HUDSON, N.H. — A 70‑year‑old Hudson man is behind bars after police say he rammed another vehicle in a road‑rage attack on Thursday afternoon, tried to pull open the driver’s door and later registered twice the legal limit on a breath test.

Richard Feener was arrested at his home about 30 minutes after the confrontation at Library and Central streets, where a Litchfield, New Hampshire, couple — a 66‑year‑old man and 67‑year‑old woman — told police their SUV was struck multiple times by a white Ford Escape that had been tailgating them since Lowell Road, according to the Hudson Police Department.

The couple told police that at about 3:45 p.m. Feener threw what they described as a “temper tantrum” before intentionally crashing into the rear of their vehicle three times. Police said he then got out, approached the driver’s side door and tried to pull it open while yelling, before returning to his SUV and sideswiping their vehicle as he fled.

No injuries were reported.

A third‑party witness allegedly confirmed the tailgating, the confrontation at the door and the intentional sideswipe.

Police said they traced the Ford’s veteran license plate to Feener’s home on Barbara Lane about 30 minutes after the reported incident. There they found the SUV with a warm hood and fresh damage consistent with the victims’ account.

According to police, Feener told officers from his doorway that he had been home for about four hours and admitted to drinking but claimed he had not driven recently.

When officers pointed out the fresh damage on his vehicle, he allegedly said it had been there for a while. Police said that they could smell the odor of alcohol on his breath, and when asked what time it was, Feener said it was 8 p.m. despite it being hours earlier.

In addition to appearing intoxicated, and giving inconsistent statements, he struggled to complete field sobriety tests. A breath test later registered a blood‑alcohol concentration of 0.16, according to police.

Feener was charged with three counts of reckless conduct with a deadly weapon, a Class B felony; aggravated driving while intoxicated, a Class A misdemeanor; driving under the influence, a Class B misdemeanor; conduct after an accident, a Class A misdemeanor; and disorderly conduct, a violation.

At his arraignment Friday in Nashua District Court, Judge Amy Manchester entered no plea on the felony charges and not guilty pleas on the misdemeanors and violations.

Prosecutors acknowledged the seriousness of the allegations but noted Feener has “little to absolutely no criminal or vehicle history,” citing only a 2002 Massachusetts assault‑and‑battery case that was continued without a finding — a disposition in which a defendant admits the facts but avoids a conviction if they complete probation.

The prosecution described Wednesday’s incident as a “one‑off” and requested $500 cash bail with conditions including no driving, no contact with the victims and mandatory drug and alcohol treatment. The defense agreed, saying the episode stemmed from a substance‑abuse issue.

Manchester rejected the joint recommendation.

“Despite your agreement, I can’t accept this,” she told the attorneys.

Turning to Feener, she added, “I find you to be a danger to the community, and I am going to detain you without bail.”

Feener is scheduled to return to court for a probable cause hearing at 10 a.m. on June 22.

Follow Aaron Curtis on X @aselahcurtis, or on Bluesky @aaronscurtis.bsky.social.

New Hampshire is not for want of trees: It’s the second most-forested state, second only to Maine.

Such an abundant tree canopy may make it easy to think this is what the state has always looked like. But, as Nikki Andrews, the steward of the Sheldrick Forest in Wilton, knows, that’s not the case.

“The forest changes every time you come,” she said on a recent May morning out in the Sheldrick Forest. Andrews was doing a walkthrough of the hike she planned to lead a few days later as part of Wilton’s town-wide celebration of the country’s 250th birthday. Her husband, Dave, and the co-chair of the celebration, Sara Spittel, tagged along.

In the morning sunshine, the early spring leaves glinted pale green. Fresh vegetation was beginning to push its way up through the leaf litter. The Andrewses have been stewards of this forest for over 30 years. Over these decades, Nikki Andrews has developed a deeply personal relationship with the woods.

“You feel like you’re watching your kids grow, and then they outgrow you,” she said.

Andrews wanted to use the hike to show how these small changes have added up to massive evolutions over the centuries.

Plus, Spittel said organizers wanted to showcase the forest’s connection to the Pine Tree Rebellion, a 1772 riot in Weare over British attempts to regulate white-pine logging.

“We may have some of those pine trees that are still here in our forest,” Spittel said. “That all happened even before things were happening in Boston. New Hampshire was rising against the king.”

Only a small grove of these colonial-era pines remains, a cluster of towering red and white pines dubbed “The Valley of Giants.” Andrews planned her route so her group would hike out to them, but only after climbing a path that helped tell the forest’s story over millennia.

Andrews started her story thousands of years ago.

“All this area was shaped by the glaciers,” she said, hiking up a steep pitch along something called a glacial moraine.

“A moraine is a pile of rocks, gravel… pushed up by a glacier either at the end of the glacier or along the sides,” she said.

She explained that underneath the fallen leaves, the soil the glaciers left behind across New Hampshire was rocky.

For thousands of years, Abenaki people stewarded this land. In the 18th century, European colonists arrived in the area from Massachusetts and the Seacoast. Andrews explained that the landscape they encountered was probably heavily wooded, but they quickly transformed it, razing the forest to build homes and start farming. But, as Andrews explained, the colonists had to change their plans pretty soon.

