New Hampshire

Expert says

Published

2 years ago

July 25, 2024

Press Room

Whale capsizes boat off New Hampshire, expert says encounter not uncommon

02:08

BOSTON – The heart-stopping video lasted all of seven seconds — a boat capsized by a whale off the New Hampshire coast Tuesday sending two fishermen flying into the ocean.

But expert Linnea Mayfield says an encounter like this isn’t uncommon. “At least in the New England area, we’ve seen it at least once a year for the past several years,” she said.

Whale capsizes boat — A whale slammed into a boat off Rye, New Hampshire in July 2024.

Colin Yager

Mayfield is a Marine Naturalist at Boston Harbor City Cruises helping the New England Aquarium understand the whales off our coast.

“It does look like a very actively feeding whale,” she said.

The whale was looking for a big gulp of fish by blowing bubbles to the water’s surface. “They’ll drive those to the surface and then they’ll lunge through that school of fish and gather a whole bunch of them in their mouth,” Mayfield said.

“Definitely not intentional”

She also said the whale landing on the boat was an accident and that their “blind spot” could be to blame.

“There is a blind spot on whales,” she said. “Their eyes are actually located near the corners of their mouth on either side of their head. So right below where that chin area is, they maybe just totally missed that the boat was as close as it was. This was definitely not intentional.”

Mayfield said this is a teaching moment for boaters. If you see a whale nearby, maneuver the boat at least 100 feet behind it and slowly move away from the area.

“These animals are very aware and they are vulnerable to human activity,” she said. “This is not a positive experience interaction for the boaters, it’s not a positive interaction for the whale.”

Tiffany Chan

Tiffany Chan is a general assignment reporter for WBZ-TV.

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New Hampshire

New Hampshire Republicans want to raise taxes on homes with solar

Published

10 hours ago

January 31, 2026

Press Room

New Hampshire Republicans want to raise taxes on homes with solar

New Hampshire Republicans are attempting to do away with a 50-year-old property tax exemption for households and businesses with solar, contending that the policy forces residents without the clean energy systems to unwittingly subsidize those who have them. Supporters of the exemption, however, say this argument is misleading, insulting, and at odds with New Hampshire’s tradition of letting communities shape their own local governments.

The focus of the debate is a bill proposed in the New Hampshire House this month by Republican Rep. Len Turcotte and several co-sponsors in his party. The measure would repeal a law, established in 1975, that authorizes cities and towns to exempt owners of solar-equipped buildings from paying taxes on whatever value their solar systems add to their property. As of 2024, 153 of the state’s municipalities – roughly two-thirds – had adopted the exemption, one of the only incentives offered in support of residential solar power in the state.

The exemption means that homeowners without solar must pay more property tax to make up for the money not being collected from the “extreme minority” who have solar panels, Turcotte said while presenting his legislation at a hearing of the House Science, Technology, and Energy Committee last week. This “redistribution” of the tax burden is unfair, he said.

The solar property tax exemption is a fairly common policy: Nationally, 36 states offer some version of it. While legislators in many states have targeted pro-solar policies like net metering, property tax exemptions have so far avoided similar attacks. New Hampshire, therefore, could end up as a proving ground for whether this approach can find traction.

New Hampshire does not have a sales tax or an income tax and leans heavily on local property taxes for revenue; its rates are among the highest in the country. That makes changes to property tax policy a particularly sensitive subject. The solar exemption bill has Republicans, who are typically tax averse, walking a fine line between championing what they say is fairness for all and pushing a policy that will inevitably raise taxes for some.

The state authorizes 15 other property tax exemptions — including for elderly residents, veterans, and those with disabilities — but Turcotte’s bill targets only the one for solar.

The exemption is a “local option” policy, meaning cities and towns must opt in through a vote in each municipality. Turcotte, however, doubts the average resident realized that they were signing up to pay more on their own taxes.

“They see a feel-good measure,” he said. “Do they truly understand? I don’t believe they do.”

After Turcotte presented his bill, the remaining speakers — about a dozen clean energy advocates, lawmakers, business leaders, and local solar owners — uniformly opposed his proposal.

Removing the exemption would be an unfair rule change after homeowners invested in solar systems with the understanding they’d be getting a tax break, many argued. Businesses using solar could face a “significant tax increase,” said Natch Greyes, vice president of public policy at New Hampshire’s Business and Industry Association. The change could cost homeowners with solar hundreds of dollars per year while barely reducing the property tax rate for everyone else, others said.

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New Hampshire

NH small business owners balance solidarity & financial needs during anti-ICE strike

Published

22 hours ago

January 31, 2026

Press Room

NH small business owners balance solidarity & financial needs during anti-ICE strike

Several small businesses across New Hampshire participated in a general strike on Friday in solidarity with those protesting the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. While some businesses decided to close for the day, others are donating some — or all — of their profits to organizations that advocate for immigrants’ rights.

That’s the case for Wonderland Books and Toys, an independent bookstore in Manchester. Owner Deirdre A. L. Shaw said she’s donating 10% of her profits from Friday to support an immigrant and refugee support group run by the United Church of Christ in New Hampshire.

It wasn’t an easy decision: Shaw said she was balancing being a one-employee business against what she saw as her civic responsibility.

“There are always so many potential things going on,” she said. “And as a local business owner, I can’t always participate in those things. I own my store and we’re a one-employee location, so being closed means there is no income for the day.”

Instead, she decided to lean into one of her goals for the business: providing resources for teachers and parents to have age-appropriate conversations about difficult topics with kids. She hosted two special story times centered around books for civic responsibility and immigration, including “Just Help!” by Sonia Sotomayor.

“Having resources for parents or for themselves is very helpful,” Shaw said. “There are so many things going on in the world that kids either hear about inadvertently or they have conversations with their friends, or they read about something, or it’s a topic that’s brought up at school for whatever reason. But maybe they don’t get all the answers or information, or they only hear a part of it.”

Other businesses, like Brewbakers coffee shop in Keene, decided to stay open for the day Friday and donate all their profits to organizations that support immigrants.

While owner Jeff Murphy felt a responsibility to his employees, he said that the events in Minneapolis are personal to him: His sisters live in the heart of the city and helped him pick the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota as an organization that is helping immigrants with their legal representation.

“It’s heartbreaking to see what’s happening in this country,” he said. “We love our country, we support our law enforcement and our service members, and trust that they can do a good job. But it’s been obvious and apparent that the actions in Minneapolis have been a gross overreach and abuse of power. So we’re just doing the little bit that we can.”

For other businesses, like MrSippi’s BBQ in Rochester, participating in the strike meant closing altogether on Friday. Owner Cecil Abels said it was a sacrifice, since business is slow this month and Fridays are usually busy. But he decided to participate in the strike in solidarity with other parts of the hospitality industry that have been targeted by immigration enforcement, especially in nearby Maine in recent days.

“It’s going to be a financial hardship,” he said. “I’ve lived 42 years of not having to feel a lot of pain or sacrifice, and if we want change in this country, then things are going to get harder whether we want it to or not.”

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