- Re-Create Yourself: How a Microphone in Nashua and a Second Place in Merrimack Remade Two Presidents
Robert Greene's twenty-fifth law says to refuse the role others hand you and build your own. New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary gives candidates the stage. In 1980 and 1992, one Republican and one Democrat used it to become someone new.
- Play the Perfect Courtier: Eisenhower Said “I Need Him.” Ninety-Six Days Later, New Hampshire’s Sherman Adams Was Gone
Robert Greene's twenty-fourth law says to learn the rules of the court and never draw the wrong kind of attention. A former New Hampshire governor guarded Eisenhower's door for nearly six years. Then he became the story.
- Concentrate Your Forces: The Free State Project Bet on One State and 400 House Seats
Robert Greene's twenty-third law says to pick one target and put everything there. In 2003 a libertarian movement picked New Hampshire, where a House seat stands for about 3,400 people. Some 6,000 movers later, the record shows what concentration buys and what it provokes.
- Camp Menotomy’s 1961 Deed Ties Any Sale to Finding No Camp. The Trustees’ Own Court Filing Describes Two Offers From One.
An $18 million contract for 95 acres on Lake Winnipesaukee turns on one clause written in December 1961. The deed and the trustees’ own court filing, read side by side.
- Use the Surrender Tactic: At Seabrook, the Side That Gave Up Set the Price. Twice.
Robert Greene's twenty-second law says the weaker side should give in rather than lose with honor. At Seabrook, 1,414 protesters surrendered to arrest and left the state holding the bill. Eleven years later the plant's bankrupt owner surrendered to the courts and came out with a statute.
- Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker: The Scam Courier Came for $32,000. Keene Police Were Waiting.
Robert Greene's twenty-first law says to seem dumber than your mark. New Hampshire's phone scammers bet everything on a target who stays fooled until the cash is handed over. In five towns the courier came to collect and found police, because someone else kept playing the part.
- Do Not Commit to Anyone: New Hampshire’s Largest Voting Bloc Belongs to No Party, and Both Parties Court It
Robert Greene's twentieth law says the one who commits to no side is courted by every side. In New Hampshire that is 39 percent of the electorate. State law locks partisans in before candidates file, frees the undeclared until the ballot is in hand, and three bills to change it died without a single committee vote in favor.
- The Matrix Needs a Jailer. Ready Player One Only Needs a Better Product.
Artificial intelligence can build a playable world from one sentence. I found no evidence that machines will lock anyone inside it. The record points to a different risk: a world people choose and a company owns.
- A New Hampshire House Recount Costs $10. Sixteen Candidates Asked for One.
State law sets the fee, bans machines from the count and gives the loser three days to appeal. The Legislature those ballots elected votes on a secretary of state on Dec. 2, 2026.
- November 12 in New Hampshire History: Lawmakers, Not Voters, Chose John Langdon as the State’s First U.S. Senator in 1788
John Langdon’s election to the first Senate leads an edition that also follows Gen. John Sullivan to Portsmouth in 1775, the warship Kearsarge home to the yard that built her in 1886, and a 2003 ruling on a driver who fell asleep in a running car.
- November 12 in U.S. History: The Supreme Court Struck Down Arkansas’s Ban on Teaching Evolution in 1968
A Little Rock biology teacher won her challenge to a 1928 anti-evolution law on November 12, 1968; the same date marks Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s birth in 1815 and the 1999 law that repealed key sections of Glass-Steagall, with both New Hampshire senators on record.
- November 12 in World History: Austria’s Assembly Voted Itself a Republic in 1918 and Wrote Union With Germany Into Article 2
Vienna’s Provisional National Assembly made German-Austria a democratic republic in 1918, the Tokyo tribunal read its sentences in 1948, and Indonesian troops fired on mourners in Dili in 1991.
- Know Who You’re Dealing With: How 20 Votes Cut Croydon’s School Budget and 377 Put It Back
Robert Greene's nineteenth law warns against offending the wrong person. In 2022 a 20-to-14 vote cut Croydon's school budget by more than half. The town that answered had fought the state over its schools before, and it brought 379 voters to a meeting that needed 283.
- New Hampshire’s Chief Justice Seat Is Empty. Two Council Meetings Decide Which Council Fills It.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte says she has no set time frame. The outgoing council meets twice more before a 5-0 Democratic council takes its seats, and the constitution asks for only three days’ notice.
- A Federal Judge Ruled Scanlan Didn’t Have to Hand Over the Voter File. The Justice Department Says He Is Under Criminal Investigation Anyway.
