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Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bulletin wins 10 awards at annual New Hampshire Press Association honors
Former Bulletin reporter Claire Sullivan received five awards, including two for first place, at the NHPA's annual Excellence in Journalism banquet on Thursday. Ethan DeWitt, who was not in attendance, also received five awards, including one for first place. (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin) The New Hampshire Bulletin won 10 awards in its class at the New Hampshire Press Association's annual Distinguished Journalism Awards banquet on Thursday night. The honors, for stories published in 2024, were presented at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College in Manchester. Claire Sullivan and Ethan DeWitt each took home five awards, including three for first place. Sullivan won first for Rookie of the Year and Community Service, the latter for her monthslong coverage of New Hampshire's landfill controversies, including her in-depth look at toxic 'trash juice.' DeWitt was awarded first place in the Spot News Story category for his coverage of a federal court decision striking down the state's 'banned concepts' teaching law. Sullivan, who left the Bulletin earlier this year, also won second place for Health Reporting and Environmental Reporting, and third place for Business Reporting. DeWitt claimed four third-place awards, for General News Story, Investigative Story/Series, Government Reporting, and Political Reporting. The Concord Monitor's Sruthi Gopalakrishnan was named Journalist of the Year. This year's banquet also served as an opportunity to celebrate the full body of work of a pair of longtime New Hampshire journalists. Michael Cousineau, of the New Hampshire Union Leader, and Ray Duckler, of the Concord Monitor, each received Lifetime Achievement Awards.
Washington Post
22-03-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Democrats confront the wrath of their voters, just as Republicans have
Democrats on Capitol Hill are facing a political moment that feels familiar to what their GOP counterparts have endured for 15 years. Rather than relying on a base of voters cheering them on, congressional Democrats are confronting liberal activists who deem their timidity toward fighting President Donald Trump and Republicans as a failure for this particular moment. This is showing up in polling, focus groups and town halls around the country. That sentiment was already present before a few Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (New York), helped advance a Republican bill to keep the federal government open for the rest of the year. Until now, Democratic voters have mostly favored comity and good governance over the confrontational and chaotic tactics that conservative tea party types have used to drive GOP leaders crazy for 15 years. Yet there are crowds pouring out to cheer liberal icons promising to fight Trump, having a similar fervor to those that showed up to the April 2009 tax day protests that launched the tea party. That conservative movement toppled two Senate Republicans with a combined tenure of 54 years in primaries in 2010 and 2012, while also launching the careers of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and Marco Rubio (R-Florida) by first defeating establishment favorites in the primary. Those fight-makes-right candidates caught the conservative media buzz and defeated plenty of House GOP incumbents, including the majority leader, Eric I. Cantor (Virginia), in 2014. Once in the House, those lawmakers helped drive three Republican speakers — John A. Boehner (Ohio), Kevin McCarthy (California) and Paul D. Ryan (Wisconsin) — into retirement. And, of course, Trump thumped Republicans with vast government experience in the open 2016 and 2024 presidential primaries. The new Democratic movement, if it truly takes shape, was on display Wednesday in Concord, New Hampshire, where first-term Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D) faced an angry crowd complaining about Democrats in Washington losing their spines. 'I am doing my part. I feel let down,' Lisa Perrone said, drawing what the Concord Monitor described as big applause from the crowd. 'There is no fight in the Democratic Party anymore.' But Goodlander, with roots in the party's establishment wing, still talked about potential bipartisan accomplishments after only winning her first race by 6 percentage points. 'I'm going to work with anyone who will work with me,' Goodlander said, before acknowledging the 'holy anger' that she heard from the crowd. Two national polls published last weekend spell out how Goodlander's 'work with anyone' approach has lost ground to the 'fight' message delivered by her constituent Perrone. In the spring of 2017, early in Trump's first term, NBC News found that 59 percent of Democratic voters thought their party should work with Trump to forge consensus on legislation, and CNN found around the same time that 74 percent of Democrats wanted their leaders to work with Republicans to 'advance their own priorities.' Last weekend, both polling outfits found a substantial drop in the compromise route. Roughly 6 in 10 Democrats want their party to take the fight to Trump and Republicans, particularly after Elon Musk has been given free rein to lead a chainsaw-wielding approach to dismantling congressionally sanctioned federal agencies. