Ayotte promotes motorcycle safety, watches State Police demonstration
Sporting a leather jacket, Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed a proclamation Friday marking May as Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month and watched a demonstration of bike prowess by members of the New Hampshire State Police's motorcycle unit.
Ayotte said she was surprised to learn that in 1937 state troopers used to patrol New Hampshire highways on their own motorcycles.
'They have a great history in terms of our law enforcement,' Ayotte said. 'We welcome New Hampshire motorcyclists and visitors to our state who come to ride safely in the Granite State.'
House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, is an avid rider and a founding member of the New Hampshire Motorcyclists' Rights Organization. He has served on national boards promoting two-wheel vehicle safety on the roadways.
This year marks 50 years of involvement in that cause, he said.
Packard saluted Traci Beaurivage, the longtime president of the NHMRO, who also formed a safety task force that she chaired.
'There isn't another group of people in this country who have done as much as they have for motorcycle safety,' Packard said. 'It does make our roads much safer going forward.'
Beaurivage is known for her striking purple hairdo.
'Everyone doesn't remember my name, but they remember the hair,' said Beaurivage, whose Facebook page is called Purple Hair Safety Angels 1. 'Whatever it takes to spread the word out about safety, I will do.'
Imre Szauter is the founder and director of the group's Ride Smart education program that encourages all motorcyclists to take a safety course the Department of Safety offers statewide.
'We want other vehicles to know we are out there, be respectful to other people whether they are in cars, trucks or motorcycles,' Szauter said. 'Please ride smart if you are visiting New Hampshire.'
Others joining the ceremony were State Police Lt. and Special Services Commander Chris Sturm and several troopers; New Hampshire Motor Vehicles Director John Marasco; New Hampshire Motorcycle Rider Training Coordinator Larry Crowe; Dan Bennett, president of the New Hampshire Auto Dealers Association; and Dan Goodman, manager of public affairs and traffic safety with the Automobile Association of Northern New England.
New Hampshire is just coming off April, which was Distracted Driving Awareness Month.
Ayotte named Executive Councilor John Stephen and Safety Commissioner Robert Quinn to lead a task force to make recommendations on how to curb the growing incidence of speeders and impaired drivers.
During a recent ride-along with a state trooper, Ayotte said she saw several pulled over, including one traveling more than 100 miles per hour, who told officers he didn't know he was speeding.
'There are some on our roads going way too fast and they are putting everyone else at grave risk,' Ayotte said. 'I'm committed to getting a handle on this.'
klandrigan@unionleader.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
Fund manager who sold Tesla, just in time, says investors are overlooking these tech bargains
Two weeks ago, Wall Street veteran Gary Black sold his remaining Tesla shares, helping clients sidestep a selloff driven by a public fallout between Chief Executive Elon Musk and President Donald Trump. Black's unease with Tesla TSLA goes back a ways. When the managing partner of The Future Fund launched the One Global ETF FFND in August 2021, he snapped up Tesla, which quickly became the biggest position. By the second quarter of 2022, he began to trim as Musk started cutting electric-vehicle prices. Why Goldman Sachs says high-flying tech stocks may be headed for a tough stretch 'It might be another Apple or Microsoft': My wife invested $100K in one stock and it exploded 1,500%. Do we sell? U.S. debt-limit deadlock is making this favorite asset more scarce My friend, 83, wants to add me to his bank account to pay his bills. What could go wrong? One of our children has legal knowledge and lives far away, the other lacks financial savvy but lives nearby. Who should we appoint as executor? 'We didn't think that was a smart move. It turned out not to be a smart move, because they didn't get any incremental volume,' Black told MarketWatch in an interview on Monday. His Tesla haircuts continued, peppered by such worries as 'hype around unsupervised autonomy,' and when he finally exited it completely at $358 per share, valuation had gotten 'excessive.' Tesla shares need to be priced 'a lot less than they are today' for Black to repurchase. 'I don't want to call this stock uninvestable because at some price we would buy it back again, but with that level of volatility it almost makes the stock uninvestable at times,' he said, adding that Musk needs to 'keep his mouth closed and focus on the business.' Black, whose nearly 30-year career includes stints as CEO of Aegon Asset Management and Janus Capital, and his firm look after about $72 million in One Global, and the Long/Short ETF FFLS, roughly $49 million. One Global has returned 6.5% this year and 15% over three years, annualized, according to Morningstar, versus its MSCI All Country World Index benchmark returns of 7.3% and 14.3%, respectively. Black is now focused on what he sees as big tech bargains, such as Nvidia NVDA. The company's stock-picking process begins with 'ten long-term circular mega trends,' such as e-commerce, 24/7 information technology and, of course, artificial intelligence. 