“The soil’s lousy for crops,” she said. “So [the colonists] pulled all those rocks they had pulled out from the field to make walls for the sheep.”

As our hike continued, Andrews reached a dirt path flanked by moss-covered stone walls that were hard to distinguish from the surrounding forest.

Andrews said that this was the remnant of a country road: Roughly 250 years ago, at this exact spot, there would have been foot, horse, and wagon traffic making its way up and down the thoroughfare.

“People would have been taking their products to market and vice versa,” she said.

The road led down to the glacial moraine, to the valley floor, to the grove of quarter-million-year-old pines. In the shadow of the sheer face of the glacial moraine we had just hiked up and over, the grove stood almost hidden, its tall, skinny trees.

Andrews patted the trunk of one of them.

“This was alive when Washington was,” she said. “This was a seedling when Washington was alive.”

But the landscape around this tree, like the country as a whole, changed as the pine grew. People gradually abandoned their farms and fields for better opportunities out west and south, Andrews said.

And the forest came back, roots pushing through abandoned walls and mountain laurel growing on forgotten thoroughfares.

“This land … was just sort of neglected, which was fine,” she said. “Trees don’t need us.”

Eventually, the trees grew back into a proper forest, which made it attractive to loggers. It was lumbered periodically, and for decades, trees grew only to be cut, over and over.

It was not until the 1990s that anyone realized the forest was worth protecting. When a plan for condos on this site was proposed, local conservationists sprang into action. Via a donation, the Nature Conservancy came into possession of the land. For the past 30 years – and for perpetuity into the future – it’s been spared from logging and development.

But Andrews emphasized that even though the forest is now protected, it will continue to change. Standing under one of the old pines, she forecast its future.

“Ten, 20 years, it may fall down, and in another 60 to 100 it will be soil. So these things just last and last in many forms,” she said.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD – The governor announced Friday she signed into law 18 bills passed by the legislature, including ones related to cyanobacteria and Senate Bill 619, establishing procedures for expedited court hearings and disposition of confiscated animals.

Gov. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, also vetoed three bills including one enabling alternative treatment centers to operate a greenhouse cultivation location.

“I do not support expanding the cultivation of marijuana in our state. For this reason, I have vetoed SB 468,” she wrote in her veto message.

Also vetoed was HB 1072 relative to employer notice of department of labor investigations.

“While this bill is the product of thoughtful conversations and important considerations, it unnecessarily restricts the Department of Labor’s critical authority to swiftly respond to emergent situations where employers have failed to pay wages to their employees. New Hampshire families depend on timely paychecks, and we cannot delay the Department’s ability to react in those circumstances,” she wrote.

HB 1643, relative to the report of a guardian ad litem, was also vetoed.

“The role of the guardian ad litem is to assist the court in determining the best interests of the child. To that end, under current law guardians ad litem are directed by the court to gather information and, only if specifically requested by the court, make certain recommendations relating to parenting plans, schedules, and decision-making responsibilities. Ultimately, the court is responsible for making determinations relative to a child’s welfare. This bill would strip the authority of the court to request a guardian ad litem provide recommendations for consideration by the judge and limits information available to the court, which could impede its ability to ensure the best interests of a child,” Ayotte wrote.

The three vetoes will be returned to the Senate and the House in the fall to see whether they are sustained or overridden.

Ayotte did sign the following bills which are now law:

HB 656 — Relative to the authority of local school districts to accept federal grants.

HB 1073 — Clarifying when the secretary of state shall complete the registry of New Hampshire decentralized autonomous organizations.

HB 1381 — Extending the time of the party filing period.

HB 1425 — Relative to the development of an online wetlands permit processing system.

HB 1495 — Allowing a reimbursement anticipation note to be used as collateral in certain circumstances.

HB 1549 — Establishing that titles, bills of sale, and identification documents are required only at initial registration or transfer of ownership.

SB 499 — Relative to the membership, duties, and reporting requirements of the traffic safety commission.

SB 500 — Relative to restroom access for certain commercial motor vehicle operators.

SB 505 — Relative to applications for guide licenses and repealing the fee for temporary registration of nonresidents relative to OHRVs.

SB 516 — Relative to certain unclassified positions in the department of health and human services.

SB 595 — Relative to rulemaking for transient non-community water systems.

SB 598 — Establishing the cyanobacteria mitigation loan and grant fund task force.

SB 600 — Requiring the governor to submit and present a quarterly fiscal year budget report about the general and education trust funds to the general court fiscal committee.

SB 610 — Allowing the insurance commissioner to approve innovative short or long-term care policies.

SB 619 — Establishing procedures for expedited court hearings and disposition of confiscated animals.

SB 633 — Relative to donations received by the granite patron of the arts fund.

SB 644 — Requiring background checks for solid waste and hazardous waste facility owners.

SB 655 — Relative to employee leasing companies, workers’ compensation coverage options, and a minimum wage exemption for minor league baseball players.