecast to hit 10F with subzero wind chills.
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2022-12-22T23:24:21Z
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Massive winter storm threatens holiday travel for millions of Americans | National | unionleader.com
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By Echo Wang and David Shepardson Reuters
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON -- Popular short-video app TikTok is offering to operate more of its business at arm's length and subject it to outside scrutiny as it tries to convince the U.S. government to allow it to remain under the ownership of Chinese technology company ByteDance, according to people familiar with the matter.
U.S. lawmakers seeking to crack down on China as part of a broader set of disputes over trade, intellectual property and human rights have seized on the security concerns over TikTok to pressure the White House to take a hard line.
TikTok has already unveiled several measures aimed at appeasing the U.S. government, including an agreement for Oracle Corp. to store the data of the app's users in the United States and a United States Data Security (USDS) division to oversee data protection and content moderation decisions. It has spent $1.5 billion on hiring and reorganization costs to build up that unit, according to a source familiar with the matter.
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2022-12-22T23:24:33Z
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TikTok steps up efforts to clinch U.S. security deal | National | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/national/tiktok-steps-up-efforts-to-clinch-u-s-security-deal/article_63cd0d2f-23c9-569c-be2b-45d0430a7590.html
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A rendering of the Chick-fil-A coming to Newington Park Shopping Center, which will include three drive-thru lanes.
The former Moko Japanese Steakhouse at the Newington Park Shopping Center is set to be transformed into a Chick-fil-A fast food restaurant with three drive-thru lanes.
The lanes will allow 46 vehicles to queue up as customers wait for their chicken sandwiches and the brand’s signature sauce. The chain says it created the “original chicken sandwich” with two pickles on a toasted butter bun in 1964.
This will be New Hampshire’s fourth Chick-fil-A with two in Nashua and the other at Tuscan Village in Salem. Every Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays.
The Newington Planning Board on Monday approved a site plan for the 5,000-square-foot restaurant with 94 seats. The conservation commission approved a landscaping plan earlier this month.
Torrington bought the property in the fall of 2021.
Further plans are in the works to redevelop the shopping center, according to Bob Clarke of Allen & Major Associates. In October, Torrington bought the vacant Sears store at the Mall at Fox Run nearby for $11.5 million, according to a news release.
The company plans to plant 85 new trees in and around the entrance to the plaza. A sidewalk will be added along Woodbury Avenue.
“The attraction of Chick-fil-A here is to get some action and activity down to that side of town,” said Gregg Mikolaities, a consultant for Torrington, at the Conservation Commission meeting.
There appears to be a demand with a change.org online petition circulating to bring Chick-fil-A to the Mall at Fox Run. The petition mentions vacant commercial real estate with few new businesses opening in town.
“The nearest (Chick-fil-A) location is in Nashua, NH and many people drive over an hour just to gather some crispy chicken,” the petition reads.
Drive-thrus with three lanes appear to be a growing trend with Burger King and Taco Bell also using the design. Chick-fil-A often has employees outdoors during peak hours for both ordering and payments.
The restaurant expects to hire 25 people.
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2022-12-23T01:48:44Z
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Chick-fil-A with drive-thru to open at former Moko restaurant in Newington | Business | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/chick-fil-a-with-drive-thru-to-open-at-former-moko-restaurant-in-newington/article_694f4d30-60d6-5558-8e14-bfe240238f92.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/chick-fil-a-with-drive-thru-to-open-at-former-moko-restaurant-in-newington/article_694f4d30-60d6-5558-8e14-bfe240238f92.html
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DEWISPELAERE
By John DeWispelaere of McLane Middleton
Q: I wanted to start my own business, so I created a New Hampshire corporation by filing articles of incorporation with the New Hampshire secretary of state.
While I was researching how to establish a New Hampshire corporation, I saw that once the corporation is formed, I need to have a meeting of the incorporator to elect a board of directors, a meeting of the board of directors to issue shares in the corporation and to adopt bylaws of the corporation. I only intend for this to be a small business, and I am the only owner, so do I still need to do all of those things?
A: This is a very common question business lawyers are asked. Even if you are the lone incorporator and intend to be the sole shareholder, it is still imperative that you finish “setting up your business.”
When you finish setting up your business, aside from complying with the New Hampshire Business Corporation Act, you solidify and document the ownership of the company. In addition, documented ownership of the shares of the company and a copy of the bylaws will need to be provided to a lender if the company ever needed to obtain financing from a financial institution, or if you were ever in a position to sell the company to a third party.
While you can document and reconstitute the company after the fact — the election of the initial board of the directors by the incorporator and the issuance of shares by the initial board of directors — this is not without risk.
If these actions were documented after the fact, especially the issuance of shares of the company, this creates risk to the company as a third party could question this documentation and state that they too were entitled to shares of the company. While you may never be able to protect against a third party claiming they were entitled to shares of a company, if the initial issuance of shares is documented, this documentation makes the argument from a third party that much more difficult to make.
Overall, while it may be more work at the onset to finish setting up your business, or it may cost you a little more money to do so, it is always worth it in the end.
John DeWispelaere can be reached at John.DeWispelaere@mclane.com
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2022-12-23T01:48:50Z
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Know The Law: Complete setting up your business | Business | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/columns/know-the-law-complete-setting-up-your-business/article_2da49ef7-d10a-581f-b67b-b2cb97f84d1c.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/columns/know-the-law-complete-setting-up-your-business/article_2da49ef7-d10a-581f-b67b-b2cb97f84d1c.html
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Timing is everything. No extensions are available beyond Dec. 31. And penalties for failing to take RMDs from traditional IRAs on time are severe.
Yet delays are not uncommon. As of Nov. 11, Fidelity Investments had an estimated 1.5 million IRA customers still needing to fulfill their RMDs for 2022.
Roughly 1 in 3 of these individuals had not yet taken any 2022 withdrawals to satisfy their RMDs.
Another 27% withdrew some — but not all — of their RMDs for 2022.
Were these individuals waiting for an up market before taking their RMDs?
RMDs for a given year are based on the previous year’s Dec. 31 value of the account. And, unfortunately, the RMD does not adjust downward if the IRA value declines during the RMD year.
And, indeed, values did decline in 2022.
Fidelity Investments’ quarterly reports tell the story. A year ago, the average IRA balance was $135,700 (third quarter of 2021); now it’s $101,900 (third quarter of 2022) (tinyurl.com/mph9v9hf).
The RMD measuring date (Dec. 31, 2021) happened to be close to a market high. The average Fidelity IRA account balance was $135,600 on Dec. 31, 2021 (tinyurl.com/y728p7ks).
Think of an “average” 95-year-old with a Dec. 31, 2021, balance of $135,600 whose account is now down to $101,900. His 2022 RMD would be $15,236, or 11.2% of the Dec. 31 value. That’s 15% of its current value.
Using the same figures, a 75-year-old’s 2022 RMD would be $5,512, again irrespective of the current value. That’s 4.1% of the measuring date value and 5.4% of the current value.
The divisor for a 95-year-old under Table III (Uniform Lifetime) is 8.9, whereas someone who is 75 has a divisor of 24.6 (tinyurl.com/yc6tx8dh).
I’ve broken it down below.
First, for the 95-year-old:
IRA value on Dec. 31, 2021: $135,600
Divisor: 8.9
RMD for 2022: $15,236
RMD as a percentage of the IRA’s value on Dec. 31, 2021: 11.2%
IRA value on Sept. 30, 2022: $101,900
RMD as a percentage of the IRA’s value on Sept. 30, 2022: 15%
Now for the 75-year-old:
Divisor: 24.6
RMD for 2022: $5,512
RMD as a percentage of the IRA’s value on Dec. 31, 2021: 4.1%
RMD as a percentage of the IRA’s value on Sept. 30, 2022: 5.4%
If you could predict down years, you would take your RMD in the beginning of the year. The opposite would hold true in an up year — i.e., you’d prefer to wait.
You might be wondering if the RMD can exceed the value of the IRA if investments tank. Yes, hypothetically, that can happen if the IRA holds highly speculative investments that have fallen dramatically during the year.
If that unlikely, but possible, event were to occur, the RMD would “never exceed the entire account balance on the date of distribution,” according to an IRS Q&A (Question 1 at 26 CFR Section 1.401(a)(9)-5 at tinyurl.com/45wfz7rd).
Before leaving this subject, if your IRA’s value has declined this year and you’d like to turn that negative into a positive, consider making a qualified charitable distribution (QCD). Note that since a QCD involves donating IRA money to charity, a QCD won’t help someone who depends on his RMD to pay living expenses.
As the IRS points out, QCDs “offer eligible older Americans a great way to easily give to charity before the end of the year” (tinyurl.com/nhaan5ys).
The QCD allows you to donate to charity with RMD money; by doing that, you avoid an income tax bill on the RMD. There are special rules that need to be followed to qualify for a QCD. Plus, if your RMD is greater than $100,000, only $100,000 is tax-free. By the way, anyone over 70½ can do a QCD, even though there are no RMDs for owners of IRAs until age 72.
If you haven’t taken 2022 RMD action yet, now is the time. Don’t delay. And, next year, start earlier.
For more information on QCDs, see IRS Publication 590-B at tinyurl.com/yc6tx8dh. With all of this, consult with your tax adviser before taking any action.
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2022-12-23T01:48:56Z
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'Your Money': Don't forget your 2022 RMD | Business | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/columns/your-money-dont-forget-your-2022-rmd/article_5deb4133-8c69-556a-a5ec-aff6dc7e5e29.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/columns/your-money-dont-forget-your-2022-rmd/article_5deb4133-8c69-556a-a5ec-aff6dc7e5e29.html
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Tmall Supermarket branded cardboard boxes at a packaging station at a Cainiao warehouse, the logistics subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, China, on Nov. 9, 2020.
North American companies that make the raw material for corrugated boxes shut down nearly 1 million tons of capacity in the third quarter, and a similar scenario is expected for the fourth quarter, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ryan Fox said. Prices are falling for the first time since 2020.
Bloomberg’s Daniela Sirtori-Cortina and Olivia Rockeman contributed to this report.
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2022-12-23T01:49:09Z
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The world is using fewer cardboard boxes. That's a bad sign for the economy. | Business | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/the-world-is-using-fewer-cardboard-boxes-thats-a-bad-sign-for-the-economy/article_ed06a7bd-f06a-51ee-a605-71cdf7cba1bb.html
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A federal jury convicted Bitcoin trader, libertarian activist and radio personality Ian Freeman on all felony charges Thursday related to his cryptocurrency business.
Freeman’s defense attorney, Mark Sisti, did not return a telephone call seeking comment on the verdict on Thursday.
“The culture of scamming through the internet has become a pervasive societal problem,” said U.S. Attorney Jane Young in a statement. “These scammers get away with their crimes, which often victimize some of our most vulnerable citizens, by hiding their tracks, including the money trail. Money launderers such as Ian Freeman are the ones who help hide the money for these scammers.”
“Today’s swift verdict sends a strong message that this type of money laundering will not be tolerated,” added Young.
Joleen Simpson, Special Agent in Charge of IRS-Criminal Investigation’s Boston Field Office, said Freeman is “another example of an individual who attempted to conceal the true source of his money and was caught.”
“Federal laws that regulate the reporting of financial transactions are in place to detect and stop illegal activities and the IRS will continue to take every step necessary to ferret out those who attempt to avoid their reporting obligations under the law,” said Simpson in a statement.
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2022-12-23T01:49:15Z
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Freeman found guilty on all counts in federal crypto-currency trial | Courts | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/courts/freeman-found-guilty-on-all-counts-in-federal-crypto-currency-trial/article_f9c1dd71-3e63-5156-a49e-af915b9e3b1c.html
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Landscaper Mike Ragonese uses a loader to move dirt at a townhouse development on Portsmouth Avenue in Greenland on Dec. 5. The development, Farmhouses at Founders Square, is in a part of town where higher-density housing is permitted thanks to access to Portsmouth’s public water system.
Surveyor Lawson Smith works at a townhouse development on Portsmouth Avenue in Greenland on Dec. 5, 2022.
Realtor Evan Douglass, left, and Builder Jay Lajeunesse speak with a reporter at their new development on Portsmouth Avenue in Greenland on Dec. 5, 2022.
Builder Jay Lajeunesse and Realtor Evan Douglass at their townhouse development, The Farmhouses at Founders Square, off Portsmouth Avenue in Greenland.
This home is being built along the Merrimack River on Brown Avenue in Manchester.
Greenland development
Kendra Lebwohl sold her condo in downtown Boston in June and looked at relocating to downtown Portsmouth. But instead she moved into a Greenland townhouse last month.
“You’ve got the proximity of all the amenities that you’d want from Portsmouth downtown, but it’s just calmer here,” said Lebwohl, who works from home.
Lebwohl, 46, bought a newly built, two-bedroom townhouse with a dedicated office for north of $700,000. She is less than a 10-minute drive from downtown Portsmouth.
Adjacent to Portsmouth and Great Bay, Greenland saw the second-highest spike in the median price for a home this year of any community south of the White Mountains, according to a New Hampshire Sunday News review.
Visiting Greenland on a recent day, Ingrid Nicholson, who works for the nonprofit volunteer group Safe Families for Children, called the town’s $890,000 median price “crazy.”
The statewide median price for a house hit a record milestone this year, but prices grew by vastly different amounts town by town, sometimes by large spreads in adjoining communities.
The changes varied from an increase of $592,500 in Waterville Valley to a decrease of $38,000 in Seabrook, according to sales data provided by the New Hampshire Association of Realtors.
Of more than 115 communities, only six registered decreases in 2022. One stayed even.
Higher prices and doubled interest rates this year made home purchases less affordable.
A family looking to buy a median-priced house this year — $442,524 — would need to earn about $126,000 annually to afford paying just the 30-year mortgage’s principal and interest. It would require $150,000 if including an allowance for property taxes and home insurance, according to New Hampshire Housing.
Both numbers are more than $50,000 higher than if that family bought a median-priced home last year, assuming a 5% down payment, which is typical for a first-time buyer.
“The ability of people to buy new homes is diminished” from a year ago, said Rob Dapice, executive director and CEO at New Hampshire Housing.
Part of the problem is that builders are not putting up enough new housing.
Statewide, communities in 2020 issued building permits for 4,446 housing units — twice as many as this century’s low in 2011 but less than half the number from 2003, according to New Hampshire Housing.
Many families can’t afford to buy a house — or even find a place to rent. Others struggle to scrounge up the first month’s rent and security deposit, according to Nicholson.
“Even if they can afford it, they can’t find a place to live,” she said.
Here’s how prices varied by community clusters in three areas across New Hampshire this year:
The Seacoast
The two places in the southern tier where median home prices grew by the highest dollar amount are on the Seacoast: North Hampton and Greenland.
Greenland’s median price increased by nearly a quarter-million dollars during the first 10 months of 2022 over the same period a year earlier — nearly five times more than the price rise statewide.
Greenland often isn’t on a homebuyer’s map, said Evan Douglass, an agent at Proulx Real Estate at Keller Williams Coastal Realty.
“Sometimes, they start looking in Portsmouth and then they see the prices and they say, ‘Oh, what is around Portsmouth?’ ” Douglass said.
Last year, Greenland, Portsmouth and North Hampton had median prices within $22,400 of each other. This year, that gap is 10 times as much, with Greenland in the middle.
“People want to be close to Portsmouth; the next town over is Greenland,” said John Rice, a Realtor and chief statistician for the Seacoast Board of Realtors.
“Greenland is one of those towns that offers a rural feel,” Rice said. “It has nice athletic facilities, a good little school system,” and “you’re not that far from downtown Portsmouth.”
Greenland generally has a 1.5-acre minimum for house lots.
But Jay Lajeunesse, owner of River Birch Builders in Portsmouth, was able to build nine townhouses — including the one Kendra Lebwohl bought — and renovate an 18th-century farmhouse on two acres in Greenland thanks to a small high-density district where more housing units are allowed. That’s because that area of town is connected to Portsmouth’s municipal water system, while most of the town relies on wells and septic.
“The bonus on high-density development is you can really impact the housing supply with a smaller piece of land, and land is hard to come by, especially on the Seacoast,” he said.
Greenland isn’t the only hot spot.
“The entire market right here in the southeast part of Rockingham County, not just our town but all of our surrounding towns, all of them are experiencing very high sale prices,” said Paul Sanderson, Greenland’s town administrator.
“Together, we are much more of a consistent market,” Sanderson said.
Douglass said builders and real estate agents “rely heavily” on comparisons to similar projects in neighboring communities to help set their prices. Appraisers do the same in determining a house’s market value, which is used to calculate a borrower’s mortgage, Douglass said.
A similar townhouse in Portsmouth was selling for $200,000 more than those in the Greenland development, called Farmhouses at Founders Square, Douglass said.
“If someone wants to be walking distance to downtown Portsmouth, they’re going to buy downtown Portsmouth. But someone who wants to just be around Portsmouth, they’re open to North Hampton and Greenland,” Douglass said.
North Hampton’s median-priced house hit $975,000 this year, more than 50% higher than just a year ago.
Unlike Greenland, North Hampton affords ocean views. It had 24 homes sell for at least $1 million this year, compared to 15 last year.
“I think North Hampton buyers are looking for a more ‘country’ lifestyle, yet close to all amenities,” Rice said. “It’s closer to Massachusetts and the greater Boston area as well. We see the bulk of our buyers from Massachusetts, New York and California.”
Candia’s home prices increased by 31% to $575,000 this year, double the price rise in next-door Auburn.
