Free Republic

GORHAM — A social studies teacher remains on paid administrative leave but will not face criminal charges in connection with a classroom skit at Gorham Middle-High School in which he gave a knife to a student. The announcement by Gorham Police Chief P.J. Cyr on Wednesday was criticized by Robert Balon, the father of the 17-year old GMHS junior. Balon said his son had unwittingly and reluctantly participated in the March 14 skit, the aim of which was to educate students about the Fourth Amendment. “Chief Cyr is not fulfilling his duty and is failing the kids in the schools,”...

The Welcome Project is launching the Somerville Response Network, a text message service providing advanced and immediate notice of federal ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids in Somerville. “The Rapid Response Network is more than just an action plan,” says Development Coordinator for the Welcome Project Kenia Alfaro. “There is a lot of fear in our immigrant communities. Though we can’t puta halt to the actions of the federal government, we can be prepared to help families in our city affected by ICE arrests or deportation move forward in the face of uncertainty.” The system is simple: if you observe...

An 85-year-old New London physician said Monday that she has been forced to surrender her medical license because of a system that values electronic medicine over professional judgment, and favors expensive specialists over individualized care. The Board of Medicine announced Monday that Dr. Anna M. Konopka, a solo practitioner family doctor, had agreed two weeks ago to voluntarily surrender her license in light of an investigation into her record-keeping, prescribing practices and medical decision-making. Konopka, who must stop seeing patients on Oct. 13, said the issue is a system that has grown too computerized and cut-throat. She has been under...

NYC sets big-city model New York City is the most high-profile city of late to adopt a municipal ID program. In January, the city launched its NYC ID program and has since enrolled 530,000 cardholders, making it the country’s largest municipal ID program. “Response has been extraordinary,” says city spokeswoman Rosemary Boeglin. At the onset of the program, demand exceeded expectation, and the city had to implement an appointment-based system for enrollment. Appointments take about 20 minutes, and cards are mailed out to residents within 10 to 14 business days. Boeglin says the program enables the city government to work...

WASHINGTON (MCT) — About 3 million people have now enrolled in health insurance plans sold through marketplaces created by President Barack Obama's health care law, the administration announced Friday. The milestone indicates nearly a million additional people have signed up since the end of December. It also suggests that the marketplaces are continuing to recover from a disastrous launch on Oct. 1.

HUDSON — A coalition of Republican state representatives called upon the governor yesterday to instruct Attorney General Kelly Ayotte to appeal a ruling made in district court that blocked the prosecution of illegal aliens under the state's criminal trespass statute. After the decision, the attorney general sent a memo to law enforcement officials across the state on Aug. 15 informing them they "should not make future arrests for criminal trespassing based solely on the defendant's immigration status." She further stated that there is "insufficient basis for appeal." On Aug. 12, Jaffrey-Peterborough District Court Judge L. Phillips Runyon III dismissed the...

MANCHESTER — Two New Hampshire police chiefs' efforts to control illegal immigration by charging illegal aliens under the state's trespassing law is unacceptable and shows the failure of the federal government's immigration policies, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said yesterday. "You can't have police chiefs do this job indiscriminately around the country," Richardson said a news conference at Southern New Hampshire University. "This should be done by federal law enforcement. This should not be done by local police chiefs," added Richardson, an Hispanic who said he is dealing with the problem of illegal immigration in his Southwest border state. New...

TOKYO (AP) - Just outside Tokyo, city officials gathered nearly 60,000 signatures in one month to stop the possible expansion of a U.S. Army camp. In South Korea, 1,000 workers fearing for their jobs rallied outside the main base there and vowed a bigger protest was ahead. While the United States works out its biggest set of domestic military base closures in decades, countries from Germany to South Korea are bracing for a major restructuring as well, with new hosts being courted and as many as 70,000 U.S. troops expected to head home over the next decade. Mirroring the domestic...

NASHUA POLICE to conduct seat belt checkpoints" was a small headline in our state edition one day last week, but it caught our eye nonetheless. The story said checkpoints would begin today and are an effort to improve "compliance with state seat belt laws." New Hampshire's law covers minors only, ours being the last state in the union that believes adults ought to be able to make their own decisions about buckling up. So we will be interested to see just how intrusive the police are in administering their "checkpoints." The New Hampshire Police Chiefs Association tried again this year...

Despite efforts yesterday of a group of protesters — armed with a letter signed by 200 sympathizers — New Ipswich Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain said he would not budge on his stance against allowing illegal immigrants in town. "I will not subscribe to the open-borders philosophy," Chamberlain told a crowd of about 30 members of the New Hampshire Immigrant Rights Task Force yesterday. The group rallied first at the New Ipswich police station to protest Chamberlain's use of the state's criminal trespassing law to bring some attention to the federal government's failure to take custody of illegal immigrants his...

HUDSON — Following the lead of the New Ipswich police chief, Hudson police charged two men with criminal trespassing because they are in the United States illegally. These are the first two illegal immigrants Hudson police have ever charged with criminal trespassing, police Chief Richard E. Gendron said yesterday. "I suspect it will not be the last." Two officers stopped a vehicle at 8:20 p.m. Tuesday on Derry Road in Hudson because one of the vehicle's headlights did not work, police said. Hudson police charged two Mexican immigrants who live on Perham Street in Nashua, above, with criminal trespassing after...

SOMETHING very interesting and perhaps ground-breaking happened in Jaffrey District Court on Tuesday. An illegal immigrant pleaded guilty to trespassing on New Hampshire soil — and the judge accepted the plea. Mexican national Jorge Ramirez, 21, had been caught in New Ipswich with forged documents. He admitted being in the country illegally. Nothing unusual there. Ramirez worked construction in Massachusetts, where tens of thousands of illegals live and work. What was unusual was that his arrest came at the hands of local police, not federal immigration officials, and he was charged with criminal trespass simply for being in the state...

WHEN THE Department of Homeland Security is less serious about enforcing U.S. immigration laws than local police are, something is terribly wrong. New Ipswich Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain has embarrassed the Federal department repeatedly since last summer by arresting numerous illegal aliens that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of Homeland Security, is unwilling or unable to handle. Now that he has come up with a novel approach to the alien issue — an approach that could be replicated easily by other police departments — Homeland Security could get a giant Spanish omelet in the face if others...

Mexican charged with criminal trespass By STEPHEN SEITZ Union Leader Correspondent NEW IPSWICH — Federal authorities are waiting to see how a state case against an illegal alien goes before they decide what to do. Jorge Mora Ramirez, 21, of Waltham, Mass., is free on bail pending charges of criminal trespass after being picked up in New Ipswich last Friday. "The police did give us the information," said Barbara Gonzalez, a public affairs officer with the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency. "We'll await the resolution of state charges." Police said that last Friday, an officer checked on a Ford Explorer...