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Illinois), chairman of the pragmatic New Democrat Coalition, said some Democrats mistook the lack of massive marches early in this Trump term as a sign that voters were not as enraged about his presidency this time. Eight years ago, Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million and only won the electoral college by the narrowest path. He was instantly unpopular, and by 2018 Democrats swept to the House majority while Joe Biden won in 2020 by more than 7 million votes. Democratic voters could dismiss 2016 as a bizarre quirk, Schneider said. 'It was a black swan event, right? It was a fluke. How could this happen? You know, this is not possible.' But in 2024, Trump's popular-vote margin approached 2.3 million, and he swept the battleground states, buoyed by winning converts from the Democratic coalition. Suddenly, liberals realized something was wrong with their party, including their members of Congress. 'It was just different,' Schneider said. A Quinnipiac poll from late February showed that liberal angst toward their own side far outweighs conservative doubts about their party's congressional leaders. Roughly 8 in 10 Republicans are satisfied with the work done by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota). But only 4 in 10 Democrats like what they see from Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York). And this poll was conducted about three weeks before Schumer and Senate Democrats caved to GOP pressure to avoid the government shutdown. Still, it's unclear where all this liberal angst will lead. Sure, some liberal challengers defeated seemingly ensconced Democratic House incumbents, particularly in the summer of 2018, when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's improbable victory launched the 'Squad' of liberals and more progressives. But their movement ran into headwinds in the era of Biden, who won the 2020 nomination preaching pragmatic liberalism over the fire-and-brimstone approach of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont). Last year, longtime Democratic incumbents brushed back every primary challenge, often by significant margins, while the only Democratic incumbents to lose, Cori Bush (Missouri) and Jamaal Bowman (New York), were allies of the Squad. Senate Democrats have not lost an incumbent in a primary since 2010, and that was because Arlen Specter had spent the first 28½ years of his Senate tenure as a Republican. For all the talk of generational change, Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts) will turn 80 before his 2026 primary and, for now, no serious Democrat has stepped forward to challenge him. Markey first took office in Congress in 1976. And calls for Schumer to resign or face a challenge for his leadership post miss one of the quirkiest character traits of Senate Democrats: They are incredibly conflict averse. That caucus has not held a fully contested race for any leadership position since late 1994, always preferring a behind-the-scenes solution rather than forcing senators to choose sides. Of the 47 members of Schumer's caucus, only Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington) has cast a secret ballot in a contested leadership race, having arrived in 1993. One newcomer, Sen. Andy Kim (D-New Jersey), understands the angst of his party's voters, having been on the sidelines in 2017 after serving as a national security adviser in the Obama administration. 'I completely understand where people are coming from. I remember in 2017, the last time the Democrats were locked out of the White House, the Senate and House, I felt enormous frustration,' Kim told The Washington Post's Early Brief. He launched a long-shot campaign to unseat a House Republican, part of the Democratic wave that led to winning the majority in 2018. After Sen. Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey) was indicted in 2023, Kim immediately announced a primary challenge for June 2024. Once Menendez bowed out of the race, Kim ran such a strong campaign that Tammy Murphy, wife of Gov. Phil Murphy (D), gave up her own Senate bid. Kim, 42, who was sworn into the Senate in January, spent the past week at town halls across the state, hearing from both disappointed liberals and conservatives. 'If you're only having comfortable conversations in politics, it means you're not talking to all the people you need to be talking to,' he said. Ocasio-Cortez spent 2024 as a more loyal Democratic soldier, donating to the party campaign committees and stumping for Biden, then Kamala Harris. She devoted a portion of the recess to touring western battleground districts with Sanders. At a rally Thursday in Las Vegas, she praised three Nevada Democrats who voted against the government funding bill, talking about their courage as an indirect way to criticize Democrats like Schumer. 'We need more like them with the courage to brawl for the working class,' Ocasio-Cortez said. 'I want you to look at every level of office around and support brawlers who fight.' But Sanders tried to channel the rage into the name of the tour, 'Fighting Oligarchy,' focusing his fire on Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, not against his Democratic friends. 'We will not accept an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires run the government,'' Sanders said.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Dem Rep Ripped at Town Hall by Furious Anti-Musk Voters
