What makes a neighborhood, a community, a city and a state vibrant, alive and a great place to live? What gives a place that special flavor, what makes it unique and a good place to work and raise a family?…

Virtually every day we hear about a major corporation announcing plans to reduce its carbon footprint. Businesses are going “green” for a very good reason. It is good for the environment and the bottom line. Regardless of the motive, a…

Legislation to regulate payday lending will be voted on early in January, when the House and Senate are back in session in Concord. For those unfamiliar with payday lenders, they are in the business of making small loans to people…

Editor’s note: The following are the remarks Andrew Leitz — managing director of Rye Capital, retired president of Hadco Corp. and current chair of the University System of New Hampshire board of trustees — gave after accepting the Business and…

Jim Roche, president of the Business and Industry Association, opined recently that the association “believes in the sanctity of contracts between private parties.” This was part the group’s reason for stating that the proposed tax-free merger of FairPoint and Verizon…

You’re standing in the checkout line at the supermarket. Ahead of you, a 4-year-old is whining to his mother in the hope of getting a candy bar. Clearly frazzled, the mom begins to berate him in a voice loud enough…

Conservative commentators are having a dust-up over whether former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is a conservative. The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund and Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth, say no. The Washington Times’ Tony Blankley says yes.…

Every summer, the Business and Industry Association engages in policy development roundtable discussions with business and opinion leaders in 14 locations throughout the state. And every summer, particularly in the Monadnock Region, Upper Valley and North Country, many roundtable participants…

Seventeen members of the New England House delegation, including Congressman Paul Hodes and Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, recently came together in Boston for a unique morning at Suffolk University Law School. Hosted by the New England Council, the congressional delegation had…

What do Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani have in common? They’re the leading presidential candidates of the two major parties. But they have more in common than that. All choose not to offer specifics on waste…

Like most states, New Hampshire struggles with the issue of affordable health insurance coverage for its citizens. Roughly 150,000 people across the state lack health insurance. Of this number, a large group, approximately 75,000, are working-age individuals or their families…

In New Hampshire, nearly 1,900 children a year - approximately 37 per day - become regular smokers. In our state alone, we spend $564 million on health-care costs directly caused by smoking. Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death…

It wasn’t long ago that energy was something most people took for granted. Gas was plentiful and cheap, renewable energy was something only “tree huggers” talked about and global warming was an exotic theory. How times have changed. These days,…