New Hampshire
During a snowy weekend, high schoolers learn about snow – and reflect on climate change
Two groups of high schoolers, one from Lebanon High School in New Hampshire, the other from Fajardo Academy in Puerto Rico, found themselves in several snowy situations last weekend.
As flurries descended on the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White Mountains, the students strapped on snowshoes and ventured out into the cold. They measured snow, weighed snow, installed sensors under the snow – and made some more personal observations.
“I won’t forget the first time I sled,” said Gabriel Sosa, an 11th grader from Fajardo Academy. “Touching snow, making my first snowball – we had a snowball fight yesterday. It was fun.”
Sosa said he also enjoyed meeting new people, making friends, and learning about a project to use slingshots and velcro balls to track the spread of an invasive insect – the hemlock wooly adelgid.
Meghan Wilson, a Lebanon High School teacher, and Briseida Fernández, a teacher at Fajardo Academy, organized the trip with the same goals as many exchanges: to give their students a chance to connect with each other.
But they also wanted them to connect with science.
“I like my students to see that when doing science, we all do the same things wherever we go,” Fernández said. “The ecosystems are two different ecosystems. Biotic and abiotic factors are completely different. But at the same time, the dynamics of the ecosystems are very similar.”
Brendan Leonardi, the program and education manager for the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation, said the goal of the weekend was for students to understand the importance of snow. They learned about how it insulates underground habitats, how it recharges soil with water when it melts in the spring, and how cold temperatures are necessary for fun winter activities.
Courtesy
/
Andrew Cassel, Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest
At one point, he said, the whole group was rolling around in the snow.
“It was very immersive – like, this is winter, this is winter ecology,” he said.
They also talked about how winters are getting warmer and less snowy.
Max Perriello, a tenth grader at Lebanon High School, said he’s seen the effects of warming winters in his own life.
“I can remember when I was a kid, every Thanksgiving we’d be snowed in,” he said. Now, he said, snow isn’t as reliable.
For Gia McCarty, an eleventh grader visiting from Fajardo Academy, climate impacts at home look a little different. December and January have always been warm. But now, she said, they feel like another summer, with temperatures hotter than she’s used to.
“Also in the summer you get a lot of storms,” she said. “We’re constantly worried about hurricane season.”
Learning from one another helped students see how climate change is happening everywhere, said eleventh grader Yaliet Santa Villafañe.
“It makes you realize that it is affecting everybody,” she said. “At first you’re thinking only about where you live and how it will affect your living. But you have to realize that it’s happening all throughout the world.”
Villafañe said learning about climate change comes with some fear – environmental shifts are happening fast, and looking at data makes that feel real.
“People need to realize that that is happening, and it’s happening now,” she said. “And it will affect everyone if there’s not a change.”
Noelia Báez Rodríguez, a program coordinator with the Luquillo long-term ecological research site, accompanied the students on the trip. Her research site does the same kind of work as Hubbard Brook. Students from Fajardo Academy used data from the Luquillo site in school projects, which they presented to the New Hampshire students over the weekend.
Báez-Rodríguez said part of her goal for the trip was to show students that there are people everywhere committed to studying climate science.
“I would like them not to be scared about things, but understand how and why those things occur in different types of ecosystems and environments and the repercussions of that,” she said.
She says she’s hoping to show them that science is a career worth exploring, and there are places across the globe set up for gathering data on the natural world.
New Hampshire
Cher’s son heads to court over allegations he broke into a New Hampshire home
The son of Cher is scheduled to be in court Wednesday for a hearing over allegations he broke into a New Hampshire home earlier this month.
It was the second arrest in a matter of days for Elijah Allman, 49, of Malibu, California, who was detained Feb. 27 after allegedly acting belligerently at a prestigious prep school in New Hampshire. It was unclear if Allman had any connection to either St. Paul’s School or the home in Windham, New Hampshire.
Allman remains in the Rockingham County Department of Corrections in what is called preventive detention, Superintendent Jonathan Banville said.
Allman, whose father was the late singer Gregg Allman, faces two counts of criminal mischief, one count of burglary and a count of breach of bail for breaking into the home on March 1. Police said in a report that Allman did not have permission to be at the home and forcibly entered it .
In the incident at the prep school, Allman was charged with four misdemeanors: two counts of simple assault, criminal trespass and criminal threatening. Allman was also charged with a violation of disorderly conduct, which is illegal in the state but not considered a crime.
At about 7 p.m. that day, Concord police responded to reports that Allman was disturbing people in the dining hall of St. Paul’s School. After charging Allman, police said he was released on bail as his case works through the court system.
Allman did not respond to an email requesting comment, and a phone number for him was not working. It was unclear from the court records if Allman has an attorney.
In December 2023, Cher filed a petition to become a temporary conservator overseeing her son’s money, saying Allman struggles with mental health issues and addiction have left him unable to manage his assets and potentially put his life in danger.
The petition from the singer and actress said Elijah Allman is entitled to regular payments from a trust fund. But “given his ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues,” she is “concerned that any funds distributed to Elijah will be immediately spent on drugs, leaving Elijah with no assets to provide for himself and putting Elijah’s life at risk,” the petition says.
