New Hampshire
From the Garden State to the Granite State – The Boston Globe
“It feels kind of weird,” I said, barely one month into living in the Granite State. “It’s been me. It’s been who I am.”
She looked me in the eye and said, “You’re very brave.”
She was not the first to call me brave. She was not the last to say it, to write it in a card. But I was on autopilot since I received an inviting job offer a few days before Christmas. There was much to do.
The pandemic, I quickly learned, transformed an affordable real estate market in the Granite State to the Wild West of home buying or renting an apartment — the same story as the rest of the country: no inventory and skyrocketing prices. Still, no match for Ginger, my high school friend who was like an English pointer, doggedly scouring housing websites for me for weeks, until she reached a breakthrough and found a new listing. I needed a decent place to land. Check. Pet-friendly. Check.
Over text, I was introduced to a future colleague who FaceTimed me during a walk-through so I could see the apartment. By Jan. 8, I was setting up the electric utility account for my apartment, situated between the Lakes Region and the gateway to the White Mountains.
It took awhile before I understood what that meant, the beauty, the majesty, the isolation.
Dodging New Hampshire snowstorms, I moved in on Jan.12, with a job-start date of the 15th.
I left the Garden State with a friend who lovingly packed a 12-foot trailer with several pieces of furniture that would make this one-bedroom galley apartment home. I left my childhood home in the hands of friends who would caretake the last place where my family had been a family and help offset the cost of expenses. I left my neighborhood with the tears and hugs of neighbors. I knew this house. I knew this town, this state, these roads. Eventually, living in the day-to-day of New Hampshire, when the boxes were unpacked and the furniture shaped a home, I came to realize that I left familiarity, and recognizing that held its own kind of emptiness.
There are things that my small and unpretentious wardrobe never imagined, like fleece-lined pants or NASA-technology down jackets. Their warmth and comfort do not eclipse my sense of what it must feel like to be an astronaut wearing a diaper. And the boots. Oh, the many boots.
Adjusting to winter seemed frivolous compared to driving an hour to shop at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. Two hours to Costco was like Christmas. I was shopping for familiar comforts. Some days, just deciding which boots to wear and leaving the apartment and getting on roads without cell service seemed brave. For this suburban kid who has always lived a stone’s throw away from Manhattan, driving on dirt and densely wooded roads is not natural.
And when mud season arrived, like the day I found myself unintentionally off-roading — seriously, some people do this for recreation? — it was nothing short of terrifying. I have never seen mud tracks that were somewhere between six inches and “We’re sinking.”
![Two bull moose faced off over rights to a patch of mud where they were feeding at Umbagog Wildlife Refuge in Wentworth Location, N.H., in May 2018.](https://bostonglobe-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/2RNPO45QGNEWFGD76LYQEKVRIQ.jpg?auth=d980aad8dfbf0d68ab06d51260d3d0477e2dc55cf772bfa923c7a508ba740b36&width=1440)
Would the SOS button in my Subaru work? Would anyone find me if something happened? There was no place to turn. I understood one thing: Keep the car moving forward. It was time for X-mode, a feature that I had never before used but was willing to trust. It felt at once like I was an action figure clawing the earth and Captain Kirk commanding the Starship Enterprise. Oddly exhilarated and terrified, I steered the Subaru up over the mountain. Not bad for a flatlander. I felt something akin to courage.
As my days and months in New Hampshire pass — now just shy of eight months — there have been other mettle detectors, like the nine-hour drive home from what now plays like an adventure movie: Escape from the Eclipse. On the winding, wooded roads where I have learned to trust my companion, the British GPS man, my once-sheer panic is mostly a diluted nervousness. It lasts for a moment, while I mentally review whether I have water, coffee, or food in the car. But then I hear myself: We’re OK. Everything is OK. And I go back to listening to my book on tape. Or I see the sun filtering through the richly forested areas, the elegant, feathery ferns, the impressive rock walls, and I see the elements as the forces they are: self-assured, nonthreatening.
Through snow or mist, the mountains — set against the greening of the trees, the painted clouds, and big sky — carry a nobility. Breathing in the expansive landscapes that brim with possibilities, I cannot help but feel that too. And the move that brought me, a writer, to live and work in this rural, sometimes remote area of New Hampshire has shown me that courage comes in bits and opportunities.
“You’re very brave,” she said.
Yes. I now know what she means.
Mary Ann D’Urso is a freelance writer.
