Also on today’s menu:
Deer-Hunting Season Opens
Musk Sells $4 Billion Of Tesla Shares
Meta To Cut 13 Percent Of Workforce
Final election tallies are yet to be determined, but — in New Hampshire, at least — it appears that moderates and liberals did better than those who clung to the belief (or pretended to believe) that the 2020 election had been stolen. Or maybe it was just a good day for incumbents at the top of the ticket.
Republican Governor Chris Sununu was re-elected to a fourth term, defeating Democrat Tom Sherman, 57 percent to 41.8 percent, with 73 percent of the votes counted. Democratic U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan defeated Republican Don Bolduc, 54.1 percent to Bolduc’s 43.9 percent, with 75 percent of votes counted. Democratic Congressman Chris Pappas defeated Republican Karoline Leavitt, 54.1 percent to 45.9 percent, with 81 percent of the votes counted. Second District Congressman Annie Kuster, a Democrat, defeated Republican Robert Burns, 56.7 percent to 43.3 percent, with 68 percent of the votes counted.
In conceding defeat in the Senate race, Bolduc said, “I’m honored to have had the opportunity to represent the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate race here in New Hampshire. This is not a loss. We woke a lot of people up. Hopefully we put [Hassan] on notice. And hopefully, she will do the right thing for Granite Staters.”
Down-ticket races were a mixed bag, but Republican incumbents appeared to be doing well in Belknap County, where there had been calls to oust many of them in the wake of the controversy over Gunstock Mountain Resort. In Grafton County races, Republican Carroll Brown of Bristol defeated Democrat Taylor Largmann in District 10, 1,255-863 with 99 percent of the vote counted. In the Grafton District 18 race, Republican John Sellers of Bristol held a slight lead over Democrat Carolyn Flusher-Lobban, 4,223-4,188 with 98.99 percent of the vote counted.
Democrats Matt Coker and Sandra Mucci were ahead in the District 2 race in Meredith, where two seats are open. The three Republicans were trailing in the early results.
Meanwhile, Vermont elected its first woman to Congress, Democrat Becca Balint, president of the Vermont state Senate and a former middle-school teacher. She defeated Independent Liam Madden, who had won the Republican primary. Three independents and one libertarian candidate also were in the race.
Deer-Hunting Season Opens
The regular firearms deer-hunting season opens today for the more than 60,000 hunters in the state, running until December 4 in most of the state, and through November 27 in Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) A, the northernmost region in New Hampshire.
WMU-specific regulations for hunting are published in the New Hampshire Hunting & Trapping Digest, available online, at license agents around the state, and at Fish and Game Department headquarters in Concord. Additional information about deer hunting in New Hampshire is posted on the Fish and Game Department website.
The state prohibits the use of urine-based lures, which potentially spread Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a neurological disorder that is fatal to white-tailed deer and moose. Synthetic lures are allowed, but if the bottle or package does not say “synthetic,” the product is likely natural urine. Hunters who go out of state cannot bring whole deer carcasses into New Hampshire from any jurisdiction that has documented CWD.
Musk Sells $4 Billion Of Tesla Shares
Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter has not been smooth, requiring him to sell $7 billion worth of Tesla stock in August to help finance the deal, and between November 4 and 8, he has sold nearly $4 billion more in Tesla shares, according to regulatory filings. In all, Musk has sold more than $19 billion worth of Tesla stock since April, including those in Tuesday’s filings.
Musk has acknowledged “a massive drop in revenue” at Twitter, which heavily relies on advertising to make money. His takeover, with promises to reform the company to end its censorship of users, has led to the the exodus of such big advertisers as United Airlines, General Motors, REI, General Mills, and Audi.
Most of Musk’s wealth is tied up in shares of Tesla Inc. On Tuesday, his personal net worth dropped below $200 billion, according to Forbes, but he is still the world’s richest person.
Meta To Cut 13 Percent Of Workforce
Meta, owner of the social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has announced that it will reduce its workforce by 13 percent. It will be the first mass lay-offs in the firm’s history, and will result in the loss of 11,000 employees, from a worldwide head count of 87,000.
Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the cuts were “the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history”.
The news follows major layoffs at other tech firms, including Twitter, which cut about half its staff. Part of the problem is lost revenue from the sharing of personal information harvested through apps, after Apple required the disclosure of such data collection and allowed users to prevent such access to their personal information.
Giving Tuesday
The News Café is a virtual meeting place where we discuss the news of the day: local, statewide, national, and international.
An offering by the nonprofit Liberty Independent Media Project, the News Café does not rely on advertising, as most media outlets do, freeing us to provide an independent focus on events and cultural matters. The project instead relies on direct monetary support from donors and subscribers.
Giving Tuesday is coming up on November 29. If you like what we’re doing, and want to see more of it, please give what you can by going to kindest.com.
You can also support the News Café by converting your free subscription into a paid subscription.
Please consider supporting our work to keep the News Café coming.