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Dem senator hosts businesses concerned 'enormous uncertainty' of tariffs could kill crucial tourism industry

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Dem senator hosts businesses concerned 'enormous uncertainty' of tariffs could kill crucial tourism industry

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., hosted his latest in a series of roundtables with small businesses around the Green Mountain State, and the attendees said the Trump administration’s tariff actions will hurt their operations directly and damage the state’s key tourism industry.

“These tariffs are a self-inflicted wound,” Welch, who also co-sponsored a bipartisan bill to repeal them, told Fox News Digital on Monday.

“And they’re already raising prices for businesses, farmers and working families across rural America. Everyone will be affected by President Trump’s trade war, it doesn’t matter what your political point of view is or where you live.”

The latter appeared to be the tenor at Welch’s latest roundtable in Stowe, near the Quebec border.

OPINION: WHAT FINANCIAL MARKETS ARE SCREAMING ABOUT TRUMP’S TARIFFS

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Sen. Peter Welch is leading meetings with dozens of businesses concerned about New England tourism losses, including snowsports, from tariffs. (AP/Getty)

“I think I speak for all of us when I say we don’t know how they’re going to affect us,” said Jen Kimmich, who runs Alchemist Brewery.

“What we do know is that these tariffs are happening. We do know prices are going to go up, but we don’t know how much.”

Kimmich shared an example of how intertwined her brewery is with global manufacturing.

Her aluminum is produced in the U.S., but the manufacturer sources some recycled metal from Brazil, metal that then transits through Canada to be made into sheets before crossing back into Vermont.

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Alchemist raised its prices by 5% and absorbed another 10% hit, Kimmich told Welch.

TRUMP’S TARIFF 2-STEP

Her brewery’s specialty malt, she said, is exempted for now because it is a food product from the United Kingdom.

The brewery, like the other businesses represented collectively, said the sudden decrease in visitors from across the northern border has hurt the tourism industry as well as stores where Canadians might regularly shop in Vermont.

“At every single level, these tariffs make no economic sense,” she said. “The tariffs are unfair, and they’re already creating enormous uncertainty. I’m working to help Vermont maintain the strength of its small businesses.”

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Christa Bowdish, proprietor of the Old Stagecoach Inn, said in a statement that 95% of her business is via tourism and the rest from locals.

“Of that 95%, typically 15% are Canadian. We were all excited about having a banner ski season, and it was good, but it wasn’t amazing,” she said, adding that while January’s figures were up, skiing in February was down and the trend has continued.

President Donald Trump has established a tariff agenda. (Getty Images)

At the same time, Bowdish said web traffic from Canada has been falling, which she suspects is tied to the tariff situation.

Bowdish also shared with Welch a letter from a Canadian tourist who canceled their trip because of American political rhetoric toward Canada.

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“This is long-lasting damage to a relationship, and emotional damage takes time to heal. While people aren’t visiting Vermont, they’ll be finding new places to visit, making new memories, building new family traditions, and we will not recapture all of that,” the innkeeper told Welch.

Power Play Sports owner Caleb Magoon added, “The big challenge for me is going to be supply chain issues. At my two stores, because we’re general sporting goods stores, I work with over 100 vendors who are making products literally across the globe, from Dubai to China to right down the road in Waterbury.”

Meanwhile, representatives of ski and snowsports businesses expressed uncertainty about how the tariffs would affect them, since many do not open their doors for the year until November.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for a response to the senator’s and business owners’ concerns.

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New Hampshire

Woman dies in Wilton, NH house fire – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News

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Woman dies in Wilton, NH house fire – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News


WILTON, N.H. (WHDH) – A woman died in a Wilton, New Hampshire, house fire Wednesday morning, according to the New Hampshire State Fire Marshal’s Office.

At 9:08 a.m., Wilton firefighters responded to Burns Hill Road after a caller said their home was filling up with smoke. When they arrived, a single-family home was on fire and they found out two people were still inside on the second floor.

A man and a woman were both taken out of the house by firefighters and taken to Elliott Hospital. The woman was pronounced dead and the man is in serious condition.

Officials have not released the name of the victim at this time.