“I think people might have gotten priced out of Auburn and bumped into the next town over,” said Realtor Moe Archambault. “Probably why you achieved a spike in these towns is that people don’t move in and out very often.”
Just south of Manchester, prices grew by only $30,000 in Litchfield, which saw 31 fewer homes sell this year, compared with 2021.
That “probably points to a lack of development,” said Archambault, owner and broker at Moe Marketing Realty Group in Bedford.
Reggie Moreau, owner of RJ Moreau Family Properties in Manchester, is planning to build 66 townhouses in Litchfield on 40 acres off Route 3A.
“We’re just waiting on state approvals and have been for a long time,” Moreau said.
“The rental market is so strong,” Moreau said, that he decided to rent the units rather than sell them.
Current market rate rent is $2,500 to $3,000 a month, but he hasn’t decided on what to charge. He hopes the first tenants can move in by late spring.
Builders face many challenges, including securing local approvals.
Chester greenlighted a 64-home subdivision, but Moreau needs approval from the town next door.
“The access to the neighborhood is in Candia, and Candia would prefer not to have that access on a road in Candia,” Moreau said.
Builders can’t build homes fast enough to meet demand.
“We’ve got projects that were sold out ahead and could sell further ahead,” Moreau said. “We’re limiting the number of houses that we’re building based on our ability to get them done.”
Highway access plays a role in living in Candia, according to Realtor Rachel Eames.
“It just has a lot going for it, proximity-wise,” Eames said. Route 101’s Exit 3 provides easy access to Manchester and the Seacoast.
“You can still buy that much more (house) in Candia than on the Seacoast,” said Eames, owner/broker at RE/MAX Capital Realty in Concord and RE/MAX Coastal Living in Newmarket.
“People do like Candia because of the school district” and the option to send high school students to Pinkerton Academy in Derry, according to Greg Powers, an agent with Keller Williams Realty Metropolitan in Bedford.
Five homes sold for $695,000 or higher this year in Candia, including two for more than $1 million.
Candia’s sales ranged from $329,900 for a 62-year-old Cape to $1.25 million for a house built in 1985 on almost 10 acres of land.
The Lakes Region
Home prices in the Lakes Region often depend on proximity to water or spectacular views.
Neighbors Moultonborough, Tuftonboro and Wolfeboro run from north to south along the eastern shore of Lake Winnipesaukee.
Why did the median price fall in Moultonborough by nearly $15,000 while Tuftonboro and Wolfeboro grew by more than $120,000 each?
It’s all about the water.
Moultonborough had 29 waterfront sales this year, compared to 45 in 2021.
Moultonborough also had a dozen fewer homes sell for $1 million or more this year.
“It shows you waterfront isn’t selling as much up there” in Moultonborough, said Realtor Adam Dow, CEO of the Dow Realty Group at Keller Williams Realty, which covers the Seacoast to the North Country.
Waterfront homes generally fetch more money, so fewer sales can drag down the median price.
This year’s sales in Moultonborough ranged from a remodeled, two-bedroom home on five acres for $215,000 to a seven-bedroom waterfront mansion with seven times more square footage for $8.1 million.
Wolfeboro saw four times as many homes as last year sell for $1 million or more. And 17 waterfront homes sold this year, compared to three last year.
Tuftonboro saw a drop in waterfront and million-dollar-plus homes in 2022.
Tuftonboro’s sales this year included a $9.4 million property on Lake Winnipesaukee and a $3.25 million home on the Big Lake, as well as a home on Aspen Drive for $160,000.
People waiting for home prices to drop substantially shouldn’t count on relief in the coming half-year.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think six months is going to make a difference for folks locked out of the market right now,” Eames the Realtor said. “My best advice is to continue to save and continue to work on their credit if that is a situation they find themselves in, so hopefully things will change, but I don’t think six months will do it.”
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2022-12-23T01:49:39Z
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Home prices grew by leaps and bigger leaps in 2022 | Homes & Garden | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/homes/home-prices-grew-by-leaps-and-bigger-leaps-in-2022/article_d7a5f93c-66f3-54a4-9cc6-5d09d1c3c217.html
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Registered nurses Elizabeth Vozzella of Manchester, left, and Alexandra Lominy of Hooksett who work with the CMC Health Care for the Homeless program, read the names of those who passed away in 2022 during Wednesday night’s vigil.
Anna Thomas the public health director for Manchester, front, and Rossana Goding, next to her, the director of health care for the CMC Health Care for the Homeless program, took part in the vigil.
Mayor Joyce Craig, front left, read a proclamation to make this an official day in Manchester.
Luminaries were lit in Veterans Park and vigil participants were urged to bring them home and keep them lit for the evening.
Pat Fennelly of Manchester, and Ken Grinnell, right, sang with the Grace Episcopal Church Choir during the vigil.
Remembering the homeless who died in Manchester this year was held on Wednesday.
Elizabeth Vozzella of Manchester and Alexandra Lominy of Hooksett
For the sixth consecutive year, advocates, health care workers, members of the faith community and others gathered in the cold on Wednesday evening to remember those with no home.
Wednesday, the winter solstice, is the longest night of the year. It is also set aside as National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day.
Catholic Medical Center’s Health Care for the Homeless, Families in Transition — NH, Hope for NH Recovery, The Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester, and the NH Coalition to End Homelessness, along with members of Grace Episcopal Church and its choir were on hand for the tribute to the homeless and formerly homeless. The 31 names of those who died in Manchester in 2022 were read.
Luminaries for those men and women were lit in Veterans Park and participants were urged to bring them home and keep them lit for the evening. Similar ceremonies took place across the country.
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2022-12-23T01:49:45Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Manchester vigil remembers the homeless who died this year | Human Interest | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/human_interest/manchester-vigil-remembers-the-homeless-who-died-this-year/article_28c24a25-9984-501d-b5a3-8aa11e7802e3.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/human_interest/manchester-vigil-remembers-the-homeless-who-died-this-year/article_28c24a25-9984-501d-b5a3-8aa11e7802e3.html
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THE PRESIDENT OF a city basketball league in the news after an alderman suggested using city funds to pay for some kids to play is speaking out, saying statements by local officials made “publicly or otherwise” that the league is a “for profit” company are inaccurate.
“I don’t know where it’s coming from,” said Chris Morgan, founder of the Manchester Basketball League. “We’re working hard to make sure kids have the opportunity to play sports. I don’t know where it came from. None of it really makes any sense.”
Alderman Pat Long made a motion earlier this month to allocate up to $15,000 in contingency funds to cover the cost for some students to play in the Manchester Basketball League, created by Morgan, a Manchester resident and 1987 Central graduate. Long claimed hundreds of students cut from school-run basketball teams want to play basketball but can’t afford the league’s $68 registration fee.
That motion failed on a 11-2-1 vote, with only Long and Bill Barry in favor. Joe Kelly Levasseur abstained.
Manchester school officials said recently they wouldn’t support giving $15,000 to a private city basketball league.
“I would find it amazing that a Board of Mayor and Aldermen or school board would decide to make a donation to a private for-profit company for no reason other than they asked for it,” said school board Vice Chairman Jim O’Connell. “It’s a private enterprise that happens on Sunday in the city of Manchester.
”If we are in the business of giving stipends, grants or monies to sports in the city of Manchester, disconnected from the school district, there are lots of organizations for profit that would like to be part of the bidding process for that money.”
This week, Morgan disputed these and other claims, saying the Manchester Basketball League is run by the Manchester Youth Sports Foundation, which is registered as a 501©(3) charitable organization with the state .
“The Manchester Youth Sports Foundation tries to raise funds to provide needy families in the city an opportunity to play sports at no cost,” Morgan said. “There is so much good that we are doing for hundreds of kids who cannot afford to play sports in Manchester, and unfortunately the politics seems to have gotten in the way of what is really important.”
Morgan said the Manchester Youth Sports Foundation has had a partnership with the Manchester School District and the city’s Parks and Recreation Department for the past few years, enabling all kids to play in organized leagues for free.
“We recently brought back the Manchester Soccer League on the West Side, with over 250 kids playing at no cost,” Morgan said.
Morgan said more than 190 kids — almost half the Manchester Basketball League’s players — participate at no cost. He expects the league, which starts its second season on Feb. 19, to double in size.
“We offer all who don’t make their school team (a chance) to play in our league at no cost,” Morgan said. “As a nonprofit organization our goal is to provide underprivileged youth in the city of Manchester the opportunity to play sports. Manchester funds many nonprofits that perform great services to our citizens — we honestly feel this one does too.”
Morgan said it is not well-known that about 300 kids were cut from basketball teams at local schools.
“That’s a lot of kids,” Morgan. “We have captured about 156 of those kids, out of about 300 total. The way the league operates, we charge $68 and say if you can pay, we appreciate it. There’s got to be some revenue or we can’t operate. But there are a ton that can’t pay and they play for free — we will never turn anyone down. We have a lot of kids that play for free.”
Morgan said he thinks the request as presented to aldermen “wasn’t totally clear.”
“It just wasn’t presented well, and there was pushback right from the start,” Morgan said. “I’m not sure where that is coming from.”
At this week’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen meeting, Barry made another motion for up to $15,000 to cover scholarships for the league. The motion, seconded by Long, failed again, with Levasseur again abstaining.
Current electric news is positive
This past week Mayor Joyce Craig and city public works officials announced that the municipal solar array at the former Dunbarton Road landfill has “exceeded power generation projections” in its first year of operation.
According to city officials, the solar array has supplied approximately 4,377,420 kilowatt hours of clean, renewable energy to the power grid, an output 15% higher than predicted initially.
”We’re thrilled that our solar array, the largest municipal array in the state, is already outperforming our original estimates, generating enough electricity to power 600 homes annually here in Manchester,” Craig said in a statement. “I’m grateful for the hard work of the Department of Public Works and their commitment to creating clean energy options for Queen City residents.”
The array also generated $35,570 in additional revenue for the city, officials said, and offset 3,420 tons of CO2 — equivalent to 668 gasoline passenger vehicles driven for a full year, 3 million pounds of coal burned or 350,000 gallons of gasoline burned.
“The Department of Public Works is proud to be part of this sustainable initiative providing clean, renewable energy to Manchester residents,” city public works director Tim Clougherty said in a statement.
City Hall will close at 1 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 23, for Christmas and will be fully closed on Monday, Dec. 26. City Hall will reopen on Tuesday, Dec. 27, at 8 a.m.
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2022-12-23T01:49:51Z
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www.unionleader.com
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City Hall: Head of basketball league addresses funding request | City Hall | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/city_hall/city-hall-head-of-basketball-league-addresses-funding-request/article_60676c65-6442-5f27-9677-23346469f1c1.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/city_hall/city-hall-head-of-basketball-league-addresses-funding-request/article_60676c65-6442-5f27-9677-23346469f1c1.html
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In 1965, CBS took a huge gamble airing Charles Schulz’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” What many executives thought could well be a dud has become a holiday tradition.
First place in the Grumpy Old Men category will forever belong to Charles Dickens’ Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol.” All the components of a classic are in place: the haves and the have-nots, the thankful and the unthankful, an awakening from death to life.
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2022-12-23T01:50:28Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Lori Borgman: The wonder of Christmas stories | Lifestyles | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/nh/lifestyles/lori-borgman-the-wonder-of-christmas-stories/article_a6447078-1f3b-5a49-8e1e-5a4acae847d4.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/nh/lifestyles/lori-borgman-the-wonder-of-christmas-stories/article_a6447078-1f3b-5a49-8e1e-5a4acae847d4.html
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Boston’s Jayson Tatum reacts after being fouled during the fourth quarter of Wednesday night’s game against the Indiana Pacers at TD Garden in Boston.
Tatum felt Celtics deserved the boos they got from Boston crowd
BOSTON — Two weeks ago, the Celtics looked like they were a tier above the rest of the NBA after a 21-5 start to begin the year. Since then, Boston is one miraculous late-game comeback away from a six-game losing streak.
Boston hit a low in the first half of the 117-112 loss to the Pacers on Wednesday night. The hosts fell behind by as many as 30 points on their home floor after a listless first-half performance on both ends of the floor. The hosts rallied to make things interesting in the fourth quarter but the deficit was too much to overcome thanks to some clutch shot-making late from the Pacers.
Heavy boos from the Garden crowd were heard for the first time all year toward the Celtics as the team dug itself a enormous hole. With the team coming off two straight home losses to the Magic, Jayson Tatum acknowledged he thought the harsh treatment was deserved from the capacity crowd.
“We got booed. You never want to do that,” Tatum said. “Rightfully so. But it’s all about how we bounce back. There’s literally nothing we can do right now to change what happened. So you gotta get ready for the next one.”
Tatum did his part, bouncing back from a rough first half to score a game-high 41 points and lead a rally. However, his running mates remain stuck in a malaise that’s carrying over to both ends of the floor at times. Jaylen Brown (8-of-23, four turnovers) had another inefficient performance with plenty of defensive miscues. Derrick White has missed his last 12 shots from beyond the arc. Malcolm Brogdon (5-of-13) struggled to finish against his old teammates. Offensive woes carried over to the defensive end of the court, an that’s cause for concern, according to Tatum.
From a big picture standpoint, Boston would have taken a 22-10 record to begin the year in a heartbeat but it doesn’t feel nearly has promising after seeing a team drop five of their last six.
As old habits and poor body language pop up, Tatum believes the antidote Is simple for this group.
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2022-12-23T01:50:46Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Tatum felt Celtics deserved the boos they got from Boston crowd | Celtics | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/celtics/tatum-felt-celtics-deserved-the-boos-they-got-from-boston-crowd/article_f3589c53-9a09-5366-8a40-0e1fd2e819a2.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/celtics/tatum-felt-celtics-deserved-the-boos-they-got-from-boston-crowd/article_f3589c53-9a09-5366-8a40-0e1fd2e819a2.html
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Bedford’s Aiden O’Connell drives against Trinity’s Tyler Bike, left, and Shawn O’Neil during Tuesday night’s game won by the host Bulldogs, 68-62.
High School Basketball: O'Connell fitting in nicely with his former rivals
AIDEN O’CONNELL looked comfortable in a Bedford High School uniform Tuesday night, which is saying something since a lot has changed for O’Connell since the end of the 2021-22 school year.
Manchester holiday tournaments
For starters, O’Connell and his family moved from Goffstown to Bedford over the summer. O’Connell was an all-division guard for the Grizzlies last season, when they lost to Trinity in the Division I championship game. Now he’s playing for Bedford, which isn’t just a different team, it’s Goffstown’s next-door rival.
O’Connell jokingly said his former classmates at Goffstown still speak to him, but added that they also regularly throw some jabs his way because he now attends school in Bedford.
“Of course,” he said following Bedford’s 68-62 triumph over Trinity on Tuesday night. “I hear about it, but it (changing teams) has been good,
“I bring height. I bring energy. The kids on the team trust me. Our chemistry has been amazing. I’ve been around these kids my whole life. I’m so excited to be here.”
O’Connell’s role has clearly changed, as well. At 6-foot-3, he’ll play more in the frontcourt for Bedford than he did when he was at Goffstown. Nevertheless, there were times when he brought the ball up against Trinity on Tuesday night.
“He’s embracing this role of being like a four or a five,” Bedford coach Frank Moreno said. “Sometimes we put him in the short corner. Sometimes we let him drive against some of their bigs. It’s working for us right now.
“He brings a lot,” Moreno continued. “He brings experience. He brings a big guy inside that we don’t have. We’re pretty small without him. He’s scoring points in the paint (and) he makes his free throws, unlike some of us.”
O’Connell scored 11 points during Tuesday’s victory. Seven of those points came in the fourth quarter. Bedford led 45-44 after the third.
The Bulldogs prevailed even though they were without junior forward Austin Kasyjanski, who didn’t play in either of Bedford’s first two games because of a sore ankle.
O’Connell tossed in a team-high 23 points against Trinity in the 64-62 loss to the Pioneers in last season’s title game.
“I thought he was the best player in the state as a junior last year,” Trinity coach Keith Bike said. “I really admire his game. He gets to the free throw line better than anybody in the state. He plays under control and plays with a lot of composure. He’s going to be dynamite if he stays healthy, and they’re going to be a very good team.”
As good as he is at basketball, baseball is O’Connell’s best sport. He’s a left-handed pitcher who recently committed to Northwestern, which lured Jim Foster away from Army last June to become its head coach. O’Connell said he considered playing for Army until Foster left the program.
“It (came down to) Northwestern and a couple other Division I schools down South, but I wanted to go there, no question,” O’Connell said. “Great academics and I really like the coach.”
One thing that’s eased the transition from one school to another — and one basketball program to another — is the fact that O’Connell has two cousins who play varsity basketball for Bedford: Brady O’Connell, a sophomore guard; and Logan O’Connell, a freshman guard. Brady scored a game-high 28 points against Trinity.
Moreno laughed when he was asked if the Bedford players made Aiden pay a penalty for formerly attending a rival school. Perhaps passing only — no shooting — during practice?
“No, we didn’t haze him or do any initiation or anything like that,” Moreno said. “He fit in so well. It helps having two cousins on the team, too.
“He’s laid back, he’s easygoing, he’s coachable. He’ll do whatever you ask him to.”
This week’s picks for the top team in each division (records do not include Thursday’s results):
Division I/Bedford (2-0): The Bulldogs don’t have much height, but they have everything else.
Division II/Souhegan (2-0): Last season’s Division II champs have been stingy on defense in their first two games.