New Hampshire's secretary of state faces the Legislature's vote on Dec. 2, 2026. The 1960 records law the federal government sued under punishes losing or destroying election records, and GSR found no public record that he has done either.
- Do Not Build Fortresses: How Northern Pass Lost New Hampshire From Inside Its Own Walls
Robert Greene's eighteenth law says isolation is more dangerous than the enemies it keeps out. Eversource spent eight years and $318 million on Northern Pass, and the state's siting committee found its case did not account for the places it meant to cross.
- New Hampshire’s Mystery Stone Was “Turned on a Lathe.” The State’s Own Experts Wrote It Down in 1994.
In 1994 a former state geologist wrote that New Hampshire's Mystery Stone was turned on a lathe. Here is what the file says, and what 1872 never recorded.
- New Hampshire’s Bigfoot File Holds 14 Reports. The Newest Top-Grade One Is a Decade Old, and Its Hair Sample Was Bear.
GSR read every New Hampshire report in the BFRO Bigfoot database: 14 accounts from the public, none dated after 2016, and the one checked hair sample was bear.
- Keep Others in Suspended Terror: The Governor Who Never Surprised Anyone
Robert Greene's seventeenth law says to keep people guessing. New Hampshire's governor told the Legislature what she would veto, vetoed it, and saw 38 of her 45 vetoes stand. The one body that turned unpredictable came back from lunch short of two-thirds.
- 424 Lawmakers Will Choose New Hampshire’s Election Chief. The Ballot Is Secret by Custom.
The Legislature elects New Hampshire's secretary of state on Dec. 2, 2026. By custom the ballot is secret. Every legislator is still free to say how they voted.
- Zuckerberg Wrote in 2018 That Provocative Posts Get More Engagement. New Hampshire’s $224 Million Meta Settlement Leaves the Adult Feed Alone.
Facebook's chief executive, its internal documents and a study of 2.7 million posts agree that a feed ranked by reaction rewards provocation. New Hampshire's $224 million settlement protects teenagers and leaves adult ranking untouched.
- We Are the Animal That Builds Tools. The Last One We Build Will Build the Rest.
The oldest stone tools are older than our own genus. The field of artificial intelligence got its name in Hanover, New Hampshire. A machine that out-builds its makers is where that line was always headed, and it may be the only insurance policy a mortal species gets.
- A War Song for a Movement That Fights With Paper
What Ill Bill's 'War Is My Destiny' means, and why New Hampshire's fight over who owns AI needs the witness in the song, a records request, and no sword.
- Which Minds Win With AI? Full of Ideas, Bad at Finishing, Hard to Fool
The research on ADHD, bipolar and schizotypal traits, high IQ and spatial talent says no label is a winning ticket. A working profile is.
- New Hampshire Doesn’t Count Who Meets the Five-Day Records Deadline. Five Verified Residents Can Start the Count.
Your Voice, Granite State Report’s polling desk for verified New Hampshire residents, opens with one question about the Right-to-Know Law. No result shows until five verified residents answer. Here is how to become one by postcard.
- November 10 in U.S. History: A White Mob Forced Wilmington’s Elected Officials From Office in 1898
The Wilmington coup leads an edition that also covers the 1775 resolution raising the Marines, the hanging of Henry Wirz, 41 suffrage pickets, the Marine Corps War Memorial and the Edmund Fitzgerald.
- November 10 in New Hampshire History: A Treaty Fixes the Northern Line at Hall’s Stream
The Webster-Ashburton Treaty took effect on November 10, 1842, and settled the line Pittsburg had fought over; the same date chartered Lyman in 1761 and sent Portsmouth's firemen to Boston in 1872.
- November 10 in World History: Nigeria Hangs Ken Saro-Wiwa After a Tribunal With No Appeal
A special tribunal sent Ken Saro-Wiwa to the gallows in 1995, Nikita Khrushchev opened a fight over Berlin in 1958, and the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 in 1975.
- My Religion Says Don’t Take the Money. I’m an Atheist. I Flinch Anyway.
Humans built a better tool builder, and the work is ending. Who owns what the machine makes is the question left, for New Hampshire and for this newsroom.
- Does Being Rich Feel Better When Everyone Else Is Poor? The Research Says No, With One Ugly Exception.
Money raises well-being. Falling behind your neighbors lowers it. Outranking them pays close to nothing, and poverty next door costs everyone who lives beside it, including the people with money.
