Also on today’s menu:
Dartmouth Archaeology Team Finds Weirs Beach Artifacts
UNH Student Hobbyist’s Experiments Lead To Charges
Legal Action Filed Against Firm For Illegal Robocalls
Bristol Police Chief Kris Bean made a presentation to the family of the late Barry Tanner during the May 18 meeting of the Bristol Board of Selectmen. Tanner had served as the police department’s detective-sergeant prior to his death earlier this year.
The presentation included a shadow box for his wife, Paula, featuring badges and patches from his career as a sergeant at the Plymouth Police Department, a lieutenant at the Holderness Police Department, and as sergeant in Bristol; as well as Tanner’s own badges in frames for his children.
“He really loved working here,” Paula said.
Dartmouth Archaeology Team Finds Weirs Beach Artifacts
A Dartmouth College archaeology team that did a radar survey of Weirs Beach last December returned this week to dig up thousands of artifacts and fragments, ranging from nails and glass from the 19th century to arrowheads dating back as far as 8,000 years. Post-doctoral fellow Nathaniel Kitchell said he was hoping to find items from as far back as 10,000 to 12,000 years, but still called the dig a “learning experience.”
The search was complicated by the fact that the Weirs Beach parking lot had been rebuilt several decades ago, with soil dredged from various locations around the region, possibly including Paugus Bay and Lake Winnipesaukee. A dark area of soil yielded ancient arrowheads mixed with relatively recent historic artifacts.
The 8,000-year-old arrowhead was a unique projectile of the Neville variant, defined by sharp notches at the base and an “almost 90-degree and very narrow aspect to it,” Kitchell said. The team also uncovered a “stark” point arrowhead with a less prominent point.
Joining the college team in the dig were volunteers from the State Conservation and Rescue Archaeology Program who did most of the digging and sifting.
UNH Student Hobbyist’s Experiments Lead To Charges
Emad Mustafa, 29, is facing felony charges of reckless conduct and improper disposal of hazardous waste after investigators searched his Oyster River Road apartment in Durham this week. The man, who made himself sick mixing unstable chemicals in his apartment, “appears to be a hobbyist”, according to Assistant Strafford County Attorney Joachim Barth.
Mustafa had been mixing mercury, highly flammable dimethyl sulfide, sodium iodate, and sodium metal, which is highly unstable and can cause chemical burns when touched. Barth said it unclear why Mustafa was mixing the chemicals. “I don’t believe he had a focus on a nefarious intent,” Barth said.
Mustafa was treated and released at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital after calling 911 on May 13, but first responders were alarmed by what they saw and that triggered the investigation which involved the Durham police and fire departments, the University of New Hampshire Police Department, New Hampshire State Police, federal investigators, the Seacoast Technical Assistance Response Team (START), and the Southeastern New Hampshire Hazardous Material Mutual Aid District.
Mustafa, a Ph.D. physics student at UNH, faces three and a half to seven years in prison on each of the class B felonies and is due to be arranged in Strafford District Court next month. His work focused on polarized target systems, high-energy devices used to observe the spin rate of protons and neutrons. They use substances such as helium and liquid nitrogen in refrigerated cases that include generated magnetic fields and lasers.
Legal Action Filed Against Firm For Illegal Robocalls
Avid Telecom, its owner, Michael Lansky, and its vice-president, Stacey S. Reeves, are charged with being responsible for billions of illegal robocalls to millions of people, with scams about Social Security, Medicare, auto warranties, Amazon orders, DirecTV, credit card interest rate reduction, and employment. Avid Telecom sent more than 7.5 billion calls to telephone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry between December 2018 and January 2023, with 36.2 million of those calls being made to New Hampshire numbers, violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and other federal and state telemarketing and consumer protection laws.
The U.S. Telecom-led Industry Traceback Group, which notifies providers about known and suspected illegal robocalls sent across their networks, had sent at least 329 notifications to Avid Telecom, warning that it was transmitting illegal calls, but Avid Telecom allegedly continued to do so.
The Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, comprising 51 attorneys-general nationwide, is investigating and taking legal action against those responsible for such calls, and the Federal Trade Commission and the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General provided investigative assistance in this matter, according to New Hampshire Attorney-General John Formella.
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