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New Hampshire
N.H. man sentenced for conspiracy to harass and intimidate two NHPR journalists – The Boston Globe
![N.H. man sentenced for conspiracy to harass and intimidate two NHPR journalists – The Boston Globe N.H. man sentenced for conspiracy to harass and intimidate two NHPR journalists – The Boston Globe](https://bostonglobe-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/GNGhVhRTWD8lKHjZ60n7qKwzhG8=/506x0/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/bostonglobe/2MVUICSZIPLPJM432SZAVBFIK4.jpg)
A New Hampshire man was sentenced to more than two years in federal prison last week for his involvement in the harassment and intimidation of two New Hampshire Public Radio journalists, officials said.
Tucker Cockerline, 33, of Salem, N.H., was sentenced Tuesday to 27 months in prison and three years of supervised release for his role in the 2022 conspiracy, which included the vandalism of the homes of the reporters and one reporter’s parents with bricks, large rocks, and red spray paint on five separate occasions, the US attorney’s office said in a statement Thursday.
Cockerline was arrested and charged by criminal complaint in June 2023, and he pleaded guilty last December in federal court in Boston to conspiracy to commit stalking through interstate travel and using a facility of interstate commerce, prosecutors said.
He was one of four men indicted in connection with the conspiracy, alongside Eric Labarge, Michael Waselchuck, and Keenan Saniatan, prosecutors said.
Labarge and Waselchuck have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Saniatan is expected to plead guilty this month, prosecutors said.
The harassment and vandalism began after one of the journalists published an article in March 2022 detailing allegations against a former New Hampshire businessperson, prosecutors said. A second NHPR journalist contributed to the article.
Though prosecutors didn’t identify the reporters or the businessperson, the case involves NHPR’s reporting on allegations of sexual misconduct against Eric Spofford, founder of Granite Recovery Centers, a network of addiction rehabilitation centers in New Hampshire, the Globe reported.
Spofford has denied the allegations and has not been charged with any crimes related to NHPR’s reporting or the harassment campaign, the Globe reported.
In 2022, after the article was published, Labarge, who officials called “a close personal associate of” the businessperson, along with Cockerline, Waselchuck, and allegedly Saniatan, “agreed to harass and intimidate” the two journalists and their immediate family members, prosecutors said.
Cockerline and Saniatan were allegedly “solicited” to commit the vandalism and harassment by Labarge, prosecutors said.
On the night of April 24, 2022, Cockerline spray-painted a vulgar term related to female anatomy in large red letters on the front door of the first journalist’s former home in Hanover, N.H., and threw a brick through a window, the statement said.
Also that night, Saniatan allegedly spray-painted the same vulgar term on the front door of the second journalist’s home in Concord, N.H., and threw a large rock at the home, prosecutors said. He then “allegedly threw a softball-sized rock” through a window and spray-painted the same word on the first journalist’s parents’ home in Hampstead, N.H., according to prosecutors.
On May 20, 2022, Cockerline spray-painted the same word on the first journalist’s parents’ home and left a brick on the ground near the front door, prosecutors said.
Several hours later, Waselchuck, who Cockerline recruited, threw a brick through a window of the first journalist’s Melrose home and left a warning reading, “JUST THE BEGINNING!” in large red letters, prosecutors said.
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.
Ava Berger can be reached at ava.berger@globe.com. Follow her @Ava_Berger_.
New Hampshire
Knife Fight Report Leads To Arrests On The Concord Heights
![Knife Fight Report Leads To Arrests On The Concord Heights Knife Fight Report Leads To Arrests On The Concord Heights](https://patch.com/img/cdn20/users/546351/20240831/044525/styles/patch_image/public/muhire-collage-082524___31163815572.jpg)
Around 6:45 p.m. on Aug. 25, Concord police were sent to the Concord Gardens apartment complex for a report of a fight involving a knife. The tipster quickly disconnected from 911 after issuing the report, so there was little information available, a detective wrote in an affidavit.
As officers arrived, they learned the incident was close by, in the parking lot of the Lamplighter Plaza on Loudon Road. Several people were still in the rear area of the lot. When the detective arrived, they recognized two men — Emmanuel Muhire, 34, a homeless man, and the victim, a man in his mid-30s. The detective wrote the victim accused Muhire of assaulting him earlier in the evening, at the same location.
A third man, Abel Dusabimana, 39, was in handcuffs due to an active bench warrant. An officer told the detective Dusabimana had possession of the knife during the altercation, the affidavit stated. The knife, the detective noted, was now on the ground near the area of the fight.
The detective stated Muhire had “a large scrape” on his forearm. Fire and rescue teams arrived and applied a bandage to his arm.
