Northeast
New Jersey governor says he'll 'fight to the death' against Trump actions 'contrary to values'
Gov touts positives of Biden’s student loan handout
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy assesses President Biden’s student loan handout, how the move will impact both students and taxpayers, the impact of COVID school closures, and his plan for a COVID-19 review in his state.
In a Q&A following President-elect Trump’s victory, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy warned he will “fight to the death” against the administration if he detects behavior “contrary to our values.”
“[A]s we respect the peaceful transition of power, if there is any attack on the Garden State or any of its communities from Washington, I will fight back with every fiber of my being,” Murphy said.
“If there’s an opportunity for common ground, we will seize that as fast as anybody,” he conversely added.
State Assembly Minority Leader John DiMaio, R-Hackettstown, told Fox News Digital that Murphy is “missing the message” voters sent Tuesday with the initial rhetoric.
“It’s time for the governor to recognize that his values may not reflect the values of New Jerseyans as widely as he assumes,” he said.
NJ RESIDENTS HIT WITH DOUBLED BILLS AS LAWMAKERS FUME AT MURPHY’S ‘ENERGY DISASTER PLAN’, DEMAND HEARINGS
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy meets with former President Trump. (Getty/File)
“While Murphy is prepared to spend resources on political battles with Trump, it’s hard to see how that aligns with the priorities of struggling families, working taxpayers and business owners who want more focus on their needs,” DiMaio said.
Murphy, who will begin his final year in Trenton after Trump is inaugurated, credited Trump with his “uncanny ability to connect with people, even if it’s not in their own interests,” after the Republican came proverbially close to taking the blue bastion.
While Murphy rejected a reporter’s query about New Jersey being in play in the future, he commented that Trump only lost it by 4%, compared to 16% in 2020.
“I do not believe we are a swing state,” he said, adding that outside of Rep. Tom Kean Jr.’s victory along the Route 22 corridor, he was happy with the down-ballot results. Kean is a Republican.
GOP LAWMAKER TORCHES OFFSHORE WIND PROJECTS AS MAYOR WARNS OF ‘STAR WARS’ BACKDROPS
He pointed to Republicans’ success in messaging on the immigration crisis, adding the caveat that their winning rhetoric may not have matched the facts on the ground.
Trump won Passaic County, an ethnically diverse New York City suburb, but down-ballot races skewed Democrat. Murphy pointed to that as an example of voters selecting Trump personally rather than Republicans writ large.
He suggested the same was true in North Carolina, noting Trump won the state but Democrat Attorney General Joshua Stein was elected governor.
“Just as it is our responsibility to continue to stand up against any threat to our state or to our people, it is also our responsibility to take any opportunity that presents itself to work with [Trump] to protect and uplift the people of our state because that is what responsible leaders do,” Murphy added.
He also credited Trump with quickly approving the new Portal North Railroad Bridge in Secaucus and assisting during the coronavirus pandemic.
A view of the entrance to Trump National Golf Club. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
As for responding to Trump’s governance, Murphy said that during the last administration, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was reportedly conducting raids in search of illegal immigrants, he took an inventive tack.
“There was a time when ICE was just randomly showing up on street corners and apprehending … brothers and sisters from the immigrant community,” Murphy said.
The governor, who lives in Middletown Township near Sandy Hook, said he heard an “area near where I live was at-risk.”
“I just went there one night with my [security] detail and just hung out there,” he said, noting ICE then didn’t show.
“Whether that scared them off or not I don’t know, but it’s an example of a small step that we’re willing to try anything if it’s contrary to our values.”
As the 2025 gubernatorial race to replace him is about to heat up, Murphy said his three-point win in 2021 may have been “the canary in the coalmine” for Democrats in the state to assess the political landscape.
Read the full article from Here
President Trump is visiting the Lehigh Valley next week.
Mr. Trump will speak at Mack Trucks in Macungie, Pennsylvania, Tuesday at 2 p.m. Macungie is roughly 10 miles from Allentown.
Mack Trucks is a 1.7 million square-foot facility in Macungie that assembles heavy-duty trucks for North American and export markets, according to its website.
“Mack Trucks are a symbol of America’s manufacturing strength,” Rep. Dan Meuser said in a Facebook post about Mr. Trump’s upcoming visit to Pennsylvania. “Their Lehigh Valley operations are a pillar of the local economy, employing Pennsylvania workers and driving the nation’s trucking industry.”
In the lead-up to the 2024 election, Mr. Trump visited Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, multiple times. He’s also visitied during his second term.
