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It’s hard to imagine Christmas without a choir singing Handel’s Messiah.

In recent years a new tradition has developed: the “Messiah-sing.”

It operates like a pick-up basketball game. Anyone who wants to sing the Messiah shows up at a concert hall with music in-hand. Tenors sit with tenors and sopranos with sopranos. And then -- without rehearsal -- the concert begins.

New Hampshire Public Radio correspondent Doug MacPherson attended one-such Messiah-sing at the Music Hall in Portsmouth.

He filed this audio postcard.

The news about Iraq this week has been mostly about the US role in the Middle East.

The Congressionally appointed Iraq Study Group released its report Wednesday calling the Bush Administration's policy a failure.

But New Hampshire National Guard Sergeant Chuck Rice says he's not bothering too much with the stateside debate.

The Staff Sergeant tells NHPR's Mark Bevis that the troops of the 36-43rd are paying much more attention to doing their jobs....and getting home.

When the prescription drug benefit to Medicare was rolled out earlier this year, there was a lot of confusion over how much it would cost, what plans would be available and how much of an impact the so called "donut hole" would have. Since then, many private companies have stepped forward to offer plans, the cost has been lower than expected and a majority of seniors seem to be happy with the Medicare Part-D program. With the signup deadline looming at the end of this month, we'll take a look at how well New Hampshire seniors are dealing with the changes to the prescription drug benefit, what federal officials have been doing at the national level to help them better understand the new program and what the overall reaction has been to Medicare Part-D now that the program has been up and running for almost a year.

Laura's guests are Tom Maher, Regional Director for Medicare Today, Regional Director for the Healthcare Leadership Council and Dr. Charlotte Yeh, Region One Administrator for the Massachusetts Health Quality Partners and Regional Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in Region I, a Boston-based agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that administers Medicare and Medicaid.