Laura Knoy

In recent years, children are arriving from new countries, bringing diversity but also new challenges.  Many don’t speak English and some aren’t literate in their own language.  We talk with people in the education system and folks dealing with foreign born newcomers on a daily basis and ask how they are working to overcome these issues.

Guests:

June Tumblin: Department Head of the English Learner program at Manchester Central High School

Thomas Sica: Principal of Rundlett Middle School in Concord

Healthcare delivery is complicated enough without language barriers, financial difficulties and cultural misunderstandings. Being a newcomer in a strange country presents many new challenges but healthcare is one of the most difficult to overcome. We take a look at the myriad obstacles the foreign born population face, and what some local healthcare providers are doing to help overcome them.

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We’re looking at the history of immigration as a part of NHPR’s year long series on New Hampshire’s Immigration Story. In the early days it was French Canadians and Irish who arrived, at the turn of the last century Greeks and Eastern Europeans and today, new arrivals from Brazil, to Burundi to Bhutan. We’re looking at who came, why they came and the little known stories around our immigration history.

Guests:

David Watters: Professor of English at UNH, where he is the director of the center for New England culture.

As of early 2010, more than 2 million US troops have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Larry Minear, a researcher on international and internal armed conflicts, has spent a lot of time talking to more than 175 of these veterans, many of whom came from New Hampshire and Vermont. He talked to them about what motivated them to go to war, what they did once they went over, and how they rejoined society upon their return.

Almost since it was first unveiled a year ago, the Northern Pass , a $1.1 billion hydroelectric project that would transmit power from Canada to central NH then on to the new England grid, has provoked sharp debate especially in the north country, where some forests would have to be cut for transmission lines. But now the debate is spreading to Central New Hampshire. We get the latest from two reporters who have been covering the communities where the discussion had been the loudest.

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The October storm that left hundreds of thousands without power in New Hampshire may have been unlikely for this time of year, but it’s also a scenario familiar to Granite Staters who have weathered many natural disasters in recent years, including floods, ice storms, and even a tornado.  We take a look at what we’ve learned from these events, where our emergency preparedness is still lacking, and how we might fare as we head into another winter season. 

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Although we are a nation of immigrants, the first laws to enforce who could be an  American citizen  and who couldn't didn’t appear until the late 1880s.  Since then, new legislation like the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1965, as well as the Refugee Act of 1980s have both strengthen and loosened these rules.  As part of our year long series "New Hampshire's Immigration Story", we'll talk today about the law, how it’s evolved and ask if it once again needs to be modified?

Guests

The idea of virtual learning is growing in the American education system.  More students from Kindergarten through 12th grade are learning in front of a screen rather than from a live teacher.  While some say the format is cost efficient and tailored to each individual's learning speed, others say essential components of the schooling system, such as development of social skills and hands on lessons, are being compromised in the process.  Many educators are looking on with reluctant optimism as the virtual world expands in its implementation.  Today we're looking at education that favors co

Governor Lynch’s newest amendment, which aims to give the legislature more elbow room to pay for education, has surprised, angered and pleased law makers on both sides of the aisle. This is the third amendment proposed this year after the House and Senate each passed versions of their own. Lawmakers on the right are displeased with Lynch's legal word choice, lawmakers on the left don't want an amendment at all, but there are those who think a compromise is possible.

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Child abuse in America.  A national report says more children in the United States die from abuse and neglect than kids in any other industrialized democracy, with a child maltreatment rate three times that of Canada and eleven times higher than Italy.  We’re looking at this issue both at the national level and in New Hampshire. What’s driving these numbers, and where progress is being made.

Guest:

We sit down with NPR Media correspondent David Folkenflik. He’s the guy who covers the latest from the news business from the New York Times and Fox News to individual bloggers and smalltown papers. And, at times, Folkenflick’s had to report on the blemishes at his own organization.

Guest:

• David Folkenflik: NPR Media correspondent.

"Why have fundamentally good people, with good intentions, allowed our democracy to be co-opted by outside interests?", asks Harvard professor, Lawrence Lessig. His new book "Republic, Lost" explores how he says money has corrupted American politics.  Lessig blames special interests and campaign finance rules to the fact that U.S citizens trust government less than ever. He also  suggests  a widespread mobilization and new Constitution Convention to regain control over what he says is a 'corrupted but redeemable representational system. 

Guest

From Burundi to Burma, from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, refugees from around the globe have been placed in New Hampshire to start their lives anew.  Here they find new freedoms and far less dangers but new challenges as well.  Many have to learn English, the American laws, become educated and find work.  Federal programs help a lot but so do the cities and towns in which they are placed.  Now Manchester wants to put a moratorium on any new refugees resettling here.  City officials worry that they currently don't have enough resources to assist its current residents and with tight budgets get

The Northern Pass hydropower project from Quebec, which includes transmission lines through New Hampshire, has divided our state with passionate disagreement on the amount of energy it will bring, how badly that energy’s needed, and the economics of the project, including its affect on property values. We’ll talk to those on both sides of this debate.

Guests