Division III/Gilford (5-0): The Golden Eagles have won each of their five games by at least 15 points.
Division IV/Concord Christian (4-0): Sticking with the Kingsmen until someone beats them..
Division I/Bishop Guertin (1-0): The Cardinals had a tough test Thursday night at Portsmouth.
Division II/Kennett (3-0): Kennett’s three wins came by 50, 26 and 36 points. The Eagles are scheduled to play at Merrimack Valley on Friday night.
Division III/Conant (3-0): Few teams can match Conant’s talent.
Division IV/Colebrook (4-0): Experience is valuable, and Colebrook is led by five seniors.
Goffstown’s Ava Winterburn scored a career-high 37 points during Tuesday’s 75-23 victory over Manchester Central. Winterburn will play at Southern New Hampshire University next season. …
Last Friday’s postponed boys game between Bedford and Manchester Memorial has been rescheduled for Jan. 17 at Memorial. …
Lin-Wood senior Cam Clermont surpassed the 1,000-point plateau during Wednesday’s 65-19 victory over Lisbon. He entered the game 27 points shy of 1,000 and scored 28 in the first half. …
Profile’s Josh Robie, a junior guard, scored a career-high 40 points, including nine 3-pointers, during an 81-64 victory over Pittsburg-Canaan, and then topped that by tossing in 43 points, including another nine 3-pointers, during a 67-28 triumph over Epping.
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2022-12-23T01:50:52Z
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www.unionleader.com
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High School Basketball: O'Connell fitting in nicely with his former rivals | Sports | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/highschool/high-school-basketball-oconnell-fitting-in-nicely-with-his-former-rivals/article_52172ffd-bd7b-57d5-a771-ece6146ec024.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/highschool/high-school-basketball-oconnell-fitting-in-nicely-with-his-former-rivals/article_52172ffd-bd7b-57d5-a771-ece6146ec024.html
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Judon voted to 2023 Pro Bowl; no other Patriots selected
New England Patriots outside linebacker Matt Judon is the team’s only player to make the 2023 Pro Bowl, the league announced Wednesday.
The last time the Patriots had one or fewer Pro Bowlers was 2000, Bill Belichick’s first season as head coach. Every other AFC East team had at least three players selected.
It’s possible the Patriots will send other players if/when selected starters drop out or cannot participate because they’re preparing for the Super Bowl.
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2022-12-23T01:51:11Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Judon voted to 2023 Pro Bowl; no other Patriots selected | Patriots | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/patriots/judon-voted-to-2023-pro-bowl-no-other-patriots-selected/article_aae0ed2b-071e-5916-b7f6-462214863034.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/patriots/judon-voted-to-2023-pro-bowl-no-other-patriots-selected/article_aae0ed2b-071e-5916-b7f6-462214863034.html
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Sticking to a routine helps Patriots
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — To move past one of the all-time blunders in NFL history, the New England Patriots are banking on two things.
“I think that’s the insane thing about being an athlete. … You think no matter what, you’re going to win,” McCourty said before later adding: “I’m still going to tell you we need to win out because we still have an opportunity, we still have a chance to be in the postseason, and that’s what you play for, that’s what you play to. No matter what the situation is, you just continue to press forward and grind it out. And I think that’s what we’re going to do.”
Belichick wouldn’t disclose much about whether the Patriots are or aren’t recovered from Sunday’s loss. He insisted the Pats have addressed the defining moment and loss of their season and are looking ahead. Eight years after one of his most famous press conferences ever, Belichick is, yet again, on to Cincinnati.
As for the players themselves, they were a bit more open about the process. Mac Jones mentioned Pats wideout Jakobi Meyers is in good spirits, despite throwing the game-losing lateral to Raiders defensive end Chandler Jones last week. Mac Jones also went so far as to say Meyers had a “great” practice Wednesday.
Before they can attack Cincinnati’s defense, the Patriots know they must not beat themselves, something they did repeatedly in Las Vegas. Before Meyers threw the ball to Chandler Jones, the Pats allowed Derek Carr and Co. to convert on fourth-and-10 deep in his own territory. Then they yielded three straight completions and a 30-yard touchdown against rookie corner Marcus Jones.
Before that, right tackle Conor McDermott false-started on a second-and-7 snap outside the two-minute warning that effectively killed the Patriots’ chances at running out the clock. It marked their third false start of the day. And before all of that, Mac Jones played one of his worst games of the season, including a misfired 1-yard touchdown pass to tight end Jonnu Smith in the end zone.
Because after Sunday’s loss, these are the stakes now.
“It’s the season,” McCourty said. “If you want to make the playoffs, you’ve got to beat three playoff teams:”
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2022-12-23T01:51:17Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Sticking to a routine helps Patriots | Patriots | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/patriots/sticking-to-a-routine-helps-patriots/article_d8aa3d3a-5760-5a47-a17a-30fa1e84b3c6.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/patriots/sticking-to-a-routine-helps-patriots/article_d8aa3d3a-5760-5a47-a17a-30fa1e84b3c6.html
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Queen Mary expected to reopen
By Alexandra E. Petri Los Angeles Times (TNS)
LONG BEACH, Calif. — The Queen Mary is back in business — sort of.
The famed British ocean liner, converted into a floating hotel and tourist attraction after being permanently moored in Long Beach in the 1970s, has been closed for major repairs since the start of the pandemic.
Most of that work is expected to be finished by early 2023, after which the hotel, restaurants, bar and other amenities will be reopened.
This month, the City of Long Beach, which owns the ship, offered limited public tours, which quickly reached capacity, to celebrate the progress.
Several studies have estimated the vessel needs hundreds of millions of dollars of upgrades to continue operating. A 2021 report called for $23 million in immediate repairs to prevent the ship from capsizing.
The city has previously said that about 75% of the process — largely plumbing, mechanical and other metalwork — should be completed by the end of the year.
All internal repairs should be wrapped up in early 2023, allowing the city to work on aesthetic projects, like painting and flooring.
Over the last 50 years, Long Beach has brought in several firms — including Walt Disney Co. — to try to convert the ship into a profitable tourist attraction, with mixed results. Disney planned in 1990 to incorporate the ship into a $3 billion sea-themed amusement park but ditched the idea a few years later.
The Queen Mary, launched in 1936, held the Blue Riband as the fastest liner on the Atlantic from 1938 until the SS United States took the prize in 1952.
Before long, you’ll have eaten the food, unwrapped the gifts, given thanks, and sent the family and friends on their way home. When the busy season ends, it’s time to look around, take a deep breath, and return the house to its pre-holiday arrangement. Here are six pros who can help clean up…
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2022-12-23T04:07:30Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Queen Mary expected to reopen | | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/queen-mary-expected-to-reopen/article_bb729fdc-b934-5672-b106-f2877bab690e.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/queen-mary-expected-to-reopen/article_bb729fdc-b934-5672-b106-f2877bab690e.html
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He got out his sleeping bag and got inside and stayed in his car. The next morning, a car pulled up, and with the driver’s help, they were able to get the car out of the snow bank. But if my son had not had a sleeping bag, he might have frozen to death. On any road trip, it’s always best to prepare for the worst kind of weather or a potential situation that might occur. You never know what life will throw at you.
— Peggy H., Escanaba, Michigan
• Never sleep in your makeup. Use soap and water and wash your face. Afterward, use a moisturizer or a night cream before bed. And don’t forget to use creams on your neck, too.
• A daily vitamin won’t hurt you. First, ask your doctor what brand they suggest.
— Heather D., Orange, California
DEAR HELOISE: My husband and I have decided to remain childless. We like kids, but parenthood just isn’t for us. What do we say to people who ask, “Why do you hate children?” or say, “You don’t know what you’re missing out on.”
— Maddie and Jacob, Laconia, New Hampshire
Maddie and Jacob, tell them you like children, but you just don’t feel that you’d like parenting. Then, walk away. As for “You don’t know what you’re missing out on,” just say, “You’re right. You can’t miss what you never had.” Then, leave it at that. If someone persists, inform them that your personal life is not open for discussion, smile and, again, walk away.
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2022-12-23T06:16:44Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Heloise: Prepare for the worst before a drive | Human Interest | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/human_interest/heloise-prepare-for-the-worst-before-a-drive/article_f3a4f69a-74a1-5ab6-a394-d04e93389ffd.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/human_interest/heloise-prepare-for-the-worst-before-a-drive/article_f3a4f69a-74a1-5ab6-a394-d04e93389ffd.html
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Dark money hypocrisy
Senator Maggie Hassan aggressively railed against “dark money” throughout the 2022 midterm election, and indeed has done so throughout her political career. Just days before the election, her campaign claimed, “Right-wing extremists are sounding the alarm and pouring dark money into New Hampshire at the final hour” to defeat her. Her campaign even implied she was eschewing dark money herself. “While dark money is fueling” her opponent, they argued, “Senator Hassan continues to build grassroots momentum by meeting Granite Staters where they are.”
How surprising then that Hassan is, and NH Journal observed last week, “tied for #6 on the list of campaign contribution recipients from the indicted crypto scammer” Sam Bankman-Fried and his business entities. Maggie Hassan Victory Fund and PAC supporting her reelection campaign received tens of thousands of dollars from SBF, FTX and other affiliated companies, which combined to donate around $37 million to Democrats and Democratic candidates in the most recent campaign cycle.
In fact, I bet you didn’t know that Maggie Hassan is the 3rd highest recipient of contributions from Washington lobbyists and their family members in the entire Congress.
Hassan has not said if she plans to return SBF’s donations. And why should she? The New Hampshire political media seems utterly disinterested in the story. A quick scan of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee’s website shows no mention of it. Everyone is either just too jaded or simply doesn’t care.
Leavitt’s Gen Z crusade
Her energy was on full display throughout her unsuccessful campaign for Congress this year, and now Karoline Leavitt’s energies appear to be focused on fixing the GOP’s youth problem. Since her loss, Leavitt, who is 25 and would have been the first Gen Z woman election to the U.S. House had she won, has sounded the tocsin on the Republican Party’s inability to reach younger voters.
Her advice to her fellow Republicans might surprise some, however.
“We need to talk about issues we know young Americans care about, such as the environment, the unaffordability of higher education, lack of affordable housing, and economic opportunity,” she wrote in a recent op-ed for FoxNews.com.
“Republicans cannot continue to allow the Democrats to own an issue as popular and simple as protecting the environment. Republicans want clean water, air and forests, too, so why don’t we say that, instead of allowing the Democrats to portray us as evil Earth-haters who want the planet to end in 10 years,” she added.
Interestingly, apart from economic opportunity, these were not the issues she was known for on the campaign trail. Nevertheless, a modernizing message refresh from the GOP would be welcome.
President Sununu?
He wasn’t interested in the U.S. Senate, but is Governor Chris Sununu interested in being president of the United States? A feature on CNN titled, “Being … Chris Sununu from CNN’s Dana Bash” sure made it seem so.
The nation could do much worse than Sununu, that’s for sure. The extremely popular governor just breezed through his reelection campaign behind a record of low taxes, economic growth, enormous and sustained budget surpluses, education reform, and quality of life issues. His sunny disposition would be a welcome break from the scowling Republican visages that typically clutter our television screens.
I say go for it.
Former Vice President Mike Pence is a possible contender for the GOP nomination, and he has written a book titled, “So Help Me God”. Most of these campaign manifestos disguised as books are pretty bad; embellished childhood stories of dubious authenticity twisted into fairly obvious life lessons by creative ghost writers, faux-visionary policy pronouncements, that kind of thing. Pence’s book is more of a reflection on his life’s experiences written in the context of his deep spiritual life, including the events on and around January 6, 2021, and his public split with former President Donald Trump. It’s a good read.
I hope to read all the books from the 2024 presidential contenders. Hmm … I wonder if Sununu is writing one.
Lastly, merry Christmas.
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:14)
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2022-12-23T06:16:45Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Patrick Hynes: Observations on the political scene | Columnists | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/columnists/patrick-hynes-observations-on-the-political-scene/article_628f706f-2984-56e0-9bfa-daa8735ebb92.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/columnists/patrick-hynes-observations-on-the-political-scene/article_628f706f-2984-56e0-9bfa-daa8735ebb92.html
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To the Editor: At the Christmas season it is appropriate to recall a blessed mother. This blessed mother is unlike most blessed mothers, for unlike most she did not become blessed because she bore a child. She was blessed because she adopted a child, and it is of her that I write.
Her name is Terri and it has been 30 years since she adopted her son. She was the most infertile of women when she came to my office seeking to adopt a baby. Unlike many infertile women, she was a prime example of infertility for having undergone a complete hysterectomy and so was devoid of all reproductive organs. Her deeds showed how she wanted a child; as a nurse in a pediatrician’s office she volunteered to work shifts in the hospital so that mothers could spend time with their children on all of the important holidays — Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Passover, Mothers Day.
At first, she was told that she could adopt a female child, as my reluctance to place a male child with a single woman was well known. She went back to her pediatrician’s office with the news. Lo and behold, her pediatrician asks “Have you met my cousin, Gerald?” An unmarried bachelor, she met Gerald and it was love at first sight — they married and returned to my office and were told, gender no longer mattered and that she was next.
DR. EUGENE M. LONG JR.
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2022-12-23T06:16:48Z
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Letter: Praise for mothers who bore us | Letters to the Editor | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-praise-for-mothers-who-bore-us/article_c9ea09c1-1547-516e-9afa-e8e49ad70ff8.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-praise-for-mothers-who-bore-us/article_c9ea09c1-1547-516e-9afa-e8e49ad70ff8.html
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Roy Dennehy
Here we are, just days before the celebration of the birth of our Savior and Messiah, Jesus Christ, who came into this world 2000 years ago as a humble, innocent baby.
Both Sen. Shaheen and Executive Councilor Warmington, as well as the Democrat leadership here in New Hampshire and nationally, are on record actively supporting, promoting, and funding the evil act of intentionally killing pre-born babies in the womb through the brutal act of abortion.
They project outrage at the Republican majority in the Executive Council, State Senate, and the House of Representatives for having an “extreme ideology” and “partisan ideology” for supporting and protecting the current Fetal Life Protection Law. This law, in fact, protects the pre-born baby from being brutally killed from 24 weeks after conception to its actual delivery date at nine months.
Shaheen and Warmington stated in their article: “We have seen the first abortion ban in modern history passed by the Republican controlled legislature and signed into law by the governor.” This statement is a lie. The truth is our current law allows a pregnant woman’s pre-born baby to be killed at any time up to 24 weeks after the child is conceived.
These anti-life hypocrites in the Democratic Party leadership — who hide behind the false slogans such as: “woman’s health care, reproductive freedom, and sex education” — are the real extremist/partisan ideologues. They are hellbent on supporting, promoting, and funding (using taxpayer money), the killing of pre-born babies right up to the moment of birth!
The Democrat leaders already have proposed bills in this new 2023 legislative session to repeal the current Fetal Life Protection law and replace it with a totally unrestricted abortion law that would allow the killing of babies in the womb from the moment of conception right up to the moment of birth. Who are the extremists now?
Sadly, most of the Democratic Party leadership here in New Hampshire and nationally has evolved over many years into a party of abortion and death.
Roy Dennehy lives in Windham and is a trustee for NH Right To Life.
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2022-12-23T06:16:58Z
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Roy Dennehy: Christmas is pro life | Op-eds | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/op-eds/roy-dennehy-christmas-is-pro-life/article_65614e0c-905b-5319-8948-c55d39ef4637.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/op-eds/roy-dennehy-christmas-is-pro-life/article_65614e0c-905b-5319-8948-c55d39ef4637.html
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Court documents state Martinez was additionally charged with being a fugitive from justice due to an arrest warrant out of Rockingham County Superior Court in New Hampshire. According to court documents, the warrant stems from Martinez's failure to appear in court in March for fentanyl and crack cocaine possession charges, and for driving with a suspended license. Court documents state the charges occurred in Salem, N.H.
At the time of Waugh's arrest, police reports state she was wanted on arrest warrants out of Lawrence and Newburyport district courts for charges including uttering a false check, larceny by check, breaking and entering at daytime, operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license and receiving stolen property. Waugh, who was charged with possession of a Class B drug with intent to distribute for her latest charges in Tewksbury, was released after her arraignment in Lowell District Court on Monday.
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2022-12-23T15:36:22Z
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2 suspects held on $15G bail in Tewksbury fentanyl bust, one a fugitive from NH charges | Crime | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/2-suspects-held-on-15g-bail-in-tewksbury-fentanyl-bust-one-a-fugitive-from-nh/article_9f561a66-f7f1-5f61-9885-f6c3458f4042.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/2-suspects-held-on-15g-bail-in-tewksbury-fentanyl-bust-one-a-fugitive-from-nh/article_9f561a66-f7f1-5f61-9885-f6c3458f4042.html
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Senators from both parties seemed to agree - in a nonbinding vote in May, they supported keeping the full deduction in place by a vote of 90-5. But the idea did not make it into the omnibus bill as it neared a final vote on Thursday.
The 2017 law set this benefit to start phasing out in 2023. Congress didn't touch that provision this year. So starting next year, barring future legislative action, "bonus depreciation" will drop from the full cost of the asset to 80 percent, and by 2027, the bonus will be gone altogether and companies will have to go back to spreading the depreciation out over many years.
When Congress passed the Trump-era tax cuts, many expected that the temporary provisions in the bill would someday be extended, making the law far more costly to the country and more generous to businesses. This week marked the first test of that expectation - and it looks like Congress isn't budging so far. More of those 2017 tax cuts for both businesses and families are set to expire in the years to come.
