"new hampshire" news and stories

Should recipients of food stamps be required to pass a drug test in order to receive their benefits?

Some Republican legislators in New Hampshire think so, and they've proposed a new law that would subject food-stamp recipients to random drug tests. A number of other states, such as Oregon, Kentucky, Missouri and Nebraska, are considering similar laws.

No doubt, when taken at face value, these laws sound eminently reasonable. After all, thousands of U.S. workers are required to pass drug tests in order to apply for or keep their jobs.

But as a number of civil liberties and public health organizations point out, such testing relies on unproven stereotypes about people who receive public assistance and the testing can cost taxpayers more money than it saves.

The expression that "it's hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk" is a common one, but have you ever heard of someone baking cookies in their car? A woman in New Hampshire did just that, taking advantage of the extremely high heat that her area had been experiencing. With outdoor temperatures in the mid to upper 90s, the temperature in her RAV4 reached about 200F. She placed trays of prepared dough on her dashboard and went inside to wait with her coworkers for the cookies to be done.

The chef, Sandi Fontaine, has actually been doing these car cookies for about 3 years now, whenever the temperature climbs about 95F. She notes that an additional benefit of in-car baking is that the fresh cookie smell lingers in the car for many days after a batch has been completed.

Update: View photo here.

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While Florida tries to nominate a state pie, it looks like New Hampshire may soon have a state fruit: the pumpkin. At the urging of a group of third and fourth graders from a New Hampshire elementary school, a NH state representative sponsored a bill to make the orange gourd the state's official fruit. Much to the joy of the little lobbyists, the bill recently passed the House. The next step is for the young pumpkin pushers to testify at a Senate hearing, according to The Boston Globe. New Hampshire hosts an annual pumpkin festival and has, in the past, produced pumpkins of record-setting size.