A few weeks later, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jessica Uzcategui denied the request, saying she was not convinced that a conservatorship was urgently needed. Allman was in the courtroom with his his attorneys, who acknowledged his previous struggles but argued that he is in a good place now, attending meetings, getting treatment and reconciling with his previously estranged wife.
New Hampshire
Senate panel endorses reporting exemption for players on New Hampshire Fisher Cats
New Hampshire
Possible 2028 Democratic White House contenders weigh in on Iran with New Hampshire voters
As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran overtakes the foreign policy debate in Washington, two Democratic governors with potential 2028 presidential aspirations — Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear — recently traveled to New Hampshire, introducing themselves to the state’s famously engaged voters. The two weighed in on the war and both criticized and questioned President Trump’s strategy and endgame.
“If a president is going to take a country into war, and risk the lives of American troops and Americans in the region, he has to have a real justification and not one that seems to change every five to 10 hours,” Beshear told CBS News after a Democratic fundraiser in Keene.
“This President seems to use force before ever trying diplomacy, and he has a duty to sell it to the American people and to address Congress with it,” Beshear continued. “He hasn’t done any of that. In fact, it appears there isn’t even a plan for what success looks like. He’s gone from regime change to strategic objectives and now is talking about unconditional surrender, which isn’t realistic where he is.”
Beshear also said he thought that Congress should have reined in Mr. Trump’s war powers.
“He is trying to ignore Congress. He’s trying to even ignore the American people,” Beshear said.
He went on to note that the president’s State of the Union address took place “three — four days before he launched this attack,” and Mr. Trump “didn’t even have the respect to tell the American people the threat that he thought Iran posed to us.”
Last week, both the House and the Senate failed to pass resolutions to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers and stop him from taking further military action against Iran without congressional support.
For Newsom, the war with Iran constitutes part of a broader criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At an event last Tuesday in Los Angeles, Newsom had compared Israel to an “apartheid state.” Later, in New Hampshire, he sought to clarify his comment.
“I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman [New York Times] column last week, where Tom used that word of apartheid as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” Newsom explained during a book tour event Thursday night in Portsmouth. “I’m very angry, with what he is doing and why he’s doing it, what he’s going to ultimately try to do to the Supreme Court there, what he’s trying to do to save his own political career.”
Friedman wrote that at the same time that the U.S. and Israel are prosecuting a war in Iran, within Israel, Netanyahu’s government has undertaken efforts to annex the West Bank, driving Palestinians from their homes; fire the attorney general who is leading the prosecution against Netanyahu for corruption; and block the government’s attempt to establish a commission to examine the failures that led up to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by Hamas.
CBS News has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.
On Iran, Newsom said, “I’m very angry about this war, with all due respect, you know, not because I’m angry the supreme leader is dead. Quite the contrary. I’m not naive about the last 37 years of his reign. Forty-seven years since ’79 — the revolution,” Newsom said. “But I’m also mindful that you have a president who still is inarticulate and incapable of giving us the rationale of why? Why now? What’s the endgame?”
Many attendees at Newsom’s book event said that the situation in Iran is a top-of-mind issue for them, too. Some said they’re “horrified” by what is happening.
29-year-old Alicia Marr told CBS News she decided to attend Newsom’s event because of his social media response to the war with Iran.
“There was one spot left, and I decided to pick it up, and it was due to his response to the war, that it is just unacceptable, and I would agree with that,” Marr said.
While some voters like Marr are eager to hear about where potential candidates stand on foreign policy, many at Newsom’s event said they care most about how potential candidates plan to address domestic issues.
“I’m more focused on getting the middle class back on track and fighting the oligarchy, and I’m less invested in international issues,” said Anita Alden, who also attended Newsom’s event,
“I wouldn’t call myself America first, but we have so many problems at home that are my priority,” she told CBS News.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who may also be weighing another White House bid, told Fox 2 Detroit last week that she “unequivocally opposes” the Trump administration’s military action in Iran and urged Congress to take action.
“If we want to stop Donald Trump with this random decision that he has arrived at, then Congress must act, and Congress must act immediately. The American people do not want our sons and daughters to go into this unauthorized war of choice,” Harris said.
Mr. Trump has lashed out against Democrats who have pushed back on his Iran strategy, calling them “losers” last week and arguing that they would criticize any decision he made on Iran.
“If I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this,” the president said.
-
Wisconsin1 week agoSetting sail on iceboats across a frozen lake in Wisconsin
-
Massachusetts1 week agoMassachusetts man awaits word from family in Iran after attacks
-
Pennsylvania6 days agoPa. man found guilty of raping teen girl who he took to Mexico
-
Detroit, MI5 days agoU.S. Postal Service could run out of money within a year
-
Miami, FL7 days agoCity of Miami celebrates reopening of Flagler Street as part of beautification project
-
Sports6 days agoKeith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death
-
Virginia7 days agoGiants will hold 2026 training camp in West Virginia
-
Culture1 week agoTry This Quiz on the Real Locations in These Magical and Mysterious Novels