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2022-12-23T15:36:23Z
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Congress isn't extending 4 popular tax breaks in omnibus bill passage | National | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/national/congress-isnt-extending-4-popular-tax-breaks-in-omnibus-bill-passage/article_02a7cad0-1695-552b-9388-6f89d744636e.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/national/congress-isnt-extending-4-popular-tax-breaks-in-omnibus-bill-passage/article_02a7cad0-1695-552b-9388-6f89d744636e.html
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NH Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management
CONCORD – As of 8:30 a.m., more than 60,000 customers are without power across New Hampshire as strong winds toppled trees bringing down wires.
The coast of New Hampshire is under a Hurricane Force Wind Warning until 3 a.m. Saturday. Winds are expected to range from 40 mph to just over 50 mph with gusts up to almost 75 mph.
Coos, Northern Grafton, Rockingham and Strafford counties are under a High Wind Warning through early Saturday morning. Winds are expected to range from 25 mph to 35 mph with gusts up to 60 mph.
Belknap, Carroll, Cheshire, Southern Grafton, Hillsborough, Merrimack and Sullivan counties are under a Wind Advisory. Winds are expected to range from 20 mph to 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph.
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2022-12-23T15:36:32Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Strong winds leave more than 60,000 without power | Weather | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/weather/strong-winds-leave-more-than-60-000-without-power/article_d1f3d3b1-02c8-54e3-a08e-ddcfcb83dfed.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/weather/strong-winds-leave-more-than-60-000-without-power/article_d1f3d3b1-02c8-54e3-a08e-ddcfcb83dfed.html
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Retired military police chief Marcelo Venera is executive director of the Texas ExpoTiro. He says it was named after the United States' "most gun-loving state."
By Elizabeth Dwoskin and Gabriela Sá Pessoa The Washington Post
"This is a triumph of liberty!" said retired military police chief Marcelo Venera, the executive director of the two-year-old expo, the largest gun show in the country and the first open to civilians. "We are here to show that we are good people and there is nothing wrong with loving guns!"
The gun owners of Brazil are proclaiming victory these days. Private gun ownership, once tightly restricted in Latin America's largest country, has grown at least sixfold in the four years since President Jair Bolsonaro began relaxing the rules.
What's more, gun enthusiasts say, it's working: The homicide rate in Brazil - one of the world's most violent countries - has fallen more than 27 percent since 2017.
"Everyone said there would be more homicides when Bolsonaro loosened the restrictions," said Paulo da Silva, 25, attending the gun show with friends. "But it turned out to be the opposite!"
Not so fast, criminologists say. They've spent the past four years trying to understand the unexpected decline - and say it has little to do with Bolsonaro or his decrees.
Research consistently shows that when private gun ownership goes up, killings follow. Analysts say it's too early to draw conclusions from what they're calling a global test case for what happens when strict gun rules are suddenly lifted. But many say the drop here has more to do with organized-crime trends, investment in policing and demographics.
Much violent crime in Brazil, and homicides in particular, stems from turf battles between the well-armed drug cartels that control favelas, or slums, throughout the country. The victims are predominantly poor young men of color. In 2017, a major war between the country's two biggest cartels drove gun-related homicides to record levels.
But since then, conflict between First Capital Command and Red Command has calmed considerably, said Roberto Uchôa, a former federal police officer and member of the Brazilian Public Security Forum. First Capital Command now dominates São Paulo, Brazil's most populous state. In Rio de Janeiro, Red Command now clashes mostly with militias run by police, not rival gangs. As a result, the country's northeast, ground zero for the groups' 2017 war for new territory, has quieted.
Brazil's aging population is also a factor, analysts said. Roughly half of homicide victims here are between 12 and 29 years old. A decade ago, that age group represented 31 percent of the population. Today it represents roughly 27 percent. There's no comprehensive data on the age of perpetrators, but criminologists say victims and perpetrators tend to be the same age. Demographically, older Brazilians are aging out of crime faster than younger ones are aging in.
Gun ownership in Brazil is far more limited than in the United States, where there's more than one gun per person. In Brazil, there are more than 48 people per gun.
Webster called the belief that arming more civilians makes society safer "a fantasy that is put forward by the gun lobby" - and is not grounded in any data.
"This drop in homicides is really, really big," Figueiredo said. "But it has nothing to do with Bolsonaro's policies. If anything, his policies have cost thousands of lives."
At Texas ExpoTiro - Venera says he and his wife named the gun show for America's "most gun-loving state" - the firearm fans see it differently. The conservative southern state of Santa Catarina is Bolsonaro country; it delivered the third-highest percentage of votes for the incumbent in the October election.
In another echo of the United States, many here claim that the election was "stolen" and that Lula is a criminal who won't actually assume the presidency on Jan. 1.
And in a country where police cannot always be trusted to respond effectively, Santa Catarina is also a place where people say they believe they should be able to take personal safety into their own hands. Gun rights advocates, including Bolsonaro himself, say reducing controls on guns has turned Brazil into a far safer place for its 215 million citizens. Bolsonaro's son Eduardo made the argument this year in a speech at a gun show in California, evidence of growing ties between right-wing movements in the two countries.
"What's happened with firearms is the same as what happened with the microwave oven," said Juliana Lopes, a military police major and shooting instructor. "It entered people's homes . . . and has become a survival tool."
Since Bolsonaro took office, the number of shooting clubs here has doubled to more than 2,000. A new lobbying group modeled on the National Rifle Association just got its president elected to Congress. Online, an emerging generation of gun rights influencers has garnered hundreds of thousands of followers. The stock price of Taurus, Brazil's largest gun manufacturer, went up 200 percent.
Lula's advisers have said he plans to reverse many of Bolsonaro's decrees. But they have also acknowledged that once you recognize rights, it is difficult to take them away.
Paulo Bonoso attended the gun show with his wife, Erika, and friends. Seven or eight years ago, the 43-year-old oceanographer said, he was opposed to civilians owning guns. He said Brazilians had been "brainwashed" into hating guns - even sales of realistic-looking toy guns, he noted, are banned.
Then he started to "open" his mind, he said, reading the writings of conservative Brazilian philosopher and self-defense advocate Olavo de Carvalho and questioning conventional wisdom. He became interested in getting a firearm. But before Bolsonaro, he said, it was "too much of a hassle" to buy one.
Bolsonaro's changes, delivered in nearly three dozen presidential decrees, included reducing taxes on imported weapons, allowing civilians to purchase assault rifles and increasing the number of firearms registered sport shooters could own from 16 to 60.
He also dropped a rule requiring would-be purchasers to justify their need for a firearm to their local police department. Previously, a civilian who wanted to buy a gun needed to submit an application that substantiated their personal level of risk - describing in detail whether they lived in a condominium complex with a doorman or a secure gate, for example. Police had wide discretion on whether to grant or deny the license.
"You could go through this exhausting and expensive process, only to hear a 'no' at the end of it," Bonoso said. "Because some sheriff decided your home was too safe."
In 2020, Paulo, Erika and their two school-age sons moved from Rio Janeiro, where they say Erika was robbed 16 times, to a family beach house in Santa Catarina. They began to buy guns - a Taurus revolver, pistol and shotgun and a Glock G17 semiautomatic for him; a Taurus G2C pistol and a couple of revolvers for her. They were planning to buy an AR-15, T4 or other type of semiautomatic when the Brazilian government blocked sales of semiautomatic weapons in September, citing heightened risk during the election period.
Several expo attendees said they needed a gun because they live in a rural area where the police presence is minimal. Others said they just like them. In a region populated by many people of German descent, they said, guns have long been part of the local culture. Lula, they said, suppressed the will of the people when he tried to prohibit civilians from owning guns entirely in 2005. He didn't get the full ban, but lawmakers ended up passing some of the most stringent gun regulations in the world.
Many said they admire the gun culture of the United States - the expo even included a talk on guns in Texas delivered by a member of the Houston-based Brazil-Texas Chamber of Commerce.
The United States has a much more "developed" gun culture than Brazil, Venera said. Brazilians aren't ready to drop the restrictions altogether, he said, but he hopes they will be soon: "You just can't give a car to someone who can't drive."
Venera is not concerned that legal gun sales will help arm the cartels. Criminals have always had guns, he said, and they prefer automatic weapons. "Only civilians couldn't defend themselves," he said.
The flowering of gun culture here has prompted the Bonosos to open a shooting club in their small beach town of Imbituba. Inspired by the American West, they are calling the club Comanche, after the Native American tribe of the southern Great Plains. The club is set to open next month, at the same time as Lula's inauguration.
"We could lose our rights and be sent back to zero," he said.
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2022-12-23T15:36:32Z
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Gun ownership went up. Killings went down. Brazil debates why. | World | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/world/gun-ownership-went-up-killings-went-down-brazil-debates-why/article_212f4b0b-fac0-5906-9058-8548bd513246.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/world/gun-ownership-went-up-killings-went-down-brazil-debates-why/article_212f4b0b-fac0-5906-9058-8548bd513246.html
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Oleh, a Ukrainian soldier who lost an arm during the war with Russia, works with a member (not pictured) of Human Assistive Technologies (HAT), in physical therapy while preparing to receive "bionic" prosthetics arm tailored for him in a clinic in Mexico City, Mexico September 2, 2022.
"I miss my (two) daughters, but they understand and believe in the struggle of what's going on here in Ukraine and fully support me and know that I'm doing important work," she told Reuters inside the ambulance transporting the now stabilized soldier to hospital.
(Writing by John Stonestreet)
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2022-12-23T17:53:44Z
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Jesus will get you, U.S. medic tells Putin from Ukraine front line | Back Page | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/jesus-will-get-you-u-s-medic-tells-putin-from-ukraine-front-line/article_0e4546ff-2c55-5c00-905f-893dfea23312.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/jesus-will-get-you-u-s-medic-tells-putin-from-ukraine-front-line/article_0e4546ff-2c55-5c00-905f-893dfea23312.html
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Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Mark Meadows, the chief of staff in Trump's White House, testifies as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing on June 28.
Demetrius Freeman/Washington Post
By Jacqueline Alemany, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Amy Gardner and Carol D. Leonnig The Washington Post
The claims - which, if true, amount to possible witness tampering - were detailed at length by Hutchinson in interview transcripts that the committee released Thursday.
"The less you remember, the better," Hutchinson recalled Passantino telling her. "Don't read anything to try to jog your memory. Don't try to put together timelines . . . Especially if you put together timelines, we have to give those over to the committee."
In addition to her own lawyer, Hutchinson claimed that Trump's former campaign lawyer, chief of staff, White House lawyers and other close confidants to the former president showered her with praise and promised that her loyalty would be rewarded.
"We're gonna get you a really good job in Trump world," Hutchinson said Passantino told her in one phone call days ahead of her scheduled testimony. "You don't need to apply other places. We're gonna get you taken care of. We want to keep you in the family."
The committee released the transcript of Hutchinson's September testimony Thursday amid a final flurry of activity this week that also included multiple criminal referrals Monday, and the expected release of an 800-plus-page report on the committee's investigation.
Hutchinson, a former junior aide, was the star witness from the committee's series of summer hearings, offering the public an inside perspective on events at the White House as Trump fought to overturn his 2020 defeat. The committee has said it stands behind her testimony, though some of her most explosive claims have remained uncorroborated or have been disputed by others involved.
"As with all my clients during my 30 years of practice, I represented Ms. Hutchinson honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me. I believed Ms. Hutchinson was being truthful and cooperative with the Committee throughout the several interview sessions in which I represented her," Passantino said in a statement.
He added that he would be taking a leave of absence from one of his law firms, Michael Best & Friedrich, "given the distraction of this matter." The firm, he said, "was not involved in the representation of Ms. Hutchinson."
Hutchinson told investigators that Passantino repeatedly declined to disclose to her that he was being paid to represent her by Trump's allies. He dangled lucrative job prospects within Trump's orbit that were pulled from her once it became public that Hutchinson was cooperating with investigators, she testified.
In her September testimony, Hutchinson described struggling with the opposing forces at play: her belief that she did not tell the truth in her first two interviews - which had been conducted in February and March - versus her fear of the repercussions that would ensue from what she called "Trump world" if she testified more candidly.
"It wasn't just that I had Stefan sitting next to me; it was almost like I felt like I had Trump looking over my shoulder," Hutchinson testified. "Because I knew in some fashion it would get back to him if I said anything he would find disloyal. And the prospect of that genuinely scared me. You know, I'd seen this world ruin people's lives or try to ruin people's careers."
She said she started hearing from multiple people in Trump's orbit about potential employment opportunities soon after Passantino started representing her. Those communications escalated on the eve of her March 7 interview with the committee, Hutchinson testified.
She recalled that the executive, former Trump campaign operative Kaelan Dorr, said to her on March 8: "Jason's told me great things about you. We're looking for somebody that fits exactly what he says you are."
Other high-profile allies in Trump's orbit found their way to Hutchinson's inbox in the weeks and months ahead of her interviews with committee investigators and lawmakers, she said.
Clark and Eric Hershmann, a Trump White House lawyer, all periodically checked in. Pam Bondi, Florida's former attorney general, even let Hutchinson know one night in March that she had been the topic of conversation during a dinner with Trump himself in which a job working with a Republican heavyweight was discussed.
Hutchinson testified: "Pam texted me that night and said something to the effect of: 'Susie, Matt Schlapp, and I had dinner with POTUS at Mar-a-Lago tonight. Call Matt next week. He has a job for you that we all think you'd be great at - that you all - we all think you would be great in. You are the best. Keep up the good work. Love and miss you.'"
Ben Williamson, a former White House aide who was still working for Hutchinson's former boss, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, reached out to Hutchinson the night before her second scheduled interview with the committee with a friendly reminder.
"He said something to the effect of: 'Well, Mark wants me to let you know that he knows you're loyal and he knows you'll do the right thing tomorrow and that you're going to protect him and the boss,'" Hutchinson testified. "'He knows that we're all on the same team and we're all a family.'"
She told Passantino about her misgivings, she said, and he assured her that her testimony was fine - and that "the boss," meaning Trump, was not unhappy about it.
"I would have heard if he was mad about anything discussed in yours, but it's just a good reminder that the boss does read transcripts," Hutchinson recalled Passantino telling her. "And we want to make sure that, like, whatever he's reading isn't going to put you in a bad situation."
Hutchinson recalled that it was just a few days after that, however, when Miller called her to tell her the GETTR job offer was "done."
In Hutchinson's retelling, Farah then served as a backchannel to the committee, making clear that Hutchinson had more information to provide about Trump's conduct on Jan. 6, among other things, and offering possible questions she should be asked.
During her third interview with the committee three weeks later - after Passantino teased an imminent job offer from Red Curve Solutions, the firm that acts as a treasurer for Trump's PAC, along with other Republican committees - Hutchinson responded to questions she had fed to the committee through Farah, seemingly shocking Passantino.
During a break in the interview, she recalled, Passantino pressed her: "How do they have all of this? How do they know that you know all of this?"
Hutchinson tried to maintain plausible deniability, replying to him: "Stefan, I have no idea, but it sounds like someone's talking."
His response, she said, was: "But no one's talking about any of this stuff, Cassidy. Like as far as I know, nobody's talked about any of this. I know people that would be privy to all of this. . . . How do they know that you know any of this?"
"Maybe," she responded, "your sources aren't that great."
After the interview, she turned to a committee staff member and remarked, "I'm about to be f---ing nuked."
"I'm really sorry," the staffer replied.
Hutchinson told the committee that following her appearance, Passantino frantically sought to alert lawyers for Meadows and others about what the committee knew. He placed calls from outside Hank's Oyster Bar on the Wharf in Washington as she remained inside the restaurant and "downed my old fashioned and had another one," as she recounted.
After the May 17 interview, the cost of Hutchinson's cooperation - and her betrayal of Trump - started to sink in, she said.
But Passantino told her that if he didn't relay the information - and it presumably would leak out soon - that Meadows would think she was a witness against him. He said he wanted to protect her from having a "target" on her back.
"While it is not unusual or improper for lawyers with common interest to speak to each other, in this case, because of the committee members and staff constant overreaching to find fault with our client, we studiously avoided those types of contacts," said Terwilliger, Meadows' attorney. "One of our partners may have had a conversation in passing with Mr. Passantino, but it was of no substantive importance to anyone."
" . . . In my head I knew where my loyalties lied, and my loyalties lied with the truth," Hutchinson recalled of extricating herself from a legal arrangement that she saw as serving Trump.
The committee said in an executive summary of its final report, issued Monday, that it regarded Hutchinson as "earnest" with "no reason" to invent her accounts.
Of all the transcripts, Hutchinson's has caused the most concern within the committee, people involved with the investigation said.
"I have no doubts in the conversation that I had with Mr. Ornato on January 6th," Hutchinson told investigators in September. "I have no doubts in how I've relayed that story privately and publicly."
She also claimed that Passantino was aware of Hutchinson's knowledge of Ornato's story - and that when she expressed concerns to him about lying to investigators, Passantino reassured her that she was not perjuring herself.
"I want to make sure it's clear that he knew that I had been related by Tony Ornato an incident that potentially happened in the limo," Hutchinson said. "Stefan was aware of this."
The Washington Post's Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.
