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This is NHPR’s The Big Question. In this series, we ask you a question about life in New Hampshire, you submit an answer, and your voice may be featured on air or online.
For December’s Big Question, we asked: What was your favorite moment of 2024?
Here’s what some of you shared.
Barbara Jo Kingsley – Peterborough: My favorite event this past year was climbing Mount Washington. I had a very major, 10-hour surgery last fall, and I told the surgeon that my goal was to climb Mount Washington that coming summer. And we did. We went up to the top in misty, drizzly weather and saw nothing but fog, but we made it to the top. The next day, we went down the Cog Railway. I had been up on the top when I was younger, but it was new for me after surgery. It was a goal I set, and I made it, and I was real proud of myself.
Rik Yeames – Concord: My favorite moment of 2024 occurred on Monday, April 8 at 3:30 p.m. when I was able to view totality from Pittsburg, New Hampshire, of the total solar eclipse that occurred that day. I was actually a NASA partner, [a] solar eclipse ambassador, [and] had an eclipse mobile. I spoke to a lot of school groups, libraries [and] some rotary clubs around New Hampshire. So it was the culmination of about nine years of working, planning and preparing, getting ready for the eclipse. It turned out to be the sight of a lifetime.
Carla Schwartz – Meredith, New Hampshire, and Carlisle, Massachusetts: My favorite moment was that we prepared a camper van to go to Vermont to see the total solar eclipse. We put in windows and we put in cabinetry and a refrigerator that runs on DC, and all this stuff for solar panels that go all the way to the top so that we can live off the grid. It was an event for humanity, really, to be out there and have the sky darken and then listen to the quiet when the birds disappeared, and then have the sun appear again eventually. It was really beautiful.
Heidi Solomon-Orlick – Henniker: Well, probably the two biggest things for me is one, I fulfilled a lifelong dream of publishing my first children’s book at the age of 65 years old. And I think it proves that you are never too old, and it is never too late to reach for the stars. This book is the book that I wish I had when I was a child. The second moment for me this year is the fact that late last year, I was aged out of my corporate role and I decided to lean into full time entrepreneurship. It was a difficult transition for me, but it is the best thing that ever happened to me.
Fred Portnoy – Canterbury: My best memory of 2024 follows closely upon my worst memory of 2024. After my wife passed away in June, I determined two things: one, I was going to attend every concert offered by the Avaloch Farm Music Institute in Boscawen that summer. Two, I was going to honor my wife with a one-woman art show of her work in the town’s parish house community center, culminating in a celebration of life. The confluence of those two led to the high point: Ashley Bathgate, cellist of Avaloch, very kindly offered to play selections we chose together for my wife’s celebration of life in September.
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.
Local News
A Massachusetts man was arrested late Wednesday night after police say he was driving more than 100 mph on a New Hampshire roadway.
Officers with the Rindge Police Department stopped a vehicle shortly after 11 p.m. on Route 202 near Sears Drive in Rindge following a report of a car traveling at excessive speed, according to a statement from Chief Rachel Malynowski.
The vehicle, a 2020 Kia Stinger, was spotted traveling at 104 mph in a posted 55 mph zone, Malynowski said.
The driver, a 21-year-old man from Attleboro, was arrested and charged with reckless operation of a motor vehicle, according to police.
He is scheduled to be arraigned April 5. If convicted, the man faces a fine of at least $750, in addition to the court’s penalty assessment, and a 90-day license suspension, Malynowski said.
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