In December 2025, Mr. Trump said in a speech in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, that he was “crushing” inflation and called affordability concerns a “Democratic hoax.”
One week later, Vice President JD Vance aimed to calm the affordability concerns at a Uline facility in Alburtis, about 13 miles southwest of Allentown.
Tickets are available for Mr. Trump’s visit to Macungie next week on a first-come, first-serve basis.
“They were truly the unrelenting voices of their time, and made sure that this was something that happened because they knew it was important,” Jess Motyl-Szary, director of Rhode Island Pride, said in an interview on Thursday.
The 1976 pride march came after local Bicentennial Committee organizers “refused meeting space for the group of community members hosting the Congress of People with Gay Concerns,” according to research by Matthew Lawrence and published on the Providence Public Library’s website.
“Calling themselves Toward a Gayer Bicentennial Committee, the group sued the official Bicentennial Committee and won the right to assemble at the Old State House, where about 30 people met in June 1976 to discuss civil rights concerns,” according to Lawrence.
But the contingent also had to fight to join the Bicentennial Parade after they were initially denied the right to do so by officials who pointed to the state’s anti-sodomy law at the time, according to Motyl-Szary.
The 76ers “knew that being a part of an existing parade meant there was a little bit of safety there, because it was an existing infrastructure,” Motyl-Szary said.
“But it also meant that there was a much higher visibility for them to be able to be out there, be proud, and show other people who might not have been out that there is a safe space for them,” Motyl-Szary said.
With the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, they won the right to march, she said.
“It wasn’t safe to be out in the ’70s,” Motyl-Szary said. “Incredibly great people marched. Some had to march with paper bags on their heads because there were no legal protections to protect their jobs, their home, their families, but [it was] still incredibly brave to go out there, create visibility, and create this organization.
“Being here 50 years later, and being a part of their legacy has been so incredible,” she said.
A lot has changed for LGBTQIA+ Rhode Islanders in the decades since, Motyl-Szary said.
“But the closeness of it still feels relevant because we’re seeing these continued attacks in our community, and a very real resurgence of attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community, especially our trans brothers, sisters, and siblings,” Motyl-Szary said.
Since returning to office last year, the Trump Administration has taken aim at transgender rights across the country, especially after President Donald Trump signed an executive order recognizing two sexes, male and female. Among other actions, Trump has often sought to tie adherence to the order with federal funding requirements, and the administration has also attempted to gather private medical records from hospitals that provided gender-affirming care to transgender children and teens.
Reflecting on what pride means to her right now, Motyl-Szary said pride festivities are new to at least somebody every year.
“Someone is coming and getting to feel this embrace, this huge hug of their community for the first time every year,” she said. “And in a time like this, when our community is being told that we are hated by the rest of our community, by the rest of our country, when we are told we should hate ourselves, coming out and celebrating ourselves, loving ourselves, loving each other is so incredibly important. Our community creates the space that we need.”
Motyl-Szary said she also believes that “queer joy is resistance.”
“There is a real need for us to have a space and a celebration of who we are and to remind ourselves that we are worthy of love and that we are worthy of being a part of a community that gathers, celebrates, and fights for ourselves and our rights,” she said.
Rhode Island Pride kicks off on Friday night with the “Golden Anniversary Eve” party from 6 to 8 p.m. at the 195 District Park in Providence, Motyl-Szary said.
Festivities continue at the park on Saturday with yoga at 10 a.m. and PrideFest entertainment beginning at 11 a.m., alongside approximately 260 vendors, she said. A rally at 2 p.m. will focus on “what’s happening, get people motivated to be involved in [the] community to speak up and be an activist in whatever way is right for their path of activism,” Motyl-Szary said.
The Illuminated Night Parade steps off at 7:30 p.m. at Washington and Empire streets before moving through downtown Providence, according to organizers.
Christopher Gavin can be reached at christopher.gavin@globe.com.
SHELBURNE — Norman Rockwell lived for a time in suburban New York City and died and was buried in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. But for 14 years in between, the artist spent perhaps the most prolific period of his career in Vermont creating his best-known works.
That’s how Shelburne Museum curator Carolyn Bauer sees it — and how the museum’s latest exhibition treats the artist.
“Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont,” which opens June 20 and runs through Oct. 25, displays 40 of the 175 covers Rockwell famously created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine during his time in Vermont between 1939 and 1953.
Also on display are prints of “The Four Freedoms,” maybe his most famed works of all, which represent American ideals spelled out by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. Paintings in the exhibition include “The Young Lady with the Shiner” and “The Tattoo Artist,” both whimsical, recognizable pieces used as covers for The Saturday Evening Post.