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2022-12-23T17:54:03Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Cassidy Hutchinson claims Trump figures sought to influence her testimony | Crime | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/cassidy-hutchinson-claims-trump-figures-sought-to-influence-her-testimony/article_b6a1c5e0-315b-5fa1-8573-5258ed626213.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/cassidy-hutchinson-claims-trump-figures-sought-to-influence-her-testimony/article_b6a1c5e0-315b-5fa1-8573-5258ed626213.html
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Netflix streams 'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery'
THE 2022 MYSTERY comedy “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” arrives on Netflix exactly one month after its brief theatrical debut. “Glass Onion” marks a first for Netflix, one that presented it with an embarrassment of riches.
For years now, Netflix has been streaming prestige pictures in the holiday months, hoping to qualify them for awards season. While films like “Roma” and “The Irishman” had theatrical showcases, they were intended as publicity department window dressing, designed to market the streaming release.
“Glass Onion” opened to genuinely healthy box office numbers in just under 700 theaters. But for all the hubbub and worry that Netflix might be beating traditional film companies at their own game and on their own turf, Netflix still saw the theatrical release as mere publicity.
The film received near universal critical acclaim, which is also good news for Netflix, as it is the first of two “Knives Out” sequels that the company commissioned for some $469 million.
As in the first film, Daniel Craig stars as detective Benoit Blanc. In this case, a mystery takes him to a Greek island. The cast includes Edward Norton, Janelle Monae, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline and Kate Hudson.
For the record, I found the first 2019 “Knives Out” rather crowded, slick and unengaging. I have not seen this sequel, touted as among the finest films of 2022 by some, including the National Board of Review.
• Gloria Estefan hosts “The 24th Annual A Home for the Holidays at the Grove” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-PG). The annual special puts the emphasis on stories of adoption and foster families, showcasing individual families and featuring performances by Estefan, Andy Grammer, Mickey Guyton, Little Big Town, and David Foster & Kat McPhee.
According to the producers of this special, there are currently roughly 400,000 children in foster homes in the United States, with many of them being shuffled from one setting to another while awaiting their “forever” home. Too many children in foster care do poorly in school and have high-school graduation rates well below the national average. Some have called America’s childcare system a “highway to homelessness.” That is why this annual tradition focuses on parents and families that have opened their doors and hearts to children in need.
• Peacock gets a jump on the year in review, streaming “2022: Back That Year Up,” a lighthearted hourlong retrospective hosted by Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson, with special appearances by Quinta Brunson, Nick Cannon, Terry Crews, Rob Gronkowski, Lauren Lapkus and Amber Ruffin.
• Boris Karloff narrates the 1966 special “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-G).
• A mouse and his girlfriend prove their worth in “Mickey Saves Christmas” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-G).
• A boy anticipates the big day on “5 More Sleeps ’Til Christmas” (8:30 p.m., NBC, TV-G).
• Fired from her job at a swank hotel, a young woman becomes a governess for a visiting royal family in the 2015 romance “Crown for Christmas” (8 p.m., Hallmark).
• Sparks fly between rival architects in the Crescent City in the 2022 romance “A New Orleans Noel” (8 p.m., Lifetime).
• A pop star celebrates her favorite holiday on “Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas to All” (8 p.m., MTV).
• “Olaf’s Frozen Adventure” (8:30 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
• A cost-cutting tycoon meets her match beneath the mistletoe in the 2021 romance “Christmas Takes Flight” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14).
• The brainy head (Katharine Hepburn) of a TV research department fights the executive (Spencer Tracy) bent on introducing computers to the company in the 1957 romantic comedy “Desk Set” (10 p.m., TCM, TV-G), featuring a well-lubricated office Christmas party.
Accentuating the Christ figure suggested in the original “Frankenstein” movie, director Tim Burton cast Johnny Depp as a mad scientist’s (Vincent Price) unfinished creature in the 1990 fantasy “Edward Scissorhands” (9:15 p.m., IFC, TV-14), co-starring Dianne Wiest as a merry suburbanite who adopts the shrub-cutting wonder only to have vengeful neighbors turn him into an object of their fears.
“WWE Friday Night SmackDown” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) ... “Dateline” (9 p.m., NBC) ... “20/20” (9 p.m., ABC, r) ... “The Wheel” (10 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).
RuPaul and Ed Sheeran are booked on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” (11:35 p.m., CBS, r) ... Jimmy Fallon welcomes James Corden, Jenna Ortega and Mike Feeney on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC, r) ... The Meyers family visits “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC).
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that she was advised by her first lawyer to deliberately withhold information from investigators and was wooed with job offers and promises of financi…
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2022-12-23T20:07:37Z
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Netflix streams 'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery' | | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/netflix-streams-glass-onion-a-knives-out-mystery/article_1444d469-6565-5a45-bc9b-d398c896049f.html
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The first openly transgender person elected to the N.H. House of Representatives has resigned her position.
The Office of the House Clerk published notice Thursday that Rep. Stacie Marie Laughton, D-Nashua, who won reelection to her Ward 4 seat Nov. 8, had resigned.
House Clerk Paul Smith confirmed the resignation Friday, saying the House won’t take up the item until Jan. 4. At that time Laughton’s letter of resignation will become public.
On Thursday night, Laughton posted a video on Facebook announcing her resignation to friends, family and supporters.
“As of today, I’m no longer a state representative which is very disappointing, but I’m going to come back to it,” Laughton says in the video. “I will be attending mental health court and getting some counseling and trying to get my life back on track. I’m not perfect. Even in the future I still won’t be perfect but I will be a better version of myself and better able to handle situations that come my way. In two years, the next state election, I will run for state representative again.”
According to published reports, Laughton was arrested for stalking in September and again more recently.
Laughton, 36, was arrested on a warrant in Hudson on a stalking order charge and was being held at Valley Street jail in Manchester. She was released on Dec. 19, officials said.
Police accused Laughton of communicating with the victim on social media on Nov. 8.
She was also accused of stalking and harassment in late August, according to Nashua police.
After it became clear Laughton wasn’t present at the State House for the swearing in of House members on Organization Day earlier this month, New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley called on Laughton to resign.
“After going back on her word to resign today, I call on Representative-Elect Laughton to resign immediately,” Buckley said in a statement. “The charges against Laughton are extremely serious and troubling and have no place in our state legislature or in our party.”
In her Facebook message, Laughton says she’s been “dealing with a lot.”
“I’m alive, I’m safe, I’m well,” Laughton says in the video. “I’m not suicidal, and just trying to get by every day with what I’ve been dealt. I don’t know what the future holds but I do know this -- there’s a lot of good opportunities out there for me to serve, and a lot of good opportunities for me to still stay connected with everyone and I plan to do that.”
Laughton was charged in 2021 on seven counts of misusing the state’s 911 system. She said someone was masquerading as her online.
In 2008, Laughton was convicted of conspiracy to commit credit card fraud while living in Laconia as a man.
After winning election in 2012, Laughton resigned after the felony conviction came to light.
And, in 2015, Laughton was sentenced to a suspended six-month jail term for reporting a bomb threat at a local hospital and voluntarily admitted herself to a mental health and addiction treatment facility in Vermont.
On Nov. 8, Laughton finished second in the race for three seats in Nashua Ward 4, the most Democratic ward in the city.
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2022-12-23T20:07:43Z
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Nashua state Rep. Laughton resigns House seat | State | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/state/nashua-state-rep-laughton-resigns-house-seat/article_8ae45b94-aef6-5614-a098-7c288853a758.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/state/nashua-state-rep-laughton-resigns-house-seat/article_8ae45b94-aef6-5614-a098-7c288853a758.html
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Glasses and drinks before and after a holiday party.
Linnea Bullion/Washington Post
By Anahad O'Connor The Washington Post
Tis the season for eggnog, mulled wine, champagne - and hangovers. So, what can you do to prevent the morning-after misery as you enjoy your end-of-year festivities?
It stands for bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. This diet was originally designed for children with upset stomachs. If you're experiencing nausea the morning after a big night out, it might be best to start with bland foods instead of having a heavy meal.
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2022-12-24T20:54:28Z
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How to cure (or prevent) a hangover | Health | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/health/how-to-cure-or-prevent-a-hangover/article_b20b7acb-4a56-5bf5-aed7-f1771c517fe7.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/health/how-to-cure-or-prevent-a-hangover/article_b20b7acb-4a56-5bf5-aed7-f1771c517fe7.html
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By Lori Valigra Bangor Daily News, Maine
"When Walmart came in, it just wiped down Main Street," Scott Berk, president of the Norway Downtown revitalization group and owner of Cafe Nomad, said regarding the supercenter's arrival in nearby Oxford in 1994. "It happened to so many towns. You end up needing to find more niche businesses that aren't competing directly with the Walmarts and Amazons of the world, where people want to come in and have a conversation with the owner."
"Norway is a self-sustaining kind of downtown," said Dennis Gray, a member of the Norway Planning Board. "When I first moved here in the 1970s, I could get just about everything that I needed on Main Street."
A key part of Norway's success in drawing new businesses and residents is the volunteer-run Norway Downtown group, which is a Maine Main Street program affiliate. That commits it to following a national four-point approach to revitalization that encompasses organization, design, promotions and economic growth.
"The speed limit is 25 mph, so we're looking at how to slow trucks down and get them through safely," he said. "We also are looking at the best place to locate crossings."
The town's vision statement said it expects moderate population growth over the next 10 years. Its population was up 63 people from 2010 to 2020, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. In the past year it has gone up 53 people. The data accounts for migration, births and deaths. Lajoie also expects more stores and housing, because both are in short supply right now.
Berk is a key figure who sparked the wave of new storefronts in Norway's downtown. In 2003, when he was looking for a home for his cafe, he saw two women picking up trash as they walked past empty storefronts and transient businesses.
"It clearly wasn't their job, so I stopped and talked to them," Berk said.
Berk decided to locate Cafe Nomad in Norway. Many of the locally owned retail stores that populate Norway's Main Street today followed, including Norway Brewing, which Melhus co-owns with her son and daughter-in-law.
The town has a history of creative and hand-built businesses. Norway, incorporated in 1797, was one of the largest snowshoe producers in the United States in the early 1900s with the Snocraft brand, later purchased by Tubbs. Other large industries included dowel-maker C.B. Cummings, which had been the town's largest employer and closed in 2002.
Today, the town still has large businesses including New Balance, Norway Savings' operations center and Stephens Memorial Hospital, the latter two located on Main Street.
It's that mix of businesses, and the historic buildings they are in, that attracts visitors and locals alike, said Kimberly Hamlin, co-owner of Fiber & Vine, located on the first floor of the partially restored Norway Opera House. Hamlin, a native of nearby South Paris, returned to the area from Brooklyn, New York, and started her business almost 10 years ago.
"People don't want this type of store to close," said Hamlin, most of whose customers are from the area. "There's an authenticity here that comes from people really caring about each other and their neighbors."
"It was like Cheers. You would walk in, and everybody knows your name," she said. "We came up during mud season, and it was still beautiful."
Still, the town has the dubious distinction of having two of its buildings on Main Street, the Norway Opera House and the adjacent Odd Fellows Block, named "most endangered" buildings by Maine Preservation in 2003 and 2019, respectively.
"If I can't get it on Main Street, I don't need it," she said.
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2022-12-24T20:54:34Z
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The Maine town growing its bustling Main Street without chain stores | Travel | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/nh/travel/the-maine-town-growing-its-bustling-main-street-without-chain-stores/article_68afab83-c892-5910-9050-0f2b18048d49.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/nh/travel/the-maine-town-growing-its-bustling-main-street-without-chain-stores/article_68afab83-c892-5910-9050-0f2b18048d49.html
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Mainly clear skies. Low near 10F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph..
Mainly clear skies. Low near 10F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.
Picture taken in Hampton Beach shortly after Friday morning's high tide.
Provided by David Andre
Picture taken in Hampton Beach shortly after high tide Friday morning.
Ocean Boulevard in Rye was closed Friday due to flooding.
Rye Police Department Facebook Page
Hampton Beach flooded
Dec. 24; 5:30 p.m. update: More than 37,000 remain without power on Christmas Eve, while hundreds of crews continue to work through the night to repair damage caused by strong winds on Friday. Everrsouce reported that utility workers from states including Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia and Canada, were continuing to assist 600 Eversource line, tree and service crews on Christmas Eve.
Outages as of 5:30 p.m.:
Eversource: 24,483
Unitil: 2,775
Liberty Utilities: 21
NH Electric Co-op: 10,395
(Friday's reporting follows)
More than 120,000 customers were without power across Friday as strong winds and heavy rains toppled trees and brought down wires across New Hampshire.
Line crews had knocked that number down to just over 45,000 still in the dark by 5 p.m. But the number had risen to more than 120,000 at 7:30 p.m.
As of 2 p.m., Eversource crews had restored power to more than 106,000 Granite State customers since the storm began, with personnel from as far away as Texas, Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia – as well as Canada – supporting the effort.
As of 7:30 p.m., about 87,000 Eversource customers were without power in New Hampshire.
As of 7:30 p.m.., about 17,000 customers in Unitil’s New Hampshire service territories were without power due to wind impacts from the storm. It was about 1,500 at 5 p.m.
Liberty Utilities reported 60 customers without power as of 7:30 p.m. New Hampshire Electric Co-Op reported just over 19,000 customers without power, with Barnstead and Nottingham the hardest hit areas.
As the sun set, emergency officials warned drivers of plummeting temperatures and the possibility of freezing road surfaces.
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2022-12-24T23:13:21Z
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Crews continue to work to restore power to more than 37,000 on Christmas Eve | Weather | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/weather/crews-continue-to-work-to-restore-power-to-more-than-37-000-on-christmas-eve/article_d1f3d3b1-02c8-54e3-a08e-ddcfcb83dfed.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/weather/crews-continue-to-work-to-restore-power-to-more-than-37-000-on-christmas-eve/article_d1f3d3b1-02c8-54e3-a08e-ddcfcb83dfed.html
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Jonathan Reovan's daughter, 9, with a tutor at the Lindamood-Bell Learning Center in Newton, Mass., on Sept. 13, 2022. The Washington Post agreed not to name Reovan's family members.
Michael Robinson Chavez/Washington Post
Roxann Harvey at her home in Boston on Oct 22, 2022. Harvey has struggled to get special reading instruction for her children.
Jonathan Reovan picks his daughter up from school in Boston on Sept. 12, 2022, to take her to a reading tutor.
Jonathan Reovan, right, at dinner with his husband and their two children at their Boston home on Sept. 12, 2022.
Jonathan Reovan with his daughter outside her school on Sept. 12, 2022, in Boston.
Roxann Harvey and her children in Boston. on Oct 22, 2022. Harvey has struggled to get special reading instruction for her children.
By Sarah Carr Special to The Washington Post
BOSTON - The worry nagged at Roxann Harvey from the time her children were in kindergarten. They couldn't name all their letters, much less associate them with sounds. Teachers offered tepid assurances (some kids take longer than others) and frustrating advice (you should expose them to books). But Harvey worked in a library, so both there and at home, each child had shelves full of books. The teachers insisted they would catch up, Harvey recalled. "I started to wonder if I was being irrational."
This article was produced in cooperation with the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Carr reported this story as an O'Brien fellow in public service journalism at Marquette University.
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2022-12-25T18:40:32Z
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How dyslexia became a social justice issue for Black parents | Education | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/education/how-dyslexia-became-a-social-justice-issue-for-black-parents/article_0198985a-5ebc-55e7-ba8b-e0bed18eed37.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/education/how-dyslexia-became-a-social-justice-issue-for-black-parents/article_0198985a-5ebc-55e7-ba8b-e0bed18eed37.html
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A trooper was sent to the hospital with minor injuries after a crash on an Interstate 93 off-ramp in Salem Saturday.
A state police trooper was brought to Parkland Medical Center for minor injuries on Christmas Eve after a car hit the trooper’s cruiser on a Interstate 93 off-ramp in Salem.
The crash happened around 8:45 a.m. at the I-93 northbound Exit 1 off-ramp, according to a news release. The trooper positioned the cruiser in the far left lane with its emergency lights activated to investigate another crash. The trooper was in the cruiser when it was stuck from behind.
The cruiser was struck by a 2009 Mercedes C300 sedan driven by Kylie Garcia, 21, of Methuen, Mass. Garcia and passengers were not injured.
“Preliminary investigation indicates that speed, existing road conditions and failure to negotiate the curve of the ramp were factors of the crash,” the news release said.
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2022-12-25T20:39:12Z
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State police cruiser hit in Salem | Public Safety | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/safety/state-police-cruiser-hit-in-salem/article_5bb02a82-172c-52ea-be47-7af7587de9d6.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/safety/state-police-cruiser-hit-in-salem/article_5bb02a82-172c-52ea-be47-7af7587de9d6.html
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Queen City Invitational headlines holiday tourney action
The field for this week’s Queen City Invitational Basketball Tournament is bigger and better than it was a year ago. There can’t be any debate about that.
Last season the tournament was reduced to four Manchester schools: Central, Memorial, Trinity and West. This year the QCIBT will return to its usual eight teams. In addition to those four Manchester programs the tournament will include the boys teams from Bedford, Bow, Exeter and Salem.
The tournament kicks off Tuesday at Manchester Memorial with the following first-round matchups:
Bow vs. Salem (3 p.m.)
Exeter vs. Bedford (4:30 p.m.)
Central vs. Trinity (6 p.m.)
West vs. Memorial (7:30 p.m.)
The three-day event will wrap up with Thursday’s championship game (7:30 p.m.).
Trinity (2-1) won last year’s tournament and went on to claim the Division I championship, but lost all but four players from that team. Of the four returning players, two were starters last season.
