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    Lawyer Wins Democratic Primary in New Hampshire’s Second District

    Maggie Goodlander, who has deep Washington ties, edged out Colin Van Ostern, who unsuccessfully ran for New Hampshire governor in 2016.Maggie Goodlander, a former Justice Department official and political newcomer, won the Democratic primary for New Hampshire’s Second Congressional District on Tuesday after a close race against Colin Van Ostern, according to The Associated Press.Ms. Goodlander, who grew up in Nashua, N.H., but spent most of her adult life elsewhere, is married to Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser. She had won about 62 percent of the vote as of 8:45 p.m., edging out Mr. Van Ostern, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2016 and spent several years on the New Hampshire Executive Council.The contest became unexpectedly nasty when Mr. Van Ostern, 45, a California native, accused Ms. Goodlander, 37, of exaggerating her ties to the state and questioned her support for abortion rights. A few of his high-profile supporters defected after he ran an ad casting doubt on the sincerity of Ms. Goodlander’s commitment to reproductive rights, citing her past donations to two Republican candidates.Ms. Goodlander has spoken openly of her own struggle to find timely reproductive health care when her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition and died in her womb. She has described that experience as one that led her to seek public office.The Democratic tilt in the district, which stretches from the state’s southern border to its northernmost tip, and includes New Hampshire’s capital, Concord, gives Ms. Goodlander an advantage heading into the general election in November. The seat is being vacated by Representative Annie Kuster, a Democrat who is retiring; she endorsed Mr. Van Ostern, her one-time campaign manager.More than a dozen candidates vied for the Republican nomination; Lily Tang Wiliams came out on top, according to The Associated Press, and will face Ms. Goodlander in November.Ms. Goodlander had been depicted by detractors, including Ms. Kuster, as a well-connected Washington insider who described herself as “a renter” despite owning a $1.2 million home in Portsmouth, N.H., with her husband. Her critics had emphasized that most of her donations came from out of state, including from a number of Washington power players, and accused her of trying “to buy a seat in Congress.”Her résumé includes stints as an intelligence officer in the Naval Reserve, a Senate foreign policy adviser, a Supreme Court clerk and a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department.She was also born into a well-known Republican political family. Her mother, Betty Tamposi, served as a Republican in the State House of Representatives and ran for Congress in the same district that gave her daughter the nod on Tuesday.“She didn’t win, but she learned a valuable lesson that she passed down to me: Always stand up to bullies,” Ms. Goodlander said of her mother in a campaign video, adding, “The fact is, the bullies have too much power in America right now.” More

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    Trucking Company Owner Pleads Guilty in Wreck That Killed 7 Bikers

    Dunyadar Gasanov admitted he had lied to investigators about how long he had known the driver of the truck and altered drivers’ logs to evade federal regulations.The owner of a trucking company pleaded guilty to federal charges Tuesday for making false statements after one of the company’s trucks killed seven motorcyclists on a rural road in Randolph, N.H. in 2019, federal prosecutors said.Dunyadar Gasanov, the owner of Westfield Transport in West Springfield, Mass., falsified driving logs, conspired to make false statements to federal inspectors and admitted to lying to inspectors about how long he had known the driver involved in the fatal crash, the U.S. attorney’s office in Massachusetts said in a statement.Mr. Gasanov, 39, who lives in West Springfield, Mass., and is known as Damien, will face up to 15 years in prison and a $30,000 fine for the three charges to which he pleaded guilty when he is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 21, 2024. As part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, the U.S. attorney’s office agreed to recommend “incarceration at the low end” of the sentencing guidelines, according to court documents.In a statement, Joshua S. Levy, the acting U.S. attorney, said that Mr. Gasanov had “flouted those laws that are critical to public safety.”“We will not forget the lives lost in June 2019 that relate to this conviction,” he said.The crash, on June 21, 2019, killed seven members of a motorcycle club of ex-Marines: Albert (Woody) Mazza Jr., 59; Daniel Pereira, 58; Aaron Perry, 45; Desma Oakes, 42; Michael Ferazzi, 62; and Jo-Ann and Edward Corr, who were 58.The driver of the truck that killed the bikers, Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, of West Springfield, Mass., was acquitted by a jury in 2022 of all charges he faced: seven counts of manslaughter, seven counts of negligent homicide and one count of reckless conduct.Mr. Gasanov lied to investigators about how many times he had interacted with Mr. Zhukovskyy, prosecutors said. He had claimed that he had first met the driver shortly before the crash, when, in fact, he had known him for years and was aware that Mr. Zhukovskyy, in 2013, had been charged with operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, according to court records.Mr. Gasanov also underreported the number of hours driven by employees to evade federal regulations designed to ensure the safety of roadways, instructed at least one employee to falsify records, and lied about manipulation of driving logs, according to prosecutors.Westfield Transport ceased operation shortly after the accident, according to court records.Lawyers for Mr. Gasanov did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Dartanayan Gasanov, who, according to The Boston Globe is a brother of Dunyadar Gasanov, worked at Westfield Transport with Dunyadar, has also been accused of falsifying driving logs. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial, the prosecutors’ statement said.Kirsten Noyes More