Bystanders, however, told the detective Dusabimana was “not the primary aggressor in the altercation.” One witness accused Muhire of “swinging a stick” against Dusabimana, pressing his body against and grabbing onto him, the report said.
A witness provided cellphone video of the incident to the officer the detective watched.
The detective said the video clips showed Muhire holding a stick and swinging it “like a sword in a rapid manner,” the affidavit said. The victim was heard saying “police” several times while lifting his shirt, showing the injury from the prior altercation. Muhire then was seen snapping the stick in half and throwing it to the ground, the detective wrote, but then postured “as if he was about to engage in an altercation.” The report stated he took off his sunglasses, threw them aside, and took off his sandals.
Dusabimana then appeared “to brandish a knife” and chased Muhire a short distance, the report stated. Muhire then fell, Dusabimana kicked him twice, and then walked away, the detective stated. Dusabimana then walked away with the victim. The victim was seen holding a snow shovel later.
Muhire then began to posture again and came “within inches of Abel,” the report said. Dusabimana then pushed him away and Muhire “aggressively reengages Abel and grabbed his right arm,” the affidavit said.
Dusabimana, the detective wrote, appeared to be creating distance from Muhire even though he continued to posture and approach him.
The detective said, since the parking lot incident was the second fight involving Muhire that evening, he was arrested on simple assault, disorderly conduct, and criminal threatening charges. He requested bail but was held on preventative detention. The detective said, despite having $72, Muhire refused to pay the bail commissioner. Muhire was scheduled to be arraigned on Aug. 26 in Concord District Court.
Previously, Muhire has been arrested about a dozen times since 2016 on disorderly conduct, criminal threatening, resisting, assault, trespass, stalking, false imprisonment, domestic violence, driving after revocation or suspension, conduct after an accident, operating without a valid license charges, and a vehicle registration violation.
Dusabimana has previously been arrested on drunken driving twice, driving after revocation or suspension, and operating without a valid license charges as well as a parks ordinance violation.
The victim has previously been arrested on domestic violence, conduct after an accident, simple assault, aggravated driving under the influence, endangering the welfare of a child, stalking, operating without a valid license, resisting, driving after revocation or suspension, breach of bail, and warrants.
Do you have a news tip? Please email it to tony.schinella@patch.com. View videos on Tony Schinella’s YouTube.com channel or Rumble.com channel. Follow the NH politics Twitter account @NHPatchPolitics for all our campaign coverage.
New Hampshire
Here's When NASCAR Returns To New Hampshire In 2025
![Here's When NASCAR Returns To New Hampshire In 2025 Here's When NASCAR Returns To New Hampshire In 2025](https://nesn.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2024/08/New-Hampshire-Motor-Speedway.jpg)
NASCAR released the 2025 Cup Series season schedule on Thursday. The most significant addition is the June 15 race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, which will bring the series to international territory.
The 38-race slate has notable changes at the beginning and end of the season. NASCAR kicks off 2025 with the preseason Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on Feb. 2 for the first time in 54 years.
A return to our racing roots! The 2025 schedule is here! pic.twitter.com/PRgPXVGA4R — NASCAR (@NASCAR) August 29, 2024
A historic event in Mexico City!
A new-look #NASCARPlayoffs!
New England fans will have to wait until September for Cup Series action at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (NHMS). NASCAR will no longer feature a summer race on the “Magic Mile.” However, the famous track will kick off the Round of 12 on Sept. 21.
“First of all, having a NASCAR race any time of the year is a very big deal with the best American motorsport racers in the world racing at your speedway, but to have one in the playoffs just adds a little more excitement and energy to that particular race,” NHMS executive vice president and general manager David McGrath said, per a transcript provided by the track. “I think certainly being in NewHampshire in the middle of the summer is a wonderful time to be in the Granite State, but there is something about the fall as the weather starts to cool down and the leaves start to turn that makes New Hampshire Motor Speedway an ideal place to have a race — a playoff race in September 2025.”
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McGrath continued: “While any date’s a great date, having one in the playoffs just adds that energy and that extra excitement, and quite frankly, race fans will notice because these racers will be getting after it in the first race of the Round of 12 to see who can punch their way to the Round of 8, so New Hampshire Motor Speedway will play a very big part in determining the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series championship.”
New Hampshire returns to the postseason for the first time since 2017, joining Kansas and the Charlotte road race to round out the quarterfinals. After being the regular-season finale this year, Darlington will open the 2025 playoffs on Aug. 31. The championship race in 2025 remains at Phoenix on Nov. 2.
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