“We’re in a different boat this year than we were last year,” Trinity coach Keith Bike said. “We’re still trying to find our identity. … We’re going to play a tough, tough Central team opening night. There’s going to be a good crowd. That’s going to be great for our kids.
“I load up the roster with 15 kids. You can play a lot of kids too, especially if you lose one of the (first two) games you can get other guys in and see where they are.”
Trinity’s loss came against Bedford (3-0), 68-62. Those teams could meet again in the tournament’s championship game.
“We’re going to go in and compete, but there are some things we have to fix and some kids we have to develop for sure,” Bedford coach Frank Moreno said. “Bedford’s never won it, so my guys have to learn how to compete at a high level. If we can get that first game against Exeter we may go all-in and try to get a (tournament championship). That would be great for us.”
• Manchester Central will be home to the Doug Chandler Girls Christmas Tournament, which is also a three-day event that begins Tuesday. The first-round matchups:
West vs. Merrimack (1:30 p.m.)
Trinity vs. Bow (3 p.m.)
Central vs. Conant (4:30 p.m.)
Memorial vs. Derryfield (6 p.m.)
Conant (4-0), last year’s runner-up in Division III, is among the favorites to win the Division III title this season. Derryfield moved from Division IV to Division II after the 2021-22 season.
Memorial is off to a 3-0 start in Division I, and Bow will enter the tournament with a 3-0 record in Division II.
• The Nashua Holiday Tournament has returned after a two-year absence and is among the other basketball tournaments in the area this year. This year’s tournament begins Wednesday at Nashua South and features four boys teams and four girls teams.
Wednesday’s matchups:
Girls: Nashua South vs. Milford (2 p.m.) and Nashua North vs. Souhegan (3:30 p.m.).
Boys: Nashua North vs. Souhegan (5 p.m.) and Nashua South vs. Milford (6:30 p.m.)
The championship games and consolation games in each bracket are scheduled to be played Thursday.
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2022-12-25T20:39:24Z
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Queen City Invitational headlines holiday tourney action | Sports | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/highschool/queen-city-invitational-headlines-holiday-tourney-action/article_68eaed94-e8e3-5596-834c-e5fab5efa530.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/highschool/queen-city-invitational-headlines-holiday-tourney-action/article_68eaed94-e8e3-5596-834c-e5fab5efa530.html
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Pinkerton Academy’s Tyrone Chinn drives to the the hoop against Exeter’s Ryan Luper at Pinkerton Academy in Derry on Thursday.
Pinkerton Academy’s Jackson Marshall takes a shot as Exeter’s Matthew Cromer defends at Pinkerton Academy in Derry on Thursday.
Short-handed Pinkerton boys basketball team continues to stand tall
Tyrone Chinn
Pinkerton Academy was missing two starters for Thursday night’s Division I boys basketball game against Exeter, but it didn’t look that way.
The Astros were without senior guard Anthony Chinn and senior forward Sean Jenkins because of injury or illness, but breezed to a 66-46 victory against the Blue Hawks, who entered the game with a 3-0 record against Division I competition.
“Still don’t have our full roster,” Pinkerton coach Dave Chase said before the game. “Jenkins is a 6-foot-5 wing whose specialty is defense. Anthony has gotten a lot better shooting it. He can shoot the 3. He can get to the rim, and he makes up for a lot of our mistakes.
“The flip side? We’re getting pieces from everybody who comes in.”
Winning while short-handed has been a theme for Pinkerton so far this season. The Astros are 4-0 even though Chinn, one of the top players in the state, hasn’t played since breaking his left hand during a preseason practice. Chinn is scheduled to return in early January.
Pinkerton, which lost to Trinity in last season’s Division I semifinals, has also been without junior guard Charlie Ludden, senior forward Ethan Johnston and junior forward James Wallace at times this season.
Senior guard Tyrone Chinn, Anthony’s brother, said playing -- and winning -- without the injured players has strengthened the team.
“We’ve gone through a lot of adversity so far, a lot of injuries, but we play hard every night for them because we know how bad they want to play,” he said. “I really think this helps us work together and other role players step up. They’re really getting their confidence up so they can step up in the big moments. I honestly think it’s good for us. We can’t control it, so we’re just trying to make the best of it.”
The Astros have five players who are 6-foot-4 or taller, including 6-foot-7 junior forward Jackson Marshall, who scored a game-high 34 points and grabbed six rebounds against Exeter. Jackson has the ability to score inside, but is also a marksman from behind the 3-point arc.
“He gets it 10 feet from the hoop whether he’s double-teamed or not he can put it in the bucket,” Exeter coach Jeff Holmes said. “He’s a finisher.”
Chase seemed pleased with his team’s defense against Exeter more than anything else.
“This was our most complete game of the year, and we were physical,” he said. “We took six charges in this one game. We took six last season. I’m not kidding you. Six for the season.”
Pinkerton led Exeter by five points after one quarter and 14 at halftime. The Astros held the Blue Hawks to 20 points in the first half. Exeter failed to score more than 14 points in any quarter.
“I think we’re focused on defense this year,” Tyrone Chinn said. “We want that to be our identity. It was an area we lacked in (last season). We didn’t take pride in it
“And Jackson’s obviously been (good) for us, so we just try to get him the ball inside. When I get a switch on him (in practice) it’s hard. I understand what the other teams go through.”
The Astros will compete in this week’s Lowell (Mass.) Holiday Tournament. Pinkerton will open the tourney by facing Haverhill, Mass., on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.
“This was a good wake-up call for us,” Holmes said. “We learned that we have to tend to business a little bit better because good teams can expose you. Our execution wasn’t very good on offense. We tried to play fast because they’re tough in the half court, but we didn’t shoot well and we turned it over too much.
“They’re going to be a tough out. They’re the favorite.”
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2022-12-25T20:39:30Z
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Short-handed Pinkerton boys basketball team continues to stand tall | Sports | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/highschool/short-handed-pinkerton-boys-basketball-team-continues-to-stand-tall/article_15590a1c-e653-55ee-900a-c465cdecf234.html
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A month after a 19-year-old woman was found dead on Mount Lafayette, another hiker has died at the popular hiking spot in Franconia Notch, Fish and Game said.
The 28-year-old man departed on the the 8.6-mile Bridle Path/Falling Waters Loop alone around 11 a.m. Saturday, according to a news release.
Rescuers were alerted of the overdue hiker just after 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve. A family member in China had been tracking the hiker’s progress when at 6:15 p.m. the phone was dead and the hiker was lost off a trail south of Mount Lincoln.
“The hiker was described by family as inexperienced and it was unknown what he was carrying for equipment,” the news release said. “With temperatures near zero a search for the hiker commenced.”
By 2 a.m. Sunday, the team reached Franconia Ridge and located what they believed to be tracks left by the hiker. The tracks continued off trail to drainage that flows between Little Haystack Mountain and Mount Lincoln.
The team arrived back at the trailhead at 2:30 p.m. Christmas Day. The identity of the hiker is being withheld until family can be notified.
Emily Sotelo, of Westford, Mass., hiked in the opposite direction of the man and had also hoped to summit several other 4,000-foot mountains. Sotelo’s body was found Nov. 23 after a four-day search. A search team found tracks and items belonging to Sotelo were at the headwaters of Lafayette Brook.
Sotelo was found on what would have been her 20th birthday. Her body was flown by a National Guard helicopter to Cannon Mountain Ski Area.
The family of Emily Sotelo, who died while hiking Mount Lafayette on Nov. 20, is asking for donations to be made to the search and rescue volu…
A search and rescue team located the body of a missing Massachusetts hiker on what would have been her 20th birthday after a search that spann…
FRANCONIA — As a New Hampshire National Guard helicopter ferried search teams to peaks in Franconia Notch on Tuesday, Fish and Game officials …
New Hampshire Fish and Game and rescue teams paused their search Monday evening for a missing 20-year-old female hiker.
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2022-12-25T22:37:07Z
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Man hiking solo found dead trying to summit Mt. Lincoln | Public Safety | unionleader.com
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So began her months-long process to donate a kidney to a stranger with the help of Chaya Lipschutz, who runs a website called KidneyMitzvah. Despite the Jewish reference in her website, Lipschutz says she helps people of all races and religions.
From her apartment in Brooklyn, Lipschutz — a 65-year-old former secretary for a nonprofit — posts notices for kidney and liver patients in need of new organs and success stories of donors who’ve given.
Lipschutz charges no fees and brings a lot of energy and a caring spirit.
She’d heard about Lipschutz through a friend and asked her to post a message she had written: “I’m crying day & night & praying to God for him to show me what a day looks like by feeling healthy. I have lost all my strength & can’t even walk without aid. Every day, getting more critical. I don’t want to die! Please help me!”
Porat read the message. It was her birthday. Porat said she planned to make a donation to a local kosher food bank in honor of her own birthday and in gratitude for a friend’s transplant. But when she read Ilyasova’s plea, she thought, “I can’t overlook this.”
She and Ilyasova went through months of testing to see if they were a match. After the procedure, they met in person for the first time at the hospital, and Ilyasova cried.
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2022-12-26T00:21:37Z
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Maryland woman donated kidney to stranger after seeing request on internet mailing list | Back Page | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/maryland-woman-donated-kidney-to-stranger-after-seeing-request-on-internet-mailing-list/article_9074908e-201c-5ee2-985d-2f6b48655a48.html
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Torrington Properties buys Fort Eddy Shopping Center in Concord for $30 million.
Torrington Properties bought the Fort Eddy Shopping Center in Concord earlier this month for $30 million.
The 175,000-square-foot shopping center is fully leased and is the current home of Shaw’s, Books-A-Million, Staples, Eastern Mountain Sports, Five Guys Burgers & Fries, GameStop, H&R Block, Moritomo Japanese Restaurant and more, according to a news release.
The company has offices in Boston, Mass. and Durham.
Chief Operating Officer Matt Morgan said the property has high visibility off Interstate 93.
The shopping center was sold by Eddy Plaza Associates LLC, a family company that has owned the property since it was built in 1979.
Morgan said the Torrington sees an opportunity to further elevate the center to a premier retail destination over the next several years, according to the release.
Shaw’s is the primary anchor store with 67,500 square feet.
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2022-12-26T00:21:43Z
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Torrington Properties buys Fort Eddy Shopping Center in Concord for $30M | Business | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/business/torrington-properties-buys-fort-eddy-shopping-center-in-concord-for-30m/article_64830d13-70ac-5baa-8229-33193afa685b.html
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Interceptions doom Dolphins against Packers
Aaron Rodgers completed 24 of 38 passes for 238 yards, a touchdown and an interception to lead the Green Bay Packers to a 26-20 comeback win over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday afternoon in Miami Gardens, Florida.
Jaire Alexander, De’Vondre Campbell and Rasul Douglas each had fourth-quarter interceptions of Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa to help seal the win.
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2022-12-26T00:22:38Z
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Interceptions doom Dolphins against Packers | Sports | unionleader.com
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LEADERS LISTEN a lot.
Books on leadership seldom mention listening as a required skill in directing the efforts of others. Usually those that are best tuned in to others seem to be the best leaders.
They are not paid to be the smartest person in the room. They earn their living by trying to find out who really is the smartest person in the room. That person sometimes is an hourly worker.
Those who live in the bubble of their own little worlds don’t do well in leadership.
The voice that people value the most is their own voice. The word they are most attuned to is their own name. “Is that so Joe? I never thought of things quite that way before. Can you tell me more?”
How much do you know about the world of others? To be an effective leader you must be a student of the wants and needs of those you are called upon to lead.
If you take the time to let others speak, they will tell you what is on their mind and what is important to them. You will often learn things you were not looking to learn about.
Formal information gathering can block out the sun in our age of almost infinite data. We are then tasked with trying to figure out what it may mean. Asking others what they see in the numbers is a smart move. You will be amazed in how others see what they see. You may not see it their way, but best you know as much as you can about what others think if you are to be able to make informed judgements of your own.
Informal exchanges are underrated in our information economy. Screen time comes in a far distant second to coffee time. “What did you think of the presentation?” will tell you more than the presentation itself.
The next and often the rarest leadership skill is to get back to others on the value of their input and what you may be doing in response to their thoughts.
Going from the macro of things to the micro of the daily lives of others is a skill that can be developed. Notice that quarterly reports are seldom pinned to cubical or office walls. Pictures of what is important to others are posted for all to see.
All business is personal. Being good at what is important to others is big in the world of leadership. Going there and being there informally is greatly undervalued.
Their being only so many hours in a day how much can you invest in the lives of others? The answer is as much as is humanly possible. Using a position of leadership to listen to others is as good an investment of time as there is.
It is enlightening to watch those who do political town meeting events in how they handle question-and-answer segments. Do they listen or are they just working on a talking point answer?
All this is hard work. If you watch the parent of a small child answer endless questions you will know why they have little difficulty in getting to sleep at night.
People wanting to be appreciated is not new news. Appreciating what others think is rare news. We all wish to make a difference in life. Those who are true leaders speak to those needs by speaking less and listening more.
Jack Falvey is a former adjunct professor at U-Mass Boston and Boston College. He is the founder of MakingTheNumbers.Com in Londonderry. His new book: “All According to Plan, (It was not my plan.)” will be out later this year.
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2022-12-26T02:04:53Z
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Man on the Move: Leaders listen a lot | Business | unionleader.com
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People walk by New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 13 in New York City. In a sign that the Federal Reserve’s rate-raising campaign to fight inflation is starting to take effect, consumer price growth slowed in November to 7.1%.
As this year’s trading comes to a close in the week ahead, the S&P 500 is down about 19% for the year — just shy of closing out in bear market territory.
It has been a brutal year for investors. Inflation fears, recession worries and a war in Europe have led to the worst year since 2008 when the Great Recession gripped the economy. This year is on track to be one of the five worst years for the S&P 500 since the end of World War II.
So, what are the predictions for 2023? According to FactSet’s John Butters, 13%. That’s the aggregate expected rally from stock analysts. If it holds, that would be a better than usual historical return for shareholders. But that’s a big if. The Federal Reserve remains forthright in its resolution to fight inflation. The housing market will remain under pressure from higher borrowing costs. And Russia remains defiant in its war against Ukraine.
Analysts are most optimistic for energy and technology stocks in 2023. One of those sectors — technology — is beaten and bruised this year. The other was a shining bright spot in an otherwise dismal investing year. The consumer staples sector holds the most worry as a new year dawns, which makes sense if one is in the “how deep and how long will the recession be?” camp.
The end of a year brings investment optimism for the year ahead the same way a New Year brings self-betterment resolutions. After all, the financial-industrial complex, like the fitness or diet industries, relies on selling a forecast of a brighter tomorrow.
There will be plenty of financial autopsies on 2022 — what portfolio mix tanked, what combination softened the blows — yet shareholders, like the companies they invest in, must make decisions about the future, not relive the past, in their pursuit of profits.
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2022-12-26T02:04:59Z
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The Week Ahead: An awful investing year comes to an end | Business | unionleader.com
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From left: Amy Bassett, SBA New Hampshire District Director, TD Bank group, Lender of the Year for FY 22, Tuesday Belanger, SBA New Hampshire lender relations specialist, and Mike Vlacich, SBA New England Regional Administrator,
Provided by SBA
OZMEN
MARTONE
Nathan Wechsler promotes Brett
The regional accounting firm of Nathan Wechsler & Company promoted Annie Scionti Brett to manager. Brett joined the firm in 2019 as a senior in the firm’s tax department. She specializes in working with individuals, small businesses, partnerships, and consolidated returns.
Southern New Hampshire Health adds providers
Southern New Hampshire Health recently added five providers to its practices.
Tolga Ozmen, MD, joined the staff at Foundation Surgery. A graduate of Istanbul University, Istanbul Faculty of Medicine in Istanbul, Turkey, Ozmen completed his initial general surgery training at Marmara University School of Medicine in Istanbul and his fellowship in breast surgical oncology at the University of Miami. He completed his second general surgery residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital/University of Miami. He is on staff at Massachusetts General Hospital and is a faculty member at Harvard Medical School.
Timothy Miller, a board-certified physician assistant, also joined Foundation Surgery. A graduate of Arizona State University with a B.S. in kinesiology, Miller earned his master of science in applied nutrition at Northeastern University and his master of physician assistant studies at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences University in Manchester.
Marina Smallwood, a board-certified women’s health nurse practitioner, joined Women’s Care of Nashua. Smallwood, who has been practicing as a nurse practitioner for 15 years, received her master in science in nursing from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions and her B.A. from the University of Massachusetts in Boston.
Victoria Martone, a board-certified nurse practitioner with more than 12 years of experience, joined the staff of Infectious Disease and Travel Medicine in Merrimack. A graduate of Saint Anselm College in Manchester with a B.S. in nursing, Martone received her master of science in nursing from the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
Rachel Davis, a board-certified nurse practitioner, joined the staff at both the Nashua Center for Internal Medicine and the Anticoagulation Clinic. Davis earned her master of nursing at Rivier University and her associate degree in nursing at Nashua Community College.
Betty Ketchum Foundation expands board
The Betty C. Ketchum Foundation, founder, and operator of The Mount Washington Valley Adult Day Center, elected three new board members at its November meeting, expanding the board to seven. The new trustees are Barbara Harmon, Dr. Sohaib Siddiqui, and Holly Summers.
Harmon of North Conway has lived in the Mount Washington Valley for over 30 years. While raising her family and volunteering on numerous boards she also held several financial positions for local companies. Her current role as CFO for the Berry Compaines has allowed her to refine her executive qualifications for her newly appointed position as treasurer of the board of trustees.