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    New Hampshire Bans Gender-Transition Surgery for Minors

    The move is in line with what other Republican-led states have done, but it is the first such ban in the Northeast.The NewsNew Hampshire will ban gender-transition surgeries for minors after Gov. Chris Sununu signed a bill on Friday that bars health professionals from performing the procedures. The new law also threatens disciplinary action for doctors who refer minors to other providers for such services.The governor, a Republican, also signed a bill that bars transgender athletes from competing on school sports teams that align with their gender identities, and another that lets parents choose to have their children opt out of any public school instruction in “sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or gender expression.”Mr. Sununu vetoed a fourth bill that would have allowed businesses and public entities to separate bathrooms, locker rooms and athletic teams based on biological sex.BackgroundThe moves are in line with what other leaders in the Republican Party have done. About two dozen other states have passed laws that bar transgender minors from receiving gender-transition care.“This bill focuses on protecting the health and safety of New Hampshire’s children and has earned bipartisan support,” Mr. Sununu said in a statement about the measure banning gender-transition surgeries.Before Friday, Mr. Sununu had taken a relatively mixed stance on gender-identity issues and L.G.B.T.Q. rights.In 2018, he signed bills that banned discrimination based on gender identity in housing, employment and public accommodations and prohibited therapies that sought to change the sexual orientation of minors.“We must ensure that New Hampshire is a place where every person, regardless of their background, has an equal and full opportunity to pursue their dreams and to make a better life for themselves and their families,” Mr. Sununu said at the time.At a State House hearing last year, Courtney Tanner, senior director of government relations for Dartmouth Health, testified against the measure banning surgeries, saying: “We don’t like to legislate medicine. These are complex subject matters that are really between a patient and a provider.”The measure signed into law was significantly pared down from its initial version, which included prohibitions on a wider range of medical treatments for transgender minors, such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and top surgeries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Democrats Fear Safe Blue States Turning Purple as Biden Stays the Course

    Lingering worries about President Biden’s age could make Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia competitive, party operatives believe.As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month.Some polls in these states suggest a tightening race between Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, with one showing a virtual tie in Virginia, which has not voted for a Republican for president since 2004, and another showing Mr. Trump squeaking ahead in New Hampshire, which has been in the Democratic column since 2000.On Tuesday, the Cook Political Report, a prominent elections forecaster, downgraded New Hampshire and Minnesota from “likely” wins for Mr. Biden to only leaning in his direction. And in a meeting at the White House last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico told Mr. Biden that she feared he would lose her state, according to two people briefed on her comments.The shakiness in the fringe battleground states is an alarming sign for Mr. Biden’s hopes in must-win contests that were already expected to be close, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. An expanding battleground map could force his campaign to divert resources away from the traditional swing states, where he has been falling further and further behind.But Mr. Biden has given no indication he is going anywhere, telling reporters at a high-profile news conference on Thursday that “I’m determined I’m running” and pushing back on his poor polling numbers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More