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By DAVID BROOKS

I was once asked to describe the difference between urban and rural. Simple, I said: It’s septic systems.If you’re connected to a wastewater treatment plant then you’re a city person, no matter how bucolic your surroundings. But if your toilet dumps...

By RAY DUCKLER

Two contrasting expressions surfaced during our 2019 coverage of homelessness, illustrating the sadness and hope that can accompany this issue.On one hand, we found Allie Eckersley, whose father, ex-pitcher Dennis Eckersley, is in baseball’s Hall of...

By RAY DUCKLER

Martha Taylor, the official Henniker town historian, believes ghosts may exist.Not this ghost, though. Not the ghost named Mary Wallace – once connected to her hometown – despite visual evidence to the contrary, shown on a recent documentary on the...

By RAY DUCKLER

For the human side to the story, Monday’s press conference at the Weare Police Department served its purpose.Officer Paul Lewis, his right arm totally bandaged beginning with his knuckles, was grateful he could celebrate his 28th birthday, seven days...

By RAY DUCKLER

The young woman with the familiar last name was seated in the Friendly Kitchen, her eyes focused on her cellphone, hidden under shoulder-length blonde hair.She’s homeless, short on money, her life stuffed into a knapsack, just like so many others who...

By RAY DUCKLER

Col. Kevin Jordan of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department couldn’t help himself.He had to start his eulogy for Scott LaCrosse with a joke. The one about modesty.At the church in Loudon, Jordan did his best impression of his former colleague,...

By RAY DUCKLER

He called himself Ace, and he came looking for young vulnerable girls that he could sell for sex.He rode into Haverhill, Mass., in a shiny black Lincoln Continental, with red interior. Into a poor neighborhood with three-story tenements and peeling...

By RAY DUCKLER

The videos on mom’s laptop are a good way to introduce her two daughters.In one, the sisters are in black cowboy hats and boots, two-stepping to a country tune at the Capitol Center for the Arts. The other shows them dancing in Portsmouth wearing...

By RAY DUCKLER

At the Pumpkin Seed Bridge – a relic with a rich history and an uncertain future that spans the Pemigewasset River – a few seconds can seem like a long time.Jump from the bridge itself, a 103-foot drop, and three seconds take on a new meaning. Videos...

By RAY DUCKLER

Diane greeted her guests with a pullup, peeking over the edge on top of her 60-gallon home, hoping Jim Tonner had brought her a snack.And he had. Tonner, who co-owns TwinDesigns Gift Shop with his twin brother, Brad Tonner, gave a strawberry to the...

By RAY DUCKLER

Brendon McGahan, the president of Concord Little League, said he wasn’t surprised by what happened Friday in Bristol, Conn.He’d already seen Jeff O’Connell’s voracious appetite for winning. Just a couple of weeks ago, in fact, during the Little League...

By RAY DUCKLER

We walked through two glass doors, unlocked by a gentle, soft-spoken man with a trimmed white beard. Leave your coffee behind, Wes Balla, the director of exhibitions at the New Hampshire Historical Society, told me. No use taking chances. No use...

By JOHN GREABE

The Constitution did not become our basic law at a single point in time. We ratified its first seven articles in 1788 but have since amended it 27 times. Many of these amendments memorialize fundamental shifts in values. Thus, it should come as no...

By JOHN GREABE

Federal law makes the cultivation and use of marijuana illegal for all purposes. Yet, over the past two decades, 28 states plus the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes, and eight states plus the District of Columbia...

By RAY DUCKLER

I sat with students last week who said they learned from the best.They were not conventional students, however. They were much older than their teacher, Blake Marston, the late Navy SEAL. One, in fact, was a retired high school principal, Blake’s...