'We like the AI road map in front of [Nvidia] and they still can't make enough of their high-end AI chips. They continue to have extremely high demand for it, and they're still capacity constrained,' he said. Tesla, even with its recent decline, is still trading at 150 times forward earnings, while Nvidia sits at around 32 times, but is growing earnings, Black said. 'If you look at price-to-earnings relative to growth, which is how we think about the world, in a simplistic way, it's still reasonably cheap.' Meta META is also a big position. 'We like the growth we're seeing in Instagram and Facebook and WhatsApp. Again, the stock has done well, but it's still a very cheap stock,' trading at about 27 times earnings, he said. Then there's AMZN, and its vastly expanded offerings. 'You can buy prescription drugs over it now. You can buy tires, you can buy cars. It's become the go-to place if you want to buy anything,' and at around 35 times forward earnings, is now far less expensive, he said. He also flags DoorDash DASH. 'People don't have the time to make their own food anymore, so they order from the restaurants they love and [DoorDash] has gotten more and more restaurants on the platform, and as a result of that, the stock has done extremely well,' he said. Like Nvidia, DoorDash is reasonably priced, trading at 54 times forward earning, he said. His short bets in the Long/Short ETF, are about either poorly positioned companies or companies facing disruption. Those include Booking Holdings BKNG, which is in a 'very competitive business,' he said. 'We don't really see the proprietary technology to allow that to continue to gain share, so we decided that was a good short.' Fintech group Sofi Technologies SOFI is another. 'They've expanded their loans. and we just worry that they've grown too fast. and that's why it's a decent short we believe.' As the S&P 500 SPX continues to push past 6,000, Black says he's still bullish on the market overall, with expectations the Fed will likely to start cutting interest rates, though not as fast as Trump would like. 'I think what has happened because of the tariffs, the odds are you are going to have a first rate cut by September now,' he said. What else worries Black? He points to concerning 'pockets' of the market currently, such as the blockbuster Circle CRCL IPO, of which they didn't take part. 'We have stocks that are trading at very high multiples that aren't related to their earnings growth. We're always wary, especially in the growth space, that you've got speculative excess, and I think there are areas where people are just getting overly exuberant about prospects. And that's always negative,' said Black. Read: 'Big Money' turns bullish on stocks. Will that lead the S&P 500 to a 'melt up'? U.S. stocks SPX DJIA COMP are inching higher, while Treasury yields BX:TMUBMUSD10Y BX:TMUBMUSD02Y drop. Key asset performance Last 5d 1m YTD 1y S&P 500 6005.88 1.18% 2.77% 2.11% 12.03% Nasdaq Composite 19,591.24 1.81% 4.72% 1.45% 13.95% 10-year Treasury 4.456 -1.40 -1.70 -12.00 5.10 Gold 3349.9 -0.80% 2.93% 26.92% 43.53% Oil 65.56 3.50% 3.03% -8.78% -16.14% Data: MarketWatch. Treasury yields change expressed in basis points Need to Know starts early and is updated until the opening bell, but to get it delivered once to your email box. The emailed version will be sent out at about 7:30 a.m. Eastern. Trade talks between the U.S. and China continue in London on Tuesday. Tesla shares TSLA are tracking Monday's gains after more signs of a cooling feud between Musk and President Trump. J.M. Smucker stock SJM is down 7% after mixed results and a weak profit forecast from the food maker. Uber UBER said it's going to pilot self-driving cars in London. Tencent Music TME is reportedly buying China audio platform Ximalaya for $1.26 billion. The shares are rising. GameStop GME reports results after the close, and this analyst isn't that upbeat. A small-business optimism index was slightly more upbeat for May, with those expecting better business conditions at a historical high. Gold and the S&P 500 are chasing record highs at the same time. Here's why that's so rare. The White House marching orders that sparked the L.A. migrant crackdown. Mark Zuckerberg is handpicking a new 'superintelligence' AI team. Here's more evidence institutional investors are buying stocks again. This State Street risk-appetite index, based on the firm's $44 trillion of assets under custody and administration, shows 'long-term investor allocations to equities rose anew in May to levels last seen on the cusp of the Liberation Day announcement in early April,' said Dwyfor Evans, strategist at State Street Global Markets. While flows to stocks rose, investors continued to shun the dollar and U.S. Treasurys, Evans said. These were the most searched tickers on MarketWatch as of 6 a.m. Ticker Security name TSLA Tesla NVDA Nvidia GME GameStop PLTR Palantir Technologies PLUG Plug Power AAPL Apple TSM Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing AMD Advanced Micro Devices KLTO Klotho Neurosciences AMZN Amazon No joke. Comedian on why planes crash. Who you gonna call? Frustrated couple 'steal back' their own Jaguar. 'The situation is extreme': I'm 65 and leaving my estate to only one grandchild. Can the others contest my will? 'I prepaid our mom's rent for a year': My sister is a millionaire and never helps our mother. How do I cut her out of her will? I bought my mother-in-law a condo — and she took out a $30,000 car loan. Now she refuses to get a roommate. How do I make sure my son-in-law doesn't get his hands on my daughter's inheritance? My life partner is 18 years my senior. He wants to leave his $4.5 million fortune to me — not his two kids. Do we tell them? Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Yahoo
