1 of 6 | The New Hampshire State House, completed in 1866, is in the capital of Concord. On January 5, 1776, New Hampshire became the first American state to adopt its own constitution. File Photo by Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress
Jan. 5 (UPI) — On this date in history:
In 1776, New Hampshire became the first American state to adopt its own constitution. The document marked a shift toward representative government and away from top-down British royal rule. The Granite State later replaced the document with its current constitution in 1784.
In 1914, the Ford Motor Co. increased its pay from $2.34 for a 9-hour day to $5 for 8 hours of work. It was a radical move in an attempt to better retain employees after introducing the assembly line.
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In 1925, Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming was sworn in as the first woman governor in the United States.
In 1933, construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge over San Francisco Bay.
File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI
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In 1933, former President Calvin Coolidge died of coronary thrombosis at his Northampton, Mass., home at the age of 60.
In 1948, the first color newsreel, filmed at the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, Calif., was released by Warner Brothers-Pathe.
In 1982, a series of landslides killed up to 33 people after heavy rain in the San Francisco Bay area.
In 1993, the state of Washington hanged serial child-killer Westley Allan Dodd in the nation’s first gallows execution in 28 years.
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In 1996, a U.S. government shutdown ended after 21 days when Congress passed a stopgap spending measure that would allow federal employees to return to work. President Bill Clinton signed the bill the next day.
In 1998, U.S. Rep. Sonny Bono, R-Calif., of Sonny and Cher fame, was killed when he hit a tree while skiing at South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
In 2002, a 15-year-old student pilot, flying alone, was killed in the crash of his single-engine Cessna into the 28th floor of the Bank of America building in Tampa, Fla.
In 2005, Eris was discovered. It was considered the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system until a year later when Pluto was downgraded from being a planet.
In 2008, tribal violence following a disputed Kenya presidential election claimed almost 500 lives, officials said. Turmoil exploded after incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner over opposition candidate Raila Odinga, who had a wide early lead.
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File Photo by Roger L. Wollenberg/UPI
In 2013, a cold wave that sent temperatures far below average in northern India was blamed for at least 129 deaths. Many of the victims were homeless.
In 2019, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople granted independence to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, formally separating it from Moscow for the first time since the 17th century.
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In 2025, New York City became the first U.S. city to introduce a congestion charge — $9 for Manhattan’s business district. President Donald Trump failed to kill the toll in a lawsuit.
CONCORD, N.H. – New Hampshire lawmakers have moved to reject a Republican-backed proposal to launch an impeachment inquiry into the lone Democrat on the state’s five-member Executive Council.
On Friday, a key committee of lawmakers delivered a unanimous 17-0 vote against an impeachment inquiry into Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill of Lebanon, N.H.
The vote on House Resolution 41 followed an abbreviated public hearing, after the bill’s sponsor withdrew his support for the proposal and instead asked lawmakers on the committee to recommend killing it.
The push for Liot Hill’s impeachment was led by Representative Joe Sweeney, a Salem Republican and the deputy majority leader in the New Hampshire House.
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At issue were several emails Liot Hill had sent from her official account to help a partisan law firm identify voters impacted by a new state law. The law tightened voter ID requirements for absentee ballots.
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Sweeney had previously called Liot Hill’s correspondence “political lawfare run out of a taxpayer-funded inbox.” In December, a review by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office found that Liot Hill’s conduct was not illegal and did not constitute a misuse of office, clearing the complaint against her.
Reached by the Globe on Friday, Sweeney, who was not present at the public hearing, said in a statement he preferred to let voters decide whether Liot Hill should continue to serve in the upcoming November election.
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“After reviewing the matter and hearing the discussion, I believe the appropriate course is to move forward and allow the voters and the political process to do their work,” he said.
“The purpose of filing the resolution was to ensure that the constitutional questions raised were addressed seriously and transparently,” he said, noting that he stands by the process and the decision to recommend killing the resolution.
In an interview, Liot Hill said she was pleased with the unanimous vote from the House Judiciary Committee.
“The committee vote, I think, sends the message that there was no merit to this,” she said.
The proposal now heads to the full House of Representatives, which has the power to approve the committee’s recommendation to reject it.
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Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.
A woman has been arrested in connection with the death of her baby whose body was found in a pond in Manchester, New Hampshire last year. Hepay Juma, 26, of Manchester, is now charged with reckless second-degree murder.
The New Hampshire Attorney General said Juma was arrested for “causing the death of Baby Jane “Grace” Doe, her child, under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life.”
On March 27, 2025, the baby’s body was found floating in the water at Pine Island Park in Manchester. The baby’s death was treated as suspicious following an autopsy.
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Investigators have not released any information about how they made the arrest or how the baby died.
Hepay Juma, 26, of Manchester, NH, is charged in connection with the death of her baby.
Manchester, NH police
At the time, Manchester Police Chief Peter Marr said the baby’s death was “extremely tragic.”
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Police asked the public for help after the baby’s body was discovered. They wanted to know if anyone saw someone discarding anything in the water in the previous 14 days, or if anyone knew a pregnant woman who gave birth during that time who needed medical help.
A funeral was held for baby Grace Doe last May, and the public was invited to pay their respects. “The way she was discarded is heartbreaking, and it is important that we give her a proper farewell,” Chief Marr said last year.
The baby was named Grace by police “to celebrate the kindness extended to her by those who refuse to let her life go unrecognized.”
Juma is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday in Manchester District Court.