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At this time, investigators are looking into the cause of the fire and are trying to determine if a power outage in the area played a factor. The fire is not currently considered suspicious.

(Copyright (c) 2025 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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New Jersey

NJ’s biggest Catholic diocese hits pause on plan to merge parishes

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NJ’s biggest Catholic diocese hits pause on plan to merge parishes


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Last June, the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark launched a review called “We Are His Witnesses,” which aimed to consider potential consolidations or closures of some of its 211 North Jersey parishes.

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But amid confusion and pushback from many parishioners, Cardinal Joseph Tobin said Wednesday that the archdiocese will now extend its review to allow for further study and conversations.

In a letter published on the Archdiocese website March 4, Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, noted the challenges remain the same: a steady decline in membership and a shortage of priests projected to grow worse in the coming years. He did not specify how much longer the process would take but said he would have more to announce in June.

The largest of New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses, the Newark Archdiocese serves approximately 1.3 million people in Bergen, Essex, Hudson and Union counties.

Story continues after gallery.

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Some parishioners, Tobin wrote, “came to believe — incorrectly — that the overall goal of We Are His Witnesses is to close churches. That has never been the purpose.

“This work is not driven by downsizing, but by mission: by the call to strengthen parish life so that it can truly form disciples and reach those who are not yet engaged in the life of the Church.”

The program’s aim is not to close churches, but to “strengthen parish life” he added.

He said a follow-up announcement would come on June 12 but reassured parishioners that “there is no need to fear that an immediate and wholesale closure of parishes will be announced.”

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‘The Church is not a museum’

Current circumstances demand Church leaders to make difficult decisions, he said. “The challenges we face are real: fewer priests, fewer people in the pews, communities that look very different than they did even a generation ago, and financial strain. Ignoring the changed landscape does not preserve parish life; it weakens it. The Church is not a museum to preserve what it once was,” he wrote.

The initiative kicked off last summer, with meetings at churches around the region to allow parishioners to offer feedback. Many expressed fears about their future of their church, Tobin said.

Parishioners at many of the meetings and in letters to Tobin expressed concerns about the program. As a result, Tobin concluded that “it is clear that the communities of the Archdiocese need more time for honest discernment. We are extending this phase of our work to allow for deeper reflection and broader consultation throughout our local Church.”

“This is not a pause in mission. It is a call to take the mission seriously and to ask ourselves, with renewed honesty, what it means to be a missionary Church today.”

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Msgr. Richard Arnhols, pastor emeritus of St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Bergenfield and a member of a committee of pastoral leaders helping to guide the review, said that, “Based on the input from the priests and people of the parishes which took place last fall, Cardinal Tobin has approved a period of additional study and reflection before any decisions are made.”

The first step is further conversation among parish priests, which will take place this month, he said.

Gregory Hann, a religious instructor at St. Vincent Academy in Newark, applauded Tobin’s decision. “If we continue to do things the way we have been doing them, we become a stagnant Church and we allow the comforts of our culture and the outside to keep us from moving from the Cross to glory.”

Nicholas Grillo of Bloomfield, a parishioner who attended several listening sessions at Holy Rosary Church in Jersey City, approved of the decision. “Hopefully the pause will give them time to reevaluate this going forward,” he said.

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He added that it was a “waste of money” to pay large sums of money to a consultant that “doesn’t understand the intricacies of the Archdiocese of Newark,” he said, referring to the Catholic Leadership Institute, a Pennsylvania group that the archdiocese has engaged.

Instead, Grillo suggested, “they should put together a group of lay parishioners and priests from the diocese who can collaborate on a better path forward.”



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Pennsylvania

Top Pennsylvania 2027 quarterback enrolls into Coatesville (Pa.)

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Top Pennsylvania 2027 quarterback enrolls into Coatesville (Pa.)


One of the top 2027 Pennsylvania high school quarterbacks from the 2025 season has announced that he’s leaving for a new home.

Per an announcement by Class of 2027 signal caller Mikal Shank Jr., the quarterback has left Harrisburg (Pa.) and is now at Coatesville (Pa.) for his senior season. Shank Jr. last season started 14 games for the Cougars and is arguably one of the state’s top returning players behind center heading into the 2026 campaign.



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