Elon Musk Does A 180 As He Admits 'Regret' Over His Explosive Posts About Donald Trump
Elon Musk has publicly acknowledged that some of his recent social media posts concerning President Donald Trump "went too far." Musk and Trump's relationship seemingly soured after the tech mogul slammed the president's "One Big Beautiful Bill" as a "disgusting abomination," and went further to hurl several allegations against him. Since the feud became public, Donald Trump has maintained a calm demeanor, while telling reporters that he wishes Elon Musk "very well." Musk took to his X social media on Wednesday to admit that he regrets some of the posts he wrote about President Trump. "I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week," the Tesla boss wrote. "They went too far." The former buddies have been at loggerheads over what seemed to be differences in their approach to government spending after Trump launched the One Big Beautiful Bill. Musk, who was previously head of the Department of Government Efficiency, a department saddled with the responsibility of making government more efficient by cutting spending and downsizing the federal workforce, slammed the bill as a "disgusting abomination." "Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it," he wrote, adding that the bill "will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America [sic] citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt." Although Musk didn't mention the specific post he regrets making about Trump, some of his recent posts have been quite unsettling, including one where he dropped the "bomb" by alleging that the billionaire politician was on convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's list, and that was "the real reason they have not been made public." In another explosive tweet, Musk claimed that Trump couldn't have won the 2024 elections without him, a tweet that seemingly irritated the president. "Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House, and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate," Musk said. He added: "Such ingratitude." He even suggested at one point that Trump should be impeached and replaced by Vice President JD Vance. The SpaceX boss previously shared how some of Trump's officials undermined his role at DOGE and never took seriously his efforts to reduce government spending. Meanwhile, a lawyer for Epstein, David Schoen, has since distanced Trump from Musk's allegations, saying the disgraced financier never had any dirt on the president. According to TMZ, Schoen said Epstein admitted that he didn't have anything on Trump and that if he had dirt on the president, he would have used it. "What I can say definitively is that I discussed this subject with Mr. Epstein at a time when it would have been in his best interests to implicate others, and he made clear that Donald Trump did nothing wrong and that he had no damaging information against him," the lawyer said. Epstein, who notably had ties with celebrities, politicians, and royalty, was arrested on multiple disturbing charges and was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges before he died by suicide in 2019. Following Musk's accusation, photos of him and Trump partying together surfaced on the internet; however, Schoen maintained that the president had done nothing wrong. Taking to his X account, the lawyer wrote: "I was hired to lead Jeffrey Epstein's defense as his criminal lawyer 9 days before he died. He sought my advice for months before that. I can say authoritatively, unequivocally, and definitively that he had no information to hurt President Trump. I specifically asked him!" In a reply to another tweet restating his claims, Schoen said he can "unequivocally" state that President Trump "never did anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein." According to the New York Post, Trump said he was "disappointed" in Musk but that they "could" still patch things up; however, that isn't a priority on his to-do list at the moment. Speaking with columnist Miranda Devine on the debut episode of "Pod Force One," Trump said he doesn't "blame" Musk for the breakdown of their alliance, but is "a little disappointed." "Look, I have no hard feelings," Trump said. "I was really surprised that that happened. He went after a bill that's phenomenal. …He just — I think he feels very badly that he said that, actually." "I was disappointed in him, but, you know, it is what it is," Trump admitted after Devine said that Musk seemed to treat the president "a bit like a father." "That happens. Things like that happen. I don't blame him for anything. I was a little disappointed," he added.
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Yahoo
Tractor carrying fertiliser overturns on A259
There were no injuries after a tractor carrying fertiliser overturned in West Sussex on Tuesday, police have confirmed. At 21:00 BST Sussex Police responded to a report that the tractor had overturned on the A259 Roundstone Bypass in Angmering. The road was closed in both directions while the chemical was cleared from the scene, Sussex Police said. By 04:30 the road was fully reopened. Follow BBC Sussex on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@ or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250. Sussex Police
