Portsmouth’s City Council approved a mask mandate on a 7-2 vote last week. The city had fewer than five known active coronavirus infections the day the ordinance passed, meaning more councilors voted for the ordinance than there were active cases in the city, NH Journal pointed out. The city still has fewer than five known […]
In May, some politicians and activists warned that reopening the state’s economy would be a public health disaster. Instead, it’s been an economic savior. New Hampshire employment fell by more than 151,000 from March to April as the economic shutdown tanked the economy, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of this week, […]
There was big coronavirus news for New Hampshire this week, and most of the media missed it. At his Thursday press conference, Gov. Chris Sununu displayed a graphic (pictured below) showing that the average number of coronavirus tests per day has more than doubled since mid-August. Fewer than 3,000 people per day, on average, were […]
The first two weeks of September have seen a noticeable increase in positive tests for the SARS-CoV-2 virus in New Hampshire, coinciding with an increase in testing and the reopening of schools and colleges. Yet hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 have continued to decline during this time, state data show. Media reports have tended to […]
Energy policy is often described in moral terms, with “green energy” representing the forces of good and fossil fuels representing the forces of darkness. But really it’s about math. California politicians have spent decades fighting a losing battle against math. In August, math finally won. The rolling blackouts that cut off power during an August […]
The weekend has arrived when Americans play for three days while politicians give speeches and issue press releases recognizing the economic contributions of the American labor movement. Labor’s contributions are worth recognition. But have any politicians ever acknowledged that laboring in isolation produces nothing beyond basic subsistence? For labor to generate human progress, it has […]
A Croydon couple on Wednesday filed a civil rights lawsuit against the state, challenging a law that forbids local school districts from paying tuition to religious schools. In 2017, New Hampshire passed a law that allows school districts that don’t offer education at certain grade levels to send students to private schools for those grades. […]
NOTE: This post, originally published Aug. 28, was updated on Aug. 31 to add the final numbers for the month. August has recorded New Hampshire’s lowest numbers of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths since May. The dramatic, summer-long decline in all three metrics occurred as the state reopened its economy. But it has been […]
For months, Democratic gubernatorial candidates Dan Feltes and Andru Volinsky have criticized Gov. Chris Sununu for not issuing an emergency order mandating that people wear face masks. As new cases have declined, the Democratic primary rivals have continued to press for a mandate, with Volinsky even hinting at masses of infected outsiders streaming over the […]
Charter schools increase the average quality of traditional public school teachers by providing high-quality, unlicensed teachers an easier pathway into the field, a new paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research concludes. “Because the fixed costs to participating in the charter sector are low, teachers are able to explore their taste for teaching […]