Tagged: Newscast

New Hampshire is denying claims made by the U-S Department of Justice that the state is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Attorney General’s Office issued a formal response to the findings Tuesday.

The U-S Department of Justice concluded in April that the state was violating federal law in the way it treats the mentally ill.

It criticized the state for failing to provide adequate community-based services, leading to prolonged stays at the state hospital.

But in a response letter, Attorney General Michael Delaney and Health and Human Services Commissioner Nicholas Toumpas objected to those allegations.

A new report shows New Hampshire is again among the healthiest states in the nation.

But health officials say there is still room for improvement.

The United Health Foundation’s report looked at a variety of health issues, including heart disease deaths, cancer rates, premature births and access to health insurance.

New Hampshire was ranked second healthiest, an improvement from third last year.

The state scored well because of its low percentage of children in poverty, low crime rate, and high use of prenatal care and immunizations.

But New Hampshire Public Health Director Doctor Jose Montero says the state is not doing well when it comes to chronic diseases.

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is facing questions about why he didn’t show up for a Union Leader editorial board interview.

According to the Union Leader, an hour-long interview with Herman Cain was confirmed on Tuesday.  The newspaper agreed not to videotape the interview.

Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon says the campaign then told the Union Leader the candidate could not take a full hour.

"We wanted to do the ed board for 20 minutes.  But the Union Leader decided that wasn’t worth it so they cancelled it this morning.”

That’s not what the newspaper’s editorial page editor, Drew Cline, and another reporter understood.  Cline says they were expecting Cain.

People from across southwestern New Hampshire gathered at a park in Peterborough Thursday to rally for the job creation and improvement to the state’s roads and bridges.

As part of a national protest, more than 100 New Hampshire residents turned out in Peterborough to declare an “economic emergency” for the ninety nine percent.

They focused on the country’s decaying transportation infrastructure and high unemployment rate, Peterborough resident Joe Graley urged Congress to pass President Obama’s jobs plan

Governor John Lynch got a first hand look at two major projects on the Spaulding Turnpike in Southern New Hampshire.  

The Governor personally toured the expansion projects now underway on the pike on the Northern end in Rochester, and the Southern end between Newington and Portsmouth. The widening projects are intended to relieve traffic congestion on both ends of the Spaulding, especially at the Little Bay Bridge over Great Bay.

“Right now, at 3:30, 4:00 in the afternoon, these roads turn into parking lots, and certainly that's been characteristic of the Spaulding Turnpike.” 

A forecast released today warns that the New Hampshire economy is skating on thin ice. The report from the New England Economic Partnership says that acceleration from private-sector job creation has been partially offset by a shrinking public sector.

Republican Herman Cain is back in NH today. The visit is his first since early October. NHPR’s Josh Rogers reports.

 A lot has changed for Herman Cain in the last 5 weeks. The former businessman has faced sexual harassment allegations, and was videoed as he struggled to answer a basic policy question on Libya. Cain told reporters in Concord that he remains strong in the polls and said getting out of the race was never an option.

“If what has happened to me and us at this point is enough to cause you to step down then you should not have gotten into the race, you’ve got to be tougher than that.”

Cain said he planned to return to NH often between now and the primary but allowed that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has a big lead in local polls.

New Hampshire lawmakers are trying to pressure the so-called “supercommittee” to exceed its goal of cutting $1.2 trillion  from the debt, but the special panel remains grid locked as it nears its end date.  If the supercommittee fails to reach a bipartisan solution by next Wednesday, deep spending cuts are supposed to fall on nearly the entire federal budget.

Some lawmakers want to scrap that agreement to protect the Pentagon’s budget and other favorite spending items.

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., says Congress needs to step up and pass a broad deficit reducing package, not walk back the earlier bi-partisan agreement that included automatic cuts.