WASHINGTON (WHP) — Pennsylvania has been a no show at the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., but the state’s senators said they’re teaming up to change that.

Senators Dave McCormick and John Fetterman said Saturday they have partnered with several state organizations to represent Pennsylvania at the fair.

“Pennsylvania is where America’s story began, and there was no way we were going to let the commonwealth go unrepresented during our nation’s 250th birthday celebration,” McCormick said in a release.

All 50 states are supposed to be represented at the event, but around 10 Democrat-led states said they will not officially participate.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told The New Republic that he believes the fair isn’t truly a celebration of American history, but rather a politicized and Trump-centric event.

Several artists who were supposed to perform during the fair have also dropped out due to similar concerns.

READ MORE | Freedom 250 spokesperson says American State Fair ‘nonpolitical’ as artists drop out

McCormick and Fetterman will partner with the PA Chamber of Business and Industry, PennAg Industries Association, the PA Farm Bureau, the National Federation of Independent Business, the PA Manufacturers’ Association, and The Manufacturer & Business Association.

“We discovered our commonwealth wasn’t participating in the Great American State Fair on the National Mall and we should be,” Fetterman said. “We are now making sure Pennsylvania’s booth will highlight the commonwealth’s agriculture dominance, our businesses and what makes PA a truly awesome and historic place.”

Fetterman said Pennsylvania’s role in the history of the U.S. is “important and bipartisan.”

A spokesperson from Freedom 250, a group created by the White House that is organizing the event, said it’s “inherently nonpolitical.”

The event started Thursday and will continue through July 10. You can find more information here.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce initially had their sights set on a marvelous coastal wedding, multiple sources exclusively tell Us Weekly.

“Taylor and Travis really wanted their wedding in Rhode Island, and June 13 was the date, but security wouldn’t have worked because it could get out of hand with that kind of scale of an event,” an insider says.

Though everything was initially being planned in Rhode Island — where Swift, 36, has a mansion in the lavish Watch Hill neighborhood of Westerly — the insider notes the pop star had booked multiple venues from coast to coast on different dates.

According to the source, “Ocean House [in Westerly] was planned at one point, and then plans changed to New York.”

The insider, meanwhile, tells Us that Swift’s security “had to assess all the venues to see what made sense.”

“Rhode Island wasn’t great because the nature of the access and the perimeters were too difficult to secure,” the source explains. “So the main issue with Rhode Island ended up being security.”

“Everything was being planned in Rhode Island,” added a source. “And so many people wanted to come that plans had to change because it became bigger.”

Swift and Kelce, 36, are now rumored to be tying the knot at Madison Square Garden in New York City over the July 4 holiday weekend. While the exact location and date of the nuptials have not yet been confirmed, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani appeared to hint at the wedding taking place in the city during a June 15 press conference earlier this month.

“I am fully confident in the work of the NYPD, as well as our state partners, in delivering that safe experience,” he told reporters. “We are the biggest city in the country. We are used to big events, and we are incredibly excited for the [World Cup]. We know it coincides with the Knicks’ [NBA] Finals run. We know it coincides with July 4, America 250, Taylor Swift’s wedding — all happening at the same time — and we are so excited to welcome the world here.”

Additionally, a permit was filed with NYC in June, the mayor’s spokesperson Dora Pekec confirmed to Us after The New York Times reported on a permit to close the streets surrounding MSG from July 2 to midday July 4 for an event on July 3.

City sources also confirmed to Us that the Street Activity Permit Office (SAPO), which issues the permits, is in touch with the NYPD regarding a possible influx of street and pedestrian traffic.

Though Swift and Kelce’s Rhode Island wedding plans fell through, the “I Knew It, I Knew You” singer’s Watch Hill mansion had an uptick in action last week when security was spotted swarming the area. A group of unidentified women were reportedly seen on the balcony wearing matching robes — three in black and one in white — sparking speculation about a bachelorette party.

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A woman who appeared to be Swift’s childhood friend Abigail Anderson Berard was also seen on the property with her 2-year-old son.

Meanwhile, Travis celebrated what was perceived as his bachelor party in Los Angeles and San Diego. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end and his brother, Jason Kelce, as well as Travis’ teammate Patrick Mahomes and others, were spotted at a Chris Lake concert, a Dave Chappelle comedy show, a night out at the members-only Bird Street Club and more.