Siddiqui has been serving the Mount Washington Valley as a family physician since 2007. He has served on the Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees as president of medical staff, and in 2019 opened Cranmore Health Partners
Summers of North Sandwich has seen firsthand the day-to-day challenges of family members caring for loved ones at home. She appreciates how important resources such as the Adult Day Center are for the well-being of a loved one as well as their caregiver. She brings more than 18 years of nonprofit operations experience in several leadership positions at The Nature Conservancy.
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2022-12-26T02:05:05Z
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Newsmakers: SBA recognizes leading lenders | Business | unionleader.com
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Nurse Alyssa Chasse puts on protective gear before treating a COVID-19 patient at the Emergency Unit at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester on Jan. 3, 2022. Hospital beds and staff are in unprecedented short supply around the state.
U.S. Air Force Major Laura Ivey-Glines speaks at a press conference about the activation of a Department of Defense medical response team at the Elliot at River's Edge in Manchester on Jan. 7, 2022. The triple threat of triple threat of COVID, the flu and RSV are challenging the state's hospitals this winter.
By Roberta Baker New Hampshire Union Leader
For health care systems across New Hampshire, this winter could be a Code Blue — time for all available workers to quickly come together to save lives.
According to administrators, manager-physicians and health care advocates around the state, hospital beds and staff are in unprecedented short supply as winter brings a triple threat from COVID, the flu and RSV — a common respiratory virus that spiked this fall that can be dangerous for children and seniors.
Hospitals around New Hampshire report they are running at, near or above 100% capacity, depending on the day of the week, and medical patients are frequently boarding in emergency rooms waiting for an available bed.
“You’re running the ins and outs of the hospital on an hour-to-hour basis,” said Dr. Greg Baxter, president of Elliot Health System, which includes the Elliot Hospital in Manchester and Southern New Hampshire Health in Nashua plus urgent care centers. They have treated record numbers of children this year, recently because of RSV.
“We’ve been able to get treatment for everyone in need,” Baxter said. “Sometimes we bring inpatient resources to the ER, to patients wherever they are.” Staff are stepping up to take extra shifts as necessary, and long hours are a way of life.
“It’s a brittle system right now. It’s really one in, one out at this point,” Baxter said.
What’s the outlook for this season — with a virus trifecta and staff shortages on top of ordinary medical and surgery needs?
“There’s a high likelihood that the demands will be at least as high as they are now,” Baxter said. Elliot Hospital has been operating between 90% and 105% capacity, sometimes higher, for several months.
“RSV is behind us to a great degree. COVID has been ticking up, but it’s manageable,” he said. “Influenza is the wild card.”
Heading into winter, Concord Regional Health Care’s three hospitals in Concord, Franklin and Laconia have been running at “virtual 100% capacity” for two months, said Dr. Chris Fore, the system’s chief quality officer.
Staffing shortages and the inability to hire more LNAs, techs and nurses have capped patient beds at 50 in Laconia, even though there’s physical room to add more.
“In Concord in particular, we’ve been routinely holding a couple of patients in the ER all the time,” he said. The wait typically lasts a few days.
Space, workforce woes
Three winter viruses rotating and spiking without warning have exacerbated capacity and workforce shortages. Hospitals report that RSV has slowed, COVID is rising slowly, and no one knows what the flu will do, after two years of uncharacteristically low numbers. Demand for services remains high.
“It’s cardiac, respiratory, neurological. You name it we’re seeing it,” Fore said.
The severity and immediacy of medical needs, the increased length of stay in hospitals, and the inability to move fragile elders to long-term care and rehabilitation centers are creating complex challenges.
“There are no options to convert additional space because we don’t have staff,” Fore said.
Some days Concord Hospital is unable to accept patient transfers from smaller, rural hospitals because of the lack of available beds. In some cases, patients are waiting in smaller hospitals that are not designed to serve their specific needs.
“Everyone is doing whatever they can. We always find some way to provide care that’s needed,” Fore said.
But with lack of beds, insufficient staff to add more, and the expenses of traveling nurses who are paid at least two to three times what full-time staff nurses receive, hospital operations have become a precarious balance that sometimes pass the tipping point.
“The workforce challenges and salary expenses are unprecedented,” he said. “For health care, it’s going to be a rough winter.”
The crisis for hospitals and health care has been brewing long before COVID. The pandemic caused an exodus of health professionals, with many retiring or leaving because of burnout. According to some New Hampshire hospital administrators, the omnibus bill that just passed the Senate does not contain emergency relief or ongoing support for health care, which was available during the pandemic when federal funds were used to dispatch emergency health care teams to states including New Hampshire.
Although capacity and financial resilience can vary between hospitals, most of New Hampshire facilities are not-for-profit enterprises with tight bottom lines. Hiring traveling nurses when staff can’t be found becomes a fiscal drain they can’t endure forever.
“In terms of acuity, capacity, (patient) needs and the challenges of workforce and placing patients in long term care, it’s as bad as it ever was during COVID and probably worse,” said Fore, speaking about the pressures on hospitals. When it comes to patient transfers, “there are times when no one can accept patients. Patient demand is inelastic. You can’t cancel flights.”
Long-term care crunchNew Hampshire’s nursing home staffing shortage is currently the second-worst in the country, said Brendan Williams, president of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes and assisted living facilities statewide. Based on the most recent data reported to the federal government, New Hampshire’s average nursing home occupancy is 77% compared to 89% pre-pandemic.
Beds are offline in many New Hampshire nursing homes, but facilities are not closing completely, Williams said.
It’s a Catch-22. “If you can’t improve occupancy, you can’t add staff. If you can’t add staff, you can’t improve occupancy,” said Williams, who believes the only long-term solution is for New Hampshire to invest in health care, and in training and retaining workers.
On Dec. 22, Hillsborough County Nursing Home had a wait list of roughly 140 people with 60 beds vacant because of insufficient staff, according to administrator David Ross. Kathryn Kindopp, who heads Maplewood Nursing Home of Cheshire County, a county-run center, reported a wait list of 119, with 100 beds staffed and filled and 50 offline.
“There are combining factors, workforce shortages and lack of post-acute care options at the root of the current capacity crisis facing the health care sector,” Dr. Jonathan Huntington, chief medical officer at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, wrote in an email. “While acutely felt in our region this is a national crisis that needs thoughtful and immediate attention.”
According to Huntington, inpatient volume remains high and often runs at or above capacity at DHMC, which is the state’s only Level I and II pediatric trauma center. The number and acuity of DHMC’s emergency room patients exceeds pre-pandemic levels, and there are more requests for transfers from outside hospitals seeking advanced treatment, complex procedures and specialty care for patients. At the same time, patients are staying longer at Dartmouth-Hitchcock because of a lack of step-down options.
As a result of ongoing capacity challenges, DHMC has had to limit some surgeries and procedures that require inpatient admission.
“We prioritize cases according to urgency and severity. When clinically appropriate, and based on bed availability, we coordinate patient transfers to other Dartmouth Health system members from our ED,” Huntington wrote.
Transfers delayedDr. Barry Gendron, chief medical officer at Huggins Hospital in Wolfeboro, stated by email that the hospital’s inpatient census rose significantly in recent weeks and staff are prioritizing beds for patients in the community. Emergency room patients are cared for by emergency and hospital physicians while waiting for a bed at Huggins or another facility. The intensive care unit has been at or near capacity, he said.
“We are working with other hospitals across the state to make sure patients get the care they need,” said Monika O’Clair, Hugglins Hospital’s vice president of strategy. “This includes working with each other in creative ways. In one example we accepted a patient from another facility in order to open a bed at that facility for patients with more acute needs.”
Many smaller hospitals, including Speare in Plymouth, continue to rely on traveling nurses to maintain full occupancy, which is financially dicey. Here, too, patients wait longer to transfer, and those in the emergency room spend more time in limbo, waiting for a vacant hospital bed.
“Many elective surgeries do not need a bed. They get discharged the same day,” Michelle McEwen, president and CEO of Speare Hospital, explained by email. “For the larger cases, we assess each day whether we think we will have an available bed to accommodate them.”
If illness spikes in Speare’s service area, which includes Waterville Valley and much of Grafton County, and more beds are needed, McEwen said some post-operative space will be converted into an additional six-bed unit — a strategy used last year during COVID.
“This will affect our surgical capacity, which means at that point we may need to significantly curtail elective surgeries,” she said.
At this point, the Concord hospital system is hopeful.
“We’re seeing staffing get a little better,” said Fore. The central New Hampshire health care network consists of approximately 4,000 full-time employees. Roughly seven openings are filled every two weeks.
“Universally, nurses and doctors are pretty frustrated” by the staff shortage and the simultaneous pressure to cover more shifts and care for needy patients. Fore said.
But patients shouldn’t postpone going to the hospital or seeking medical care.
“Number one, if you need to receive care, don’t delay it,” Fore said. “If you do need to receive services, please bring a little grace and patience.”
Silver Linings is a continuing Union Leader/Sunday News report focusing on the issues of New Hampshire’s aging population and seeking out solutions. Union Leader reporter Roberta Baker would like to hear from readers about issues related to aging. She can be reached at rbaker@unionleader.com or (603) 206-1514. See more at www.unionleader.com/aging. This series is funded through a grant from the Endowment for Health.
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2022-12-26T02:05:18Z
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Hospital staff and bed shortages as winter brings greater need | Health | unionleader.com
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MICHAEL QUIGLEY
DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER/
Michael Quigley has been hired as director of the city’s Office of Youth Services, Manchester officials announced last week.
Manchester aldermen unanimously approved Mayor Joyce Craig’s nomination of Quigley for the vacant position. Quigley will start Dec. 27 at an annual salary of $80,416.28.
“Michael has been supporting youth for decades; building and managing programs that have helped young people overcome immense challenges, achieve educational success, and develop lifelong career readiness skills,” Craig said in a statement. “We’re grateful to have his expertise and leadership here in Manchester.”
The city’s Office of Youth Services (OYS) provides programming for youth experiencing academic concerns and/or poor grades, anger and aggression, bullying and fighting, among other challenges.
The programming also helps young adults cope with changes in behavior, family structure and custody, death or loss, divorce or marriage of a parent, homelessness, isolation, violence, and more.
“I’m honored that my nomination received unanimous approval by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen,” said Quigley in a statement.
“I’m excited to join the Office of Youth Services and I am looking forward to strengthening our relationship and presence in the community.”
Quigley went on to say young adults in the Queen City inspire him to believe in their “endless potential.”
“I am eager to take part in the great work that OYS is currently doing in the community and will work to broaden our impact by strengthening our mission and vision that will be centered around the investment and belief in the lives of young people,” said Quigley.
OYS will do this by providing “new opportunities, partnerships and programs that will allow youth to thrive, and provide spaces for them to use their voice to help this community continue to grow,” Quigley added.
Quigley holds a bachelor’s degree in secondary education and a master’s degree in adult education and leadership. His resume shows he has worked in youth services since 2007 and has extensive experience maintaining partnerships with families, schools, nonprofit partners, and government agencies.
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2022-12-26T02:05:24Z
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Manchester hires new director for Office of Youth Services | Human Interest | unionleader.com
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The Chicago Playboy Club logo from a 1976 newspaper ad.
Aurore Eaton's Looking Back: The bicentennial hikers – From Chicago’s Playboy Club to a historic Missouri jail
TWO NEW HAMPSHIRE men headed westward on foot from Watseka, Illinois, on May 5, 1976.
This was the 52nd day of their transcontinental journey that had begun in Portland, Maine, and would end in Santa Monica, California.
The hikers were George Hormell, co-owner of a restaurant in Center Harbor, and Scott King, a mason from Meredith. The third member of the team was Chris Hurd, a Meredith electrician, who drove the supply van and served as advance man.
These volunteers had undertaken this project on behalf of their club, the Meredith Jaycees, to honor the bicentennial of the American Revolution
As Hormell described in his journal that evening, “The wind was unreal today! 31 mph with gusts up to 41 mph — and it was all coming right in our faces. It slowed us down to 23 miles today because of the difficult walking.”
On May 6 the men endured heavy rain, but only for the morning. In the afternoon, when they were in the vicinity of Chatsworth, they boarded the van with Hurd and headed north to Chicago, a distance of around 100 miles.
There they met up with Bob Stelzer, a marketing executive for Budget Rent a Car, which was headquartered in Chicago. The men wanted to thank Stelzer for the loan of the van for the project. Stelzer arranged for them to stay at the Hyatt Hotel and took them out to dinner in the hotel’s expensive restaurant. He also contacted the local television, radio, and newspaper outlets, which sent reporters out to interview the hiking team.
On Friday, May 7, the trio met Gov. Dan Walker, who showed great interest in their cross-country trek. Walker compared this venture to his famous 1971 walk across the state of Illinois which he had undertaken to promote his longshot bid for the Democratic nomination for the 1972 governor’s race. He went on to win the primary in March 1972 and was elected governor that November.
After the meeting, Selzer took Hormell, King and Hurd to the club for lunch where their waitresses were Playboy Bunnies, dressed in their lingerie-inspired “bunny suits.”
The Playboy enterprise had been founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner, and the world’s first Playboy Club opened there in 1960.
The club had become a favorite networking hotspot for celebrities. The New Hampshire men met two —Charo, the exuberant Spanish-American singer, actress, and classical guitarist who was promoting her upcoming prime-time television special; and Jenny Agutter, the young British actress starring in the newly released science fiction action movie, “Logan’s Run.”
After this memorable detour, the trio drove back to the spot where the hike had ended the previous day, and Hormell and King walked onward for the remainder of the afternoon.
On May 8 and 9 Hormell hiked full days, covering 55 miles total and reaching Eureka, Illinois. King accompanied him part of the time (as he was still recuperating from a bout with blisters).
On May 10 King began walking full-time. That day, he and Hormell hiked 26 miles from Eureka to Peoria, where they were interviewed by the local NBC and CBS affiliates and the Peoria newspaper. Over the next four days the duo walked a total of 135 miles, passing through Little America, Astoria, and Ripley, and ending up at Camp Point, Illinois.
After spending the night in Camp Point as guests of the local Jaycees, on Saturday, May 15, Hormell and King walked 23 miles to Quincy, Illinois. There they crossed the Route 24 bridge over the Mississippi River into West Quincy, Missouri — reaching the ninth state on their journey.
On May 16, Hormell and King made it to a location five miles west of Palmyra, Missouri, the site of a Civil War scandal known as the “Palmyra Massacre.”
On Oct. 18, 1862, five inmates from this prison, and five from the jail in Hannibal, Missouri, were executed on the order of Col. John MacNeil of the Union Army in revenge for the kidnapping of a local Union supporter. The men were Confederate sympathizers, but were innocent of this crime, and their killing was decried as a travesty.
Hormell toured the old county jail in Palmyra associated with the event.
Next week: Missouri, the ‘Show Me” state.
Aurore Eaton is a historian and writer in Manchester. Contact her at auroreeaton@aol.com or at www.facebook.com/AuroreEatonWriter.
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2022-12-26T02:05:36Z
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Aurore Eaton's Looking Back: The bicentennial hikers – From Chicago’s Playboy Club to a historic Missouri jail | Looking Back | unionleader.com
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DEAR ABBY: My husband and I were raised within religious communities. Among other conservative values, we were taught that a wife is to be responsible for domestic labor, and a husband is to be the primary breadwinner outside the home (yes, even in the 1990s and 2000s). We were still deeply involved in these communities when we married at 21 and 22.
DEAR ABBY: My son
married in 2016. Because of his wife’s drug use, he divorced her in 2018. Before their large November wedding, I crocheted her a gorgeous shawl as a gift. (My late mother lined it.) It was a stunning piece, trimmed throughout with gold yarn scalloping in intermittent rows and along the edges. I thought she would enjoy it, but she never took it out of its packaging. She stuffed it in a nightstand drawer in the guest room.
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2022-12-26T06:19:30Z
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Dear Abby: Couple struggle to adapt to an unfamiliar reality | Human Interest | unionleader.com
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A 28-year-old man who died hiking Mount Lincoln on Christmas Eve has been identified as Guopeng “Tony” Li of Salem.
He originally came from Hebei Province, China, according to a news release.
Li was found on Christmas morning, about a month after a 19-year-old woman from Westford, Mass., was found dead on nearby Mount Lafayette.
A family member tracking Li progress from China called Fish and Game around 9 p.m on Christmas Eve. Around 6:15 p.m. the phone was dead and the hiker was lost off a trail south of Mount Lincoln. The family described Li as an inexperienced hiker and didn’t know what gear he was using.
Li departed on the 8.6-mile Bridle Path/Falling Waters Loop alone around 11 a.m. Saturday, according to a news release.
The temperature in the mountains was nearing zero degrees, so conservation officers began their search immediately in the darkness of night.
Emily Sotelo, of Westford, Mass., hiked in the opposite direction of Li and had also hoped to summit several other 4,000-foot mountains. Sotelo’s body was found Nov. 23 after a four-day search. A search team found tracks and items belonging to Sotelo at the headwaters of Lafayette Brook.
A month after a 19-year-old woman was found dead on Mount Lafayette, another hiker has died at the popular hiking spot in Franconia Notch, New…
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2022-12-26T20:31:42Z
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Hiker who died on Mt. Lincoln identified | Public Safety | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/safety/hiker-who-died-on-mt-lincoln-identified/article_e042e0c2-c1f3-5df1-bb8d-c3308989cd0b.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/safety/hiker-who-died-on-mt-lincoln-identified/article_e042e0c2-c1f3-5df1-bb8d-c3308989cd0b.html
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A 26-year-old homeless woman who left her premature newborn uncovered in a tent on the West Side in frigid temperatures, and failed to tell rescuers the child's location, was arrested on a felony reckless conduct charge, police said.