“It’s very accessible work and approachable,” Bauer said.
The display features the three paintings that inspired the exhibition, given to the Shelburne Museum by Rock of Ages, the Barre granite quarry and monument maker. Those Rockwell paintings filled a significant gap in the museum’s art collection, which includes works by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Grandma Moses and Andrew Wyeth but, until recently, none by Rockwell, perhaps the best-known artist to have lived here.
“It feels like a homecoming in many regards,” Bauer said.
Moving to southern VT, finding ‘the every American’
The exhibition frames Rockwell’s time in Vermont around the tenor of the times in America. As the Great Depression was ending, World War II was looming and the nation was growing more urban and industrialized, much of the public was yearning for greater simplicity, Bauer said.
Rockwell was among them, leaving New Rochelle north of New York City for the quietude of Arlington in southern Vermont.
He was not alone. Contemporary artists including Mead Schaeffer, John Atherton and Gene Pelham would settle in Arlington too, creating what Bauer termed “the golden illustrator days” in Vermont.
Rockwell’s art, as the 152-page hardcover catalogue accompanying the exhibition notes, shows “how Vermont itself came to embody American ideals in the national imagination.”
Rockwell and his fellow Arlington artists used each other as models in their creations. “They really would work collaboratively,” Bauer said.
Pelham’s daughter, Melinda, is shown in the exhibition in two works: “The Babysitter,” a painting of a girl holding a crying baby that’s on loan from The Fleming Museum at the University of Vermont and an admission submission Rockwell sent to Kellogg’s of a girl clutching a cereal-laden spoon to her mouth.
Doctors, mail deliverers and shopkeepers from Arlington populated his work. Bauer said Rockwell usually gave models $5 and a can of Coca-Cola.
“He was recycling and using just about everybody in town,” Bauer said. That included himself: Rockwell added his own visage to the multiple faces in “The Gossip,” which shows him lashing out at a woman who’s started the rumor-mongering.
Bauer said Rockwell wanted to cultivate a sense of place by using Vermonters known for their austere self-reliance at the forefront of his work. He also found “the every American” ideal in town, Bauer said, though his art reflected a pronounced lack of diversity.
In later work, Rockwell would confront race and segregation as the Civil Rights Movement swept the U.S.
“He was progressive,” Bauer said.
Inspired by paintings donated by Rock of Ages
“Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont” was inspired by the 2025 museum acquisition of a trio of Rockwell works that once hung in the Barre offices of Rock of Ages. The granite company contacted the museum asking if it could donate the paintings, Bauer said, prompting staffers to wonder momentarily, “Is this real?”
Rockwell created advertisements for Rock of Ages and gave the paintings upon which the ads were based to the company. “Kneeling Girl” from 1955, making its debut at the Shelburne Museum, takes place in front of a gravestone engraved with the name Newton.
Rock of Ages donated two versions of 1963 work “The Craftsman,” a muted draft and a more luminous final version that were first displayed at the museum last year. They depict Rock of Ages stonecutter George Seivwright working in the shadow of a memorial bearing the name “Norwell,” a portmanteau of Rockwell’s first and last names.
Bauer called the paintings “incredible works of art that were circulated widely” in ads, brochures and pamphlets touting Rock of Ages and its world-famous Vermont granite. Though Rockwell had left Vermont for Massachusetts by the time he created those paintings, they do what Rockwell had done when he lived in Arlington — show the nation and the world what Vermont and Vermonters are capable of.
“We are just eager for our visitors to see these paintings,” Bauer said.
If you go
WHAT: “Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont”
WHEN: June 20 through Oct. 25
WHERE: Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education, Shelburne Museum
INFORMATION: $8-$25 museum admission; free under age 5 and for active military and Shelburne Museum members. shelburnemuseum.org
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@burlingtonfreepress.com.
-
Oklahoma7 minutes agoMost Oklahoma voters didn’t cast a ballot during June’s primary election
-
Oregon10 minutes ago
Oregon Lottery Pick 4 results for June 18
-
Pennsylvania15 minutes agoPresident Trump to visit Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, next week
-
Rhode Island22 minutes agoRhode Island Pride turns 50 this weekend: ‘Queer joy is resistance’ – The Boston Globe
-
South-Carolina25 minutes ago
87-year-old South Carolina businessman says he has no plans to retire
-
South Dakota30 minutes agoSouth Dakota sends poetry to the America250 time capsule
-
Tennessee37 minutes agoInside Tennessee 4×100 relay’s NCAA title, outlasting four botched exchanges
-
Texas40 minutes agoFlu sickens some 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas
