MANCHESTER, NH — Patch.com in New Hampshire won four press association awards for government, political, and spot news reporting, while news partners affiliated with the site also earned many honors.

Tony Schinella, a senior local editor with Patch, won four awards for stories published in 2023 as Class II Division entries. The Class II Division is for freelancers or media outlets with less than four employees.

In the Political Reporting category, Schinella took first place for Concord NH Patch’s 2023 municipal election coverage package which included five stories — the announcement that the city’s longest-serving mayor was stepping down, a story about non-compliant campaign signs, a story about all the money being raised and spent by city candidates for what are essentially volunteer positions, a data piece analyzing incomes, home values, and political affiliations of the outgoing city and school officials as well as the candidates, and a results story. In the entry, it was also noted that Schinella co-hosted debates between candidates in 12 of the 13 competitive city and school races in an eight-week campaign sprint — an unprecedented accomplishment for one journalist and two cable access employees. Patch also offered free profiles to candidates, with dozens of links included in the 2023 campaign stories.

The third-place entry concerned a gun threat incident at the Concord Heights Burger King, which was published not long after the incident and included video and updates as police and state troopers searched for the suspect.

In Government Reporting, Schinella also earned a third-place award for the story about the city’s longest-serving mayor in Concord deciding not to run for reelection.

New Hampshire Patch news partners and freelancers also won several awards.

Jeffrey Hastings, who covers breaking news in the southern part of the state as a freelancer for Patch, won seven awards for General News and Spot News photography.

A number of freelancers at InDepthNH also won awards, including Paula Tracy, Damien Fisher, columnist Michael Davidow, Beverly Stoddard, another columnist, and Ani Freedman, who won the Rookie of the Year award. Some of Freedman’s impressive coverage included PFAS issues in Merrimack and surrounding communities.

Fisher also won awards with NH Journal — including a piece on RFK Jr. and his reporting on disgraced former Strafford County Sheriff Mark Brave involved with theft charges, accused of using money to fund activities with a mistress and trips, and a combined award with Michael Graham, publisher of the site, for their coverage of the riot and siege of a Merrimack defense contractor owned by an Israeli company as part of Palestinian protests. Graham also won for Best Video for his Dinner Table Economics series.

New Hampshire Bulletin, another news partner, won several awards for stories published, including second and third-place finishes for Journalist of the Year for Annmarie Timmins and Ethan Dewitt.

Carole Soule of Miles Smith Farm in Loudon, who writes a weekly column published on the Concord NH Patch site, won a third-place award for a feature photo.
All won entries in the Class II Division.

The full list of winners in the state will be listed here when published.

“How should the Department respond when a parent has reached out to express concern that a teacher had called a student a ‘White supremacist’ and confiscated their Trump flag while ignoring the student wearing the Pride flag? … Or when an art teacher, rather than teaching art, introduces children to Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ for Kids, without consulting with parents or school leadership,” he wrote. “Should we look the other way?”

In that list, Edelblut briefly mentioned a teacher having been accused of lying to take the student to “get an abortion” without their parents knowing.

“Should we turn a blind eye?” he asked, rhetorically.

By stoking concerns about secrecy between school personnel and students, Edelblut’s op-ed echoed a contentious debate over “parental rights” legislation that state lawmakers considered in 2022 and 2023. Edelblut, a socially conservative former GOP candidate for governor, expressed disappointment last year when the legislation was defeated.

His op-ed included enough detail to inspire public mistrust of New Hampshire educators, but not enough detail to verify its allegations. It didn’t cite evidence to substantiate the abortion-related allegation, and neither Edelblut nor a spokesperson for the Department of Education would tell the Globe in April whether the allegation had been investigated and deemed credible.

A month later, in late May, in response to a public records request from the Globe, the department released a heavily redacted one-page report about the incident, and posted it publicly online. The letterhead, address, and name of the investigating party were redacted.

The document said the teacher had told investigators she helped the student “determine how far along they were … so the student knew what options they’d have available,” located a “safe” facility for the procedure, spoke with the student for two and a half weeks about the appointment, and offered to accompany them based on a belief that the student “didn’t have anyone to support them.”

The teacher was placed on administrative leave through the remainder of her employment contract, at which point her termination would take effect, according to the redacted report, which does not reveal the year in which her firing was or will be finalized.

The department released two additional records on June 7. Although the names of the teacher and the school were redacted, the teacher’s last name was included in the metadata for one of the documents. An attorney for the department, Elizabeth A. Brown, acknowledged the name had been divulged mistakenly.

No one with the teacher’s last name appears on the department’s public list of educators with suspended or revoked credentials. One person with that last name is included among educators with active certifications.

That teacher, who holds an experienced educator license, was listed on a school website as working for Regional Services and Education Center Inc., a nonprofit based in Amherst, N.H., that has been providing special education services for more than four decades. The nonprofit, which serves students from New Hampshire and Massachusetts, runs small non-public schools that cater to students in grades 5-12 with special needs and learning disabilities.

While superintendents and school board members from surrounding public school districts serve on RSEC’s board, the state lists the private nonprofit’s facilities as non-public schools.

The nonprofit’s executive director, Devin Bandurski, declined to answer questions about the teacher.

“Matters involving personnel will not be discussed,” she said through a spokesperson.

Shortly after the Globe contacted RSEC with questions about the teacher and the abortion-related allegation, the teacher’s name was removed from the list of faculty and staff on the school’s website. A years-old post about her having received special recognition was removed as well.

The teacher did not respond to interview requests. The Globe is not naming her at this time to protect the student’s privacy.

The records that the Department of Education released on June 7 include an email showing that someone — their name, title, and employer are redacted — sent the initial one-page investigative report to Richard Farrell, an investigator for the department, on Oct. 19 (the year is redacted).

The records also include a letter that Deputy Education Commissioner Christine M. Brennan sent using official state letterhead on Nov. 9 (the year is redacted) to notify the teacher that the department had opened an investigation into possible violations of the educator code of conduct.

“Namely, the allegation is that you failed to properly supervise and abide by ethical standards regarding student boundary protocols with a student under your care,” the letter states.

Brennan’s letter says the teacher’s license and credential are valid during the pending investigation, but the reason for that is redacted.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education declined to answer questions about the case, citing the “investigatory nature” of this matter.

It’s illegal in New Hampshire to perform an abortion on an unemancipated minor younger than 18 years old until 48 hours after providing written notice to the pregnant minor’s parent. In Massachusetts — the state line is a 20-minute drive from Amherst, N.H. — pregnant patients who are 16 or 17 can consent to an abortion without involving their parents. Each state also has a process for minors to persuade a judge to grant an exception.

None of the records obtained by the Globe specify whether the medical facility was located within New Hampshire, whether the student was an unemancipated minor at the time, or whether the teacher made any representations to medical staff concerning her relationship to the student. They also do not confirm whether an abortion was performed.

Bandurski did not say whether RSEC reported the matter to law enforcement. Spokespeople for the Amherst Police Department and New Hampshire Department of Safety, which includes State Police, said their departments had no record of reports about the incident.

A spokesperson for the New Hampshire Office of Professional Licensure and Certification, which includes the Board of Medicine, an agency that oversees health care providers, declined on Tuesday to comment.

A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health said on Tuesday that staffers for the state’s Board of Registration in Medicine had checked their files and found no records responsive to the Globe’s request.

The teacher has since been hired to work at a public school district in New Hampshire, according to school board meeting minutes. The school board for the Jaffrey-Rindge Cooperative School District voted in early May to accept the teacher’s nomination for a job beginning in August, according to meeting minutes. The superintendent for that district, Reuben Duncan, did not respond to questions regarding whether the district became aware of the abortion-related allegation before the hiring process concluded.

Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.

TikTok and its parent company argued Thursday in a federal court in the District of Columbia that the recently enacted law forcing a nationwide ban or sale of the popular platform violates the First Amendment.

TikTok Inc., which operates the video-sharing service in the United States, and its parent company, ByteDance Ltd., which was founded by a Chinese national, filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit calling the law President Joe Biden signed in April an unprecedented restriction on the constitutional right to free speech.

“Never before has Congress expressly singled out and shut down a specific speech forum,” the brief reads. “Never before has Congress silenced so much speech in a single act.”

Upholding such an “extraordinary speech restriction” would require the court to undertake “exacting scrutiny” of Congress’ action, but Congress provided only a hypothetical national security argument to advance the bill, the companies said.

“Congress gave this Court almost nothing to review,” the brief continues. “Congress enacted no findings, so there is no way to know why majorities of the House and Senate decided to ban TikTok.”

Many individual lawmakers who supported the law raised national security concerns, saying ByteDance’s relationship with the Chinese government meant the country’s Communist Party leaders could demand access to TikTok users’ private data.

They also said the platform, which the company says has 170 million users in the U.S., could be used to spread propaganda.

But under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, labeling speech as foreign propaganda does not allow the government to overlook First Amendment protections, TikTok said in its brief.

Speculation about how the app “might” or “could” be used, rather than any concrete examples of misconduct, do not clear the high bar required to restrict speech, the companies added.

“A claim of national security does not override the Constitution,” the companies wrote Thursday.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department, which is defending the law, highlighted the intelligence community’s national security concerns with TikTok and said the law was consistent with the First Amendment.

“This legislation addresses critical national security concerns in a manner that is consistent with the First Amendment and other constitutional limitations,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement to States Newsroom. “We look forward to defending the legislation in court.

“Alongside others in our intelligence community and in Congress, the Justice Department has consistently warned about the threat of autocratic nations that can weaponize technology – such as the apps and software that run on our phones – to use against us. This threat is compounded when those autocratic nations require companies under their control to turn over sensitive data to the government in secret.”

Response to lawmakers

The brief said Congress had not included any official findings of harm from TikTok, but several individual members raised specific concerns about the kind of speech found on the platform.

The companies said Thursday those specific complaints bolstered the argument that TikTok is being denied free speech protections.

The brief cited several lawmaker statements:

• U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat who is ranking member on the House Select Committee on China, and former Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who chaired the panel, said the platform’s algorithm fed an overwhelming share of pro-Palestinian content over videos that favor Israel.

• Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, said the platform “exposes children to harmful content.”

• Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, said the law would “make TikTok safer for our children and national security.”

• Nebraska Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts noted the popularity of the hashtag #StandwithKashmir, which protests a policy of India, a geopolitical rival of China.

“Legislators’ perception of the content reflected on TikTok was misinformed,” the companies said. “But well-founded or not, governmental policing of content differences is antithetical to the First Amendment.”

Oral arguments in September

Both chambers of Congress passed the law with bipartisan votes as part of a package that included aid to Israel and Ukraine. Biden signed the measure April 24.

TikTok pledged to sue and filed its legal challenge last month.

Tuesday’s brief expands on the company’s arguments. The government’s response is due July 26 and oral arguments are scheduled for Sept. 16.

Divestment unworkable, TikTok says

TikTok and ByteDance said Thursday the provision in the bill to avoid a ban by divesting the service to a company without ties to China is unworkable, especially within the nine-month timeline required by the law.

Such a move would be technically complex, requiring years of engineering work, the companies said. It would also isolate the U.S. user base from the rest of the world, limiting revenue from advertisements.

And even if it were feasible from a technical or business standpoint, selling the platform would likely be rejected by the Chinese government, which has the authority to block exportation of technology developed in the country, the companies said.