New Hampshire Rep. Maggie Goodlander faced 'holy anger' at a town hall in Concord on Thursday as constituents urged the Democrats to do more to oppose President Donald Trump. More than 200 people packed a high school auditorium on Wednesday to question the congresswoman, expressing fury at Democrats' perceived lack of opposition to the Trump administration's agenda. 'There is no fight in the Democratic Party anymore,' said Lisa Perrone from Hillsborough, N.H., according to the Concord Monitor. Perrone said she was calling federal offices every day to make her views known and doesn't see her representatives leading by example. 'I am doing my part. I feel let down,' Perrone said. Goodlander acknowledged the frustration in the room. 'What I'm hearing tonight is … holy anger. It's holy anger, and we've got to harness together to get the job done,' she said. Others in attendance stressed that Democrats needed a plan to oppose Trump and Elon Musk's sweeping changes. 'I don't follow sports, but I know good coaches have playbooks, and they follow them. I'm going to encourage you and the rest of your party to get a playbook together and to start following it,' retired teacher Karen Maitland told the congresswoman. 'While we're out here screaming into the void, we need to hear Congress screaming into the void as well,' she added. Many attendees also expressed anger at the state's Democratic senators, who both voted for a Republican- and Trump-backed government spending bill to avoid a shutdown last week. Goodlander, who voted against the bill, told the Monitor at the time it was 'another partisan stopgap' by Republicans that included no protections for Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. 'We have got to use every tool we have. We have to create leverage wherever we possibly can create it to fight this fight,' Goodlander told the audience on Wednesday. 'Our constitution is being tested like it's never been tested before, and we have got to be clear and completely relentless in the way that we are governing.' Although she urged those who oppose Trump to attend rallies and write to their representatives, Goodlander expressed her commitment to bipartisanship. 'I'm going to work with anyone who will work with me,' she said.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Distressed farmers sound the alarm as they face 'whiplash' growing conditions: 'Everything came in weeks later than normal'
Farmers in New Hampshire are facing "weather whiplash," a shift from one weather extreme to the next, which is affecting their fields and livelihoods, according to Concord Monitor. Organic farmer Abigail Clarke of Winter Street Farm in Claremont, New Hampshire, described how an abnormally wet spring, followed by an overly dry summer, created nightmare conditions for her crops in 2024. "We lost half of our carrots because they rotted in the ground, completely saturated for two months straight," she told Concord Monitor. "Everything came in weeks later than normal. We were spending twice as much time to harvest half as many vegetables." The publication said this is a common trend, as agriculture becomes more impacted by the effects of a warming world. New Hampshire farmers aren't the only ones facing challenges when it comes to a shifting climate. For instance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that extreme weather events like heavy precipitation, drought, and heat are likely to become more frequent in the Northwest. This can lead to major losses for farmers and local economies. For instance, the agency says a 2015 drought in Washington cost farmers there an estimated $633 to $733 million. As farmers face more challenges to bring crops to market, consumers could deal with product shortages or price increases. For instance, olive oil prices soared to new highs in 2024 after extreme weather stifled olive production across the Mediterranean. This resulted in more shoplifting of this popular culinary staple in places like Spain and the U.K. Such food shortages could impact our nutrition. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said people with particular dietary patterns, such as Alaska Natives, will confront shortages of key foods and some may turn to nutrient-poor, calorie-rich foods. "Some people may also go hungry," the agency added. "The results could range from micronutrient malnutrition to obesity." Clarke told the Concord Monitor that she is focusing on crop diversity to help endure future storms. Do you worry about the quality of the air inside your home? Yes — often Yes — but only sometimes Only when it's bad outside No — I never do Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. "If we were doing 50 acres of just potatoes or just something else, that tends to be impacted more heavily by the climate factors — too little rain, too much rain, too cold, too hot, weather fluctuations," she told the publication. "We usually assume that one or two of them aren't going to go well … so we depend on others. Maybe it's a year with a drought and we get really good melons." She added that increasing pollinator habitat, maintaining wetlands, community composting, and no-till agriculture are other tools she's using to combat weather challenges. Meanwhile, scientists are trying to make things easier for farmers facing weather extremes. For instance, researchers are working on creating more resilient potatoes that can better cope with weather challenges like drought. Plus, a team of scientists in Japan says getting plants "drunk" on ethanol could help them deal with drought better. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
