A New Hampshire woman was driving 112 mph, weaving in and out of traffic and had two children unbuckled in the backseat on Friday, according to New Hampshire State Police.

Shirley Stanley, 23, of Manchester, faces multiple charges, including two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

The mother of the two children was driving a Chevrolet Tahoe SUV on Route 101 when police saw her driving at a “high rate of speed” around 9:17 p.m. on Friday. Police said at one point she was driving 112 mph.

The two children, ages 1 and 4, were not buckled or in any type of child restraint system, police stated.

Stanley was arrested and charged with reckless operation, two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, two counts of violating required child passenger restraints, failure to yield to an emergency vehicle, unsafe lane change, following too closely and speeding. She was processed and released on personal recognizance bail.

New Hampshire State Police are asking others who saw Stanley’s driving before she was pulled over to contact Trooper Jacob Benjamin at Jacob.A.Benjamin@dos.nh.gov or #NHSP dispatch at (603) 223-4381.

Stanley is scheduled to appear in Candia District Court at 8 a.m. on June 10.

When New Hampshire’s Democratic candidates for governor gathered for a forum at Exeter Town Hall Sunday afternoon, the top topics were affordable housing, abortion rights, climate change, Education Freedom Accounts, and Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Ayotte.

Left unmentioned?

Inflation, illegal immigration, anti-Israel protests roiling Granite State college campuses, and the other GOP candidate for governor, former state Senate President Chuck Morse.

The topics were selected in part by the organizers, students from New Hampshire high schools like Oyster River High, Raymond High, and Phillips Exeter Academy. But the three candidates were able to add their own topics, and it was clear they wanted to talk about Ayotte.

“We have to call Kelly Ayotte out for what she stands for,” former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig said. “She is the most dangerous threat to New Hampshire that we have ever seen.”

And, Craig added, “We need to make sure we put forward a candidate who can beat her, and I’m telling you, I can.”

Craig, the current primary frontrunner according to the most recent polling, fielded students’ questions in front of a crowd of around 100 people, along with Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington and former New Market town councilor Jon Kiper.

Kiper, the least well-known of the three candidates, was the first to speak. He said his campaign is “all about housing.”

“Every year that we don’t focus on housing as Democrats, we are losing young people and that’s our base,” Kiper said.

Asked by student about laws affecting the transgender community, Kiper said he opposed any restrictions on sex-change medical procedures and called the issue a GOP “smoke screen so we don’t talk about the real issues of property taxes and housing and homelessness and opioid addiction.”

NH Democratic candidate for governor Cinde Warmington speaks at a candidate’s forum in Exeter, N.H. on May 5, 2024

Warmington was the second to speak. She took the opportunity to promote her political bona fides as the lone Democrat serving on the state’s Executive Council. Asked about updates to New Hampshire abortion laws under GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, Warmington said she has gone “toe-to-toe” with him “on the danger of his abortion ban.”

(Sununu signed a law in 2022 allowing abortion for any reason during the first six months of pregnancy, and bans them — with exceptions — after that.)

Warmington also claimed “Republicans have made it perfectly clear that they do not want to run against me.”

“In fact, when the governor was asked about this race on the radio, and asked about the Democratic primary, his answer to the question was ‘Warmington will be formidable,’” she said. “He knows that because I am the only person in New Hampshire who ever goes toe-to-toe with Gov. Sununu.

“He doesn’t go down and talk to the legislature. He only talks to the press when he wants to. But every two weeks, at that council table, there I am asking the tough questions.”

Warmington also said public education “is under assault” by Education Freedom Accounts, a New Hampshire program offering families state funding should they choose to enroll their children in a non-public school.

Warmington was later quizzed about her time in 2002 working as a lobbyist representing Purdue Pharma, producers of the opioid painkiller Oxycontin. She defended her work and said she “argued that doctors should be the ones to make the decision about what patients receive.”

Craig focused much of her remarks on her time serving as the city’s mayor and said her chief concern as

NH Democratic candidate for governor Joyce Craig speaks at a candidate’s forum in Exeter, N.H. on May 5, 2024

 governor, like Warmington and Kiper, would focus on affordable housing.

She told the roughly 100 attendees at Sunday’s town hall that Manchester “today has one of the hottest job markets in the entire country.”

She also expressed her opposition to the state’s EFA program.

“As governor, I will ensure that our public tax dollars go to our public schools and on day one,” Craig said. “I’m not opposed to parents having a choice of where they send their kids to school.

“What I don’t agree with is providing public dollars to go to private or religious schools.”

Craig later pivoted back to her experience as Manchester mayor, and her 2017 win over former Mayor Ted Gatsas.

“I also took on a very popular four-term incumbent Republican when I became mayor of Manchester, so I know what it takes to get through the tough elections,” she said. “I’ve done it, I have a roadmap, and I plan on doing it again.”

While it didn’t appear to make much impact on the audience, Kiper had a proposal that’s likely to get some attention in Concord. He wants to pay the legislature.

“What I propose is 500 bucks a week for just the six months that the legislature is in session,” Kiper said. “This will enable working class folks to run and serve as state representatives if they want to.

“It is really less than $5 million a year.”

Addressing concerns about underage marriage in the state, the New Hampshire House has approved a bill to raise the legal age of marriage in the state from 16 to 18. Known as Senate Bill 359, the legislation awaits Governor Chris Sununu’s signature to become law.

The bill states that “no person below the age of 18 years shall be capable of contracting a valid marriage, and all marriages contracted by such persons shall be null and void.”.

The legislation was presented during the 2024 Regular Session and received unanimous approval from the Senate in March. Subsequently, on May 2, it secured passage in the House with a vote of 192-174.

“The bill aims to protect children from potential exploitation,” said Representative Cassandra Levesque, a Barrington Democrat, who has been a staunch advocate for this change.

She argued that raising the age would help reduce exploitative situations, emphasizing, “age of majority does not amount to maturity, and there is a greater risk of human trafficking and domestic violence without these protections.”

The bill also seeks to revoke existing statutes that offer legal pathways for minors to marry. The current law in New Hampshire permits parents and guardians of individuals aged 16 to 18 to petition a family court for marriage consent. Senate Bill 359 aims to entirely eliminate this procedure.

The bill was sponsored by Senator Altschiller from District 24, Senator Watters from District 4, Senator D’Allesandro from District 20, Representative Long from Hillsborough District 23, Representative Grossman from Rockingham District 11, Representative O’Neil from Rockingham District 29, Representative Levesque from Strafford District 4 and Representative Petrigno from Hillsborough District 431.

Should it be enacted, this legislation would come into force on January 1, 2025, positioning New Hampshire alongside 12 other US states that have prohibited marriage under the age of 18 without any exceptions.