Around 12:40 Monday morning, the police and fire department were called to the area of West Side Arena for the woman who had given birth to a baby in the woods. The baby could not be found, according to a news release.
Alexandra Eckersley, 26, was arrested on an unrelated warrant out of Concord District Court for endangering the welfare of a child and was subsequently charged with reckless conduct in connection with this recent incident.
First responders searched for more than an hour for the newborn, according to fire Lt. Jon Starr.
The temperature was approximately 18 degrees.
First responders were given inaccurate information on where the child was, according to the fire department.
“The search was hampered by inconsistent information until it was learned the baby was located in a tent on the west side of the trestle that crosses the Piscataquog River at Electric Street,” firefighters said.
The baby was found uncovered on the floor of the tent when resuscitation efforts were initiated. The baby was brought to Engine 6 for warmth and assistance breathing and driven to Catholic Medical Center, according to the news release.
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2022-12-26T20:31:48Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Police: Homeless woman gave birth, left newborn baby in tent | Public Safety | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/safety/police-homeless-woman-gave-birth-left-newborn-baby-in-tent/article_79a7a957-a97d-51bb-8ae9-6d17dce01b97.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/safety/police-homeless-woman-gave-birth-left-newborn-baby-in-tent/article_79a7a957-a97d-51bb-8ae9-6d17dce01b97.html
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By Greg Larry Cumberland Times-News (TNS)
Walter S. "Butch" Marion reported for duty at his usual post, register No. 4. Not long after his day got underway a stranger began chatting with him.
The chance meeting with Rory McCarty of Cumberland, Maryland, would ultimately lead to a viral video and a Go Fund Me account for Marion with donations exceeding $100,000 in just a few days. The fund was at more than $110,000 Christmas morning.
Marion, a Navy veteran, said he likes to "keep busy and keep his bills paid." He has been working at Walmart for 16 years.
"At work I'll have a casual conversation with all my customers," said Marion. "That is part of dealing with the public. As big as that store is, a lot of them are already stressed out. My job is to make them happy and that is what I try to do."
"I post bug videos," said McCarty. "Really bad infestations of bugs like termites. Fascinating videos with close ups.
"My TikTok has blown up and it has gotten me (work) in four states. Some of my videos have gotten seven, eight million views. That's how I got a huge following. I have the largest TikTok following in the world of all pest control sites. I'm up to 270,000 followers."
Whlile on TikTok, McCarty saw a video featuring an elderly lady with a cane working at Walmart, which struck a chord of sympathy with viewers. To help the hard-working senior, people donated online more than $100,000.
"Here is this man and he is still grinding and I can't even find good help," said McCarty. "Here is this man, 82, and I was intrigued and he was nice and personable. So I instinctively pulled out my camera and I started filming him and asking him questions."
"When I got out I tried to get a job in Cumberland in 1968 and no one was hiring," said Marion. "Everything was shutting down, so I got a job in Pontiac, Michigan, where I worked for General Motors for 26 years. Then, I got 15 years with the Honeywell Corporation in Panama City, Florida, and then I came to Walmart."
Marion's wife had been married before and had two daughters. In addition to taking the children in, Marion befriended his wife's first husband Jim. His wife and her first husband both got cancer and Marion took care of them to the end.
"That's what you do," said Marion. "When they got sick, I quit my job. Jim was in the home and we took care of him. Then my wife got breast cancer and she passed in February 2005. I took care of her to the end."
"It took me three days to track Butch down," said McCarty. "I went up and he was off. Finally I found him at work that Sunday morning and talked to him and he was OK with the idea, so I put it on and it went crazy."
"I didn't plan on doing it," said McCarty. "I just set the ball in motion. I had no idea it would blow up like that. It got 400,000 views the day I posted it."
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2022-12-26T22:46:02Z
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www.unionleader.com
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'It's a miracle:' TikToker raises thousands to help Navy vet retire | Back Page | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/its-a-miracle-tiktoker-raises-thousands-to-help-navy-vet-retire/article_4f5589e4-fb42-5ba9-a2fa-5e0cc283ecbd.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/its-a-miracle-tiktoker-raises-thousands-to-help-navy-vet-retire/article_4f5589e4-fb42-5ba9-a2fa-5e0cc283ecbd.html
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Tents surround the courtyard at the Families in Transition adult shelter on Manchester Street in Manchester last month.
The body of a homeless woman was found in a tent outside the Families in Transition’s adult emergency shelter on Manchester Street on Christmas morning.
Fire officials believe she died the night before.
The police and fire department responded around 11:25 a.m., according to fire District Chief Jon Starr.
The woman was pronounced dead on arrival.
“The fire department is not aware of the cause of death,” he said.
The death is being investigated by the Manchester Police Department and the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Police spokeswoman Heather Hamel said the death does not appear to be suspicious. No further information or the identity of the person was available as of Monday afternoon.
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2022-12-26T22:46:20Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Homeless woman dies in tent outside FIT shelter in Manchester | Public Safety | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/safety/homeless-woman-dies-in-tent-outside-fit-shelter-in-manchester/article_9c0c43ff-772b-5e67-9155-3a42a24d9a6a.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/safety/homeless-woman-dies-in-tent-outside-fit-shelter-in-manchester/article_9c0c43ff-772b-5e67-9155-3a42a24d9a6a.html
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Boston's Jayson Tatum, right, is defended by Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo during the Celtics' win on Sunday.
Tatum says Bucks bring out the best in Celtics
By Souichi Terada masslive.com (TNS)
Every time the Celtics and Bucks meet in the near future, the game’s going to automatically upgrade to a high-stakes night. That’s life as a title contender for teams who boast two of the best players in the league. The Celtics vs. Bucks rivalry is quickly becoming one of the best in the NBA between two premier East squads.
The Celtics got the better of the Bucks 139-118 on Christmas at TD Garden in the first meeting between the teams this season. Jayson Tatum scored 41 points and the Celtics shot 48.7% on 3-pointers as they improved to a league-best 24-10 record.
There’s plenty of respect, too. Tatum was complimentary of Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo, who still scored 27 points despite the Celtics throwing every available defender his way. The basketball on the court is physical and fierce, but there’s a healthy respect off the court.
The next time the two teams meet is Feb. 14 in Milwaukee. The regular season will show glimpses into how the teams match up, though the Bucks were without Khris Middleton on Sunday as he continues to deal with injury issues. But the Celtics followed a similar formula to their seven-game series win over the Bucks where they tried to frustrate Antetokounmpo all night.
The hope around the league is that both teams will be healthy and at full strength come the playoffs, and that they meet in the East Finals. The C’s and Bucks have been the two best teams in the conference this season, though there are other challengers like the Cavaliers and Nets. But another Celtics vs. Bucks playoff series could be in the works as each team is looking to get back to the NBA Finals.
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2022-12-26T22:46:26Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Tatum says Bucks bring out the best in Celtics | Celtics | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/celtics/tatum-says-bucks-bring-out-the-best-in-celtics/article_8709a40c-b5e8-50af-9761-72fe91beefe9.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/sports/celtics/tatum-says-bucks-bring-out-the-best-in-celtics/article_8709a40c-b5e8-50af-9761-72fe91beefe9.html
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Reed Clark speaks at his farewell party at The Coach Stop Restaurant in Londonderry on Sept. 12, 2022.
Noelle Lambert of Manchester in a scene from “Survivor.” How to maintain her prosthetic leg posed unique challenges for Lambert as she prepared for the competition in Fiji.
PARAMOUNT/CBS
Noelle Lambert of Manchester is a competitor on Season 43 of “Survivor.” Lambert lost her left leg in a moped accident in 2016.
Lori Shibinette says she’ll take “six or nine months” after leaving the Department of Health and Human Services before returning to working in long-term care or mental health.
Theodore Luckey speaks at his plea and sentencing hearing at Hillsborough County Superior Court in Manchester on Nov. 7, 2022.
Nick Lavelle is known for his memorable rapping music video, “I Love Sally Struthers.”
Amy Innarelli talks with a young man about her late son, Cameron, on Union Street a few blocks away from where he was killed in 2021. She is on a crusade to find the killer.
NASA astronaut Lee Morin, who grew up in Manchester, poses with the prototype of the console that will be part of the Orion capsule that will return humans to the moon. Morin, a space shuttle astronaut, is part of the design team working on the Artemis missions.
NASA/Johnson Space Center
Server Robin Deary chats with a customer having coffee at the Red Arrow Diner on Lowell Street in Manchester on Tuesday.
2022 in their words...
Clark Farewell Party
“I think they should all be fired, none of them have had the accountability and the successes necessary to earn their offices back in this election.”
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu pressing voters to reject all three Democratic members of the delegation running in the 2022 midterm election. They all won.
“Guess what, we have furries and fuzzies in classrooms. And get this, get this, they’re putting litter boxes, litter boxes.”
U.S. Senate Republican nominee Don Bolduc of Stratham making the false claim that litter boxes were in place at Pinkerton Academy for students who felt comfortable acting as cats would.
“To me this seems so wrong, it ought to have the big red ‘X’ from ‘Family Feud’ hanging over it, but that’s just me.”
Manchester Alderman Ed Sapienza, during a January discussion of a proposed commuter-rail layover yard in the city.
“If somebody did this to your own personal, private lawn and defecated on it, drank beer on it, put a needle in their arm on your lawn, you would call the police. But for some reason it’s OK that it’s not on your lawn, in your own house. It’s OK if they do it in your parks.”
Alderman Joe Kelly Levasseur, prior to a Board of Mayor and Aldermen vote in October to ban shopping carts, tarps and temporary shelters and structures in the city’s public parks.
“One of my concerns is it never stops, and the taxpayers continually pay.”
Manchester Alderman Tony Sapienza, prior to a vote in July to approve a request from the New Hampshire Fisher Cats to split the cost of $5.6 million in proposed improvements to Delta Dental Stadium.
“I guess I do have a personal interest in the legislation today. We are lucky to have families that are very supportive and living at a time when it is no longer a hot-button issue.”
U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H. and the first openly gay person elected to major office in New Hampshire, confirming on the day the House passed the Respect for Marriage Act that he and his partner, Vann Bentley, had set a wedding date.
“Obviously it’s not much, but at least it’s (saying) yes, we hear you, we care, this little town wants to contribute a little bit.”
Stratford town clerk and tax collector Kitty Kerner, in March, after residents voted unanimously at town meeting to donate $662 — one dollar for every town resident — to humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
“During that week nobody is thinking about hospital visits or about the next treatment protocol. They’re just together. They’re being a family.”
Make-a-Wish New Hampshire President and CEO Julie Baron on what families experience when children facing medical illness are granted their wishes by the nonprofit.
“Mental health care is as important as physical health care … If I had a broken arm, would I sit with it by myself or would I go in and get care?”
Jennifer O’Higgins, senior policy analyst for behavioral health at the Department of Health and Human Services, in November, on the new 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline that provides 24/7 help for those in mental health crisis.
“The health care budget of this country makes what we spend on our electronic toys look like chump change.”
Inventor Dean Kamen comparing the potential of the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute to California’s Silicon Valley. ARMI and several partners secured $44 million in federal funds in October toward the effort to produce synthetic human body parts in the Manchester Millyard.
“This isn’t an inconvenience. This is a full-blown crisis.”
Karen Munsell, supervisor of Our Place, a program of Catholic Charities New Hampshire for new mothers, in May, on a nationwide shortage of baby formula.
“This would make New Hampshire cartel, drug dealer and money launderer, all at once.”
Rep. Susan Homola, R-Hollis, referring to a bill that would have created marijuana dispensaries run by the State Liquor Commission, with the possibility of a “single-purpose depository bank” run by the state Business Finance Authority.
“A robust workforce is not a stoned workforce.”
Sen. Bob Giuda, R-Warren, referring to legislation that would have allowed adults to grow marijuana for personal use at home.
“We will never create enough laws to control evil. Evil does not obey laws.”
Amy Innarelli, whose son Chandler was shot and killed two years ago in Manchester, speaking at a Manchester rally that was part of National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
“It’s going to take a long time for these wounds to heal, and for some people they may never.”
Gorham Fire Chief Philip Cloutier, in August, after 26-year-old truck driver Volodymyr Zhukovskyy was found not guilty of all charges related to a horrific 2019 crash that left seven motorycyclists dead in Randolph.
“I don’t regret doing what I did, whatsoever. I never will. I can look in the mirror every day, every day and be OK with it.”
Theodore Luckey of New Jersey who pleaded guilty to killed Nathan Cashman, 28, of Manchester, during an attack with a machete ata Bedford hotel last year.
“Within weeks after I joined them, Bill Loeb started coming into my room at night and molesting me sexually. I was seven years old and I was constantly terrified.”
Stepdaughter Nancy Gallowhur Scgalotti, 76, retold publicly for the first time that the late iconic Union Leader publisher William Loeb had repeatedly assaulted her at his Reno, Nevada, home in early 1953.
“We’re not having winters.”
Plainfield farmer Ray Sprague, in August, on how climate change is affecting his work and our way of life in New Hampshire.
“The electric bug has bit New Hampshire.”
Jessica Wilcox, transportation program specialist at the state Department of Environmental Services, in November, after more than 20 New Hampshire school districts applied for EPA funding to purchase electric school buses.
“I hope we’re at the tipping point, because things need to change.”
Mary Stampone, New Hampshire’s state climatologist, in August, on how more extreme weather events are convincing people that climate change is happening now.
“Whether you prefer yours sauced in Buffalo, or naked dipped in duck sauce, there’s no question that this strip of fried fowl is truly a part of who we are.”
Local comedian Nick Lavallee, in December, suggesting city officials proclaim Manchester the Chicken Tender “capital of the world.”
“You can sit by the pool and just drink mojitos or play golf all day, but I don’t think that’s why humans are created.”
Tech entrepreneur Jason Syversen, who launched a charitable foundation following the 2016 sale of his cybersecurity company, Siege Technologies. SportsVisio, his new startup, secured $3.1 million in seed funding in October.
“When I thought about it, with 50 million photographs it was pretty hard not to be part of more than two generations of people coming in, from parents to their kids and their kids’ kids.”
Michael St. Germain, owner of Concord Photo Services, who decided to close the shop on North Main Street in Concord after owning it 42 years.
Election selection
“You could count these ballots 10 times and I will bet you would come up with 10 different results.”
Bill Christie, legal counsel for the New Hampshire Democratic Party, telling a Superior Court judge that variations in the count are common after election recounts.
“Upon filing, the congressional district plan shall take effect.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald‘s opinion adopting a special master’s plan to redistrict the state’s two congressional districts by moving only five small towns from one district to the other. New Hampshire was the only state in the country where the governor and Legislature failed to jointly adopt redistricting of their congressional seats.
“To say that anyone sponsoring legislation of any kind gives aid and comfort to the enemy, who is the enemy that is referred to? I haven’t heard anything that gives this any credence.”
Ballot Law Commission member Eugene Van Loan of Bedford, speaking before the BLC turned down a request to remove from the state primary ballot 14 House Republican lawmakers because they supported a proposed constitutional amendment calling for New Hampshire to secede from the United States.
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2022-12-27T02:57:01Z
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www.unionleader.com
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2022 in their words... | | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/2022-in-their-words/article_2906222a-f20c-5815-b9b7-43858b4a4f36.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/2022-in-their-words/article_2906222a-f20c-5815-b9b7-43858b4a4f36.html
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Chronic cough that may produce clear, white, yellow or green mucus
Frequent respiratory infections
Swelling in the ankles, feet or legs
Medications: Several kinds of medications are used to treat the symptoms and complications of COPD. You may take some medications on a regular basis and others as needed. These medications can include bronchodilators, inhaled steroids, combination inhalers, oral steroids, phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitors, theophylline and antibiotics.
Lung therapies: Lung therapies for people with moderate or severe COPD can include oxygen therapy and pulmonary rehabilitation.
In-home noninvasive ventilation therapy: A noninvasive ventilation therapy machine with a mask helps to improve breathing and decrease retention of carbon dioxide that may lead to acute respiratory failure and hospitalization. More research is needed to determine the best ways to use this therapy.
Managing exacerbations: Even with ongoing treatment, you may experience times when symptoms become worse for days or weeks. This is called an acute exacerbation, and it may lead to lung failure if you don't receive prompt treatment. When exacerbations occur, you may need additional medications, such as antibiotics, steroids or both; supplemental oxygen; or treatment in the hospital. Once symptoms improve, your health care team can talk with you about measures to prevent future exacerbations, such as quitting smoking; taking inhaled steroids, long-acting bronchodilators or other medications; getting your annual flu vaccine; and avoiding air pollution whenever possible.
Surgery: Surgery is an option for some people with some forms of severe emphysema, a type of COPD, who aren't helped sufficiently by medications alone. Surgical options can include lung volume reduction, lung transplant and bullectomy.
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2022-12-27T02:57:19Z
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www.unionleader.com
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Consumer Health: Treating COPD | Health | unionleader.com
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/health/consumer-health-treating-copd/article_8ace6fc4-c4d4-55b0-b11c-840c6c8bf5e1.html
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https://www.unionleader.com/news/health/consumer-health-treating-copd/article_8ace6fc4-c4d4-55b0-b11c-840c6c8bf5e1.html
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