Swift and Kelce began dating in the summer of 2023 and got engaged in August 2025.

This story by Liberty Darr was first published in the Shelburne News on June 25, 2026.

“In New York, the models I’ve had to depend on are all washed-out and unhealthy. Up here, I not only encounter practically every type of American I’ll ever have to use, but they look healthy!”

The quote by iconic illustrator Norman Rockwell helps to understand the new Shelburne Museum exhibit “Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont.”

The exhibit examines how the beloved American illustrator shaped an enduring vision of Vermont — one with real people — during his years living and working in Arlington from 1939 to 1953. But Arlington wasn’t just a place for him to find refuge from city life in New Rochelle, New York. He was truly woven into the community. He attended the local swing dances and the PTA meetings, judged many art fairs and even crowned a carnival queen, according to Carolyn Bauer, curator at Shelburne Museum.

He knew the local firemen, the doctor and the young children down the street. And he used them to inform his work of painting a picture of true, American life — one that represented not only the values Vermonters hold dear, but also what the country was yearning for at that time.

“Take a step back and think about what is happening in America during those 14 years too,” Bauer said. “We’re coming out of the Great Depression, World War II and the postwar era. How is the country changing its identity? And vis-a-vis, how is Vermont becoming part of the collective national imagination?”

Rockwell was not the only artist of that time finding relief from city life in the quaint town of Arlington in the Green Mountain State. The way Bauer puts it, Rockwell was not creating in a vacuum. The town’s strong artist circle had already taken root with the likes of Mead Schaeffer, John Atherton and Gene Pelham — who would all play a key role in Rockwell’s creations throughout that time.

While in Vermont, Rockwell created 175 covers for The Saturday Evening Post, Bauer said, and at the time, there were more Saturday Evening Post illustrators per capita in Arlington than anywhere else in the nation.

“They were also really looking to distill into their imagery and inspiration these values that were found in Vermont that couldn’t be found elsewhere at that moment,” Baur said, noting virtues like self-reliance, neighborliness, civic duty — things the country was looking for especially during periods of crisis.

Author Dorothy Canfield Fisher, whose legacy has since been tarnished by her alleged ties to the eugenics movement, captured the idea particularly well in 1942, portraying Vermont as a stronghold of democratic spirit and cultural integrity.

“Much of what we call ‘Vermontism,’” she wrote, “is nothing but good ‘old-Americanism’ surviving in an out-of-the-main-current community, which has not been so beaten upon as communities elsewhere by the storms of modern life.”

While the exhibit is separate from the museum’s “America 250” exhibition, it is, at its core, a celebration of Americana.

It’s nearly impossible to talk about Rockwell without talking about patriotism, Bauer said. She pointed to his well-known works in the “Four Freedoms” series — “Freedom of Speech,” “Freedom of Worship,” “Freedom from Want” and “Freedom from Fear” — painted during World War II, with inspiration taken from American ideals spelled out by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The first, “Freedom of Speech,” depicts a man standing up at what appears to be a traditional Vermont town meeting, a copy of the town’s annual report in hand.

“Not everyone understands that level of civic duty that is instilled to us here in Vermont,” Bauer said.

The exhibit features 40 of the 175 covers Rockwell created for The Saturday Evening Post in addition to large-scale original favorites like “The Tattoo Artist” and “The Young Lady with the Shiner.”

The exhibit, roughly a year in the making — which is record time for a museum — was largely inspired by the museum’s recent acquisition of three Rockwell paintings that, at one point, were commissioned by Rock of Ages in Barre for the company’s national advertising campaign in 1955.

The museum last year was given “Kneeling Girl” and “The Craftsman” — both the final product and also a sketch. Both of them, Bauer said, are important hallmarks of Vermont industry and craftsmanship.

Bauer hopes that those who visit the exhibition — which is on view through Oct. 25 — walk away with not only an understanding of the broader context of the work, but a knowledge of how deeply personal these works were to the artists on display.

“We know Rockwell as this individual genius, but again, he wasn’t working alone, he was working in collaboration with these other Arlington artists, but also the community, the models, the people down the street,” she said. “He knew these people intimately, this town, the American people at large. He was an incredibly empathetic person, and you could read that in each of his works.”