New Jersey
Race to watch: New Jersey’s U.S. Senate contest between Democrat Andy Kim and Republican Curtis Bashaw
Republican Curtis Bashaw
Curtis Bashaw, the Republican candidate, is a Camden County native, who grew up in Cherry Hill and Haddonfield. A graduate of Wheaton College and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, he is a hotelier. He purchased his first hotel with his father in 1986.
For the last 35 years, he built his business, Cape Resorts. His company includes several hotels in Cape May along with a couple of properties on Long Island, New York.
Bashaw served as the head of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority under Gov. Jim McGreevy for two years.
“I got a taste for what it was like to work inside a political process,” he said. “I felt when I finished that two-yeartwo year term that maybe one day I would go back and get involved.”
Bashaw’s platform includes securing the southern U.S. border, which he said has been conflated with immigration policy.
“Border security shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” he said. “Immigration policy, on the other hand, we need to have a bipartisan consensus.”
His other campaign issues include cutting taxes and creating an energy plan that isn’t heavily reliant on foreign oil. Bashaw said New Jersey is losing college grads and younger professionals to other states because of the state’s affordability issues.
Bashaw is in contrast to the top of the GOP ticket. He is an openly gay man with a husband who said he is pro-choice, though he supported the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned constitutional access to abortion. But, he considers himself “a change agent.”
“I’m being a protagonist in this moment to try to do some good,” he said. “I think voters are exhausted by the dysfunction of our politics, and that’s one of the reasons I stepped into it.”
Green Party Candidate Christina Khalil
Christina Khalil was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and grew up in foster care. After moving to New Jersey, she graduated from Saddle Brook High School then earned a B.A. in psychology and a Master’s degree in Social Work from Ramapo College.
She worked in the co-occurring addiction and mental health field, starting as an intern and then moving to be a liaison between Drug Court and treatment.
During the COVID pandemic, she worked on the front lines at a medical detox facility while volunteering at Hackensack High School.
One major focus of her campaign is fighting inflation. Another is immigration reform. She said improving the immigration policy requires a complete redesign, including funneling money from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to investments in immigration lawyers, community support, mental health support for asylum seekers, and immediate pathways to citizenship.
Khalil also supports universal healthcare. She wants to establish a no-cost national healthcare system that provides coverage starting from birth. If elected to the Senate, she said she would work to address the housing crisis, police brutality, climate change, animal welfare, campaign finance reform, unemployment and reconfiguring the national tax system.
Khalil has volunteered for multiple community organizations, including the Bergen County LGBTQ+ Alliance.
She said the true keys to freedom lie in education.
Libertarian Kenneth Kaplan
Kenneth Kaplan was born in Newark, and grew up in West Orange. He graduated from West Orange Mountain High School. Kaplan then attended Franklin & Marshall College, earning a B.A from Brandeis University and a law degree from New York University Law School. He has worked as a real estate broker, lawyer, and is the president of KenKap Realty Corp.
A major focal point of his campaign is following the Constitution, which he believes means small government, lower taxes and more individual liberty.
On his website,he said the best way to stimulate the economy and create jobs ‘is for government to get out of the way.”
He supports eliminating federal income taxes. He said this is doable “if we strip the federal government back to the functions that the Constitution directly mandates, such as providing for the national defense and maintaining a federal court system.”
He favors a foreign policy that does not interfere with the internal affairs of other countries, encourages solar, wind, hydro and other fossil fuel alternatives and reduces the national deficit by shrinking the size of government.
He is a past president of the Livingston Lions Club, and a member of the Men’s Club of Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston, where he is a board member.
THE SCOOP
The Devils began their season-high seven-game homestand with a decisive victory over the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night. The win was their second consecutive victory after picking up a win in St. Louis earlier in the week.
There’s not a lot of runway left in the season, and stringing together a run of victories is at the top of their minds. New Jersey is 11 points out of the final Wild Card spot, and 13 out of third in the Metropolitan Division. Tuesday will mark the Devils final game before the NHL Trade Deadline, which is on Friday at 3 p.m.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are having a down year, based on where the expectations were set heading into the season. The Leafs have struggled to gain any traction in their season and sit just two points ahead of New Jersey with 64. Toronto is 12 points out of third in the Atlantic Division, and nine points out of a Wild Card spot.
The Leafs have a tendency to give up an abundance of shots to their opponents, ranking first in the league in shots against, per game with 31.8, which bodes will for a Devils team that averages 29.4 shots per game, ranking sixth in the league. Despite their overall struggles, the Leafs do have the league’s fourth-best penalty kill, working at an 83.1 percent efficiency.
New Jersey
Former Lumberton, New Jersey, mayor Gina LaPlaca pleads guilty to 2025 DUI, sentenced to treatment program
A former mayor in Burlington County, New Jersey, pleaded guilty to DUI and child endangerment charges after a 2025 traffic stop, according to prosecutors.
Lumberton Township committee member Gina LaPlaca, 46, was indicted last spring on child abuse charges after county prosecutors said she was observed driving drunk with her young child in the car, while serving as the township mayor.
Police arrested her at her home after reviewing video from a witness showing her swerving out of her lane and nearly hitting a utility pole. Lumberton police discovered her blood alcohol concentration was .30%, over three times the legal limit of .08%.
On Monday, LaPlaca was sentenced to three years in a diversionary program for first-time offenders after pleading guilty to driving under the influence and a fourth-degree child abuse charge. As part of the plea deal, LaPlaca will avoid jail time as long as she abides by the terms of the program.
Under the terms of the Pretrial Intervention or PTI program, she must attend regular Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and comply with any requirements set by the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency.
Judge Craig A. Ambrose also ordered LaPlaca to have an ignition lock device on her car that will prevent it from starting up if the driver has consumed alcohol. She said in court she had already installed one in October 2025, the county prosecutor’s office said.
If LaPlaca violates the terms of the PTI program, she could be prosecuted for the child abuse charge.
LaPlaca completed an intensive treatment program in May 2025 and said in a statement that she is “fully committed to my recovery” and is doing the “daily, intentional work” that comes with it. She apologized to Lumberton residents while acknowledging a private struggle with alcohol addiction that was no longer private.
“The weight of my actions is something I carry deeply,” she said in a statement shared on social media. “What I did was wrong. It was dangerous. It was inexcusable. I drove while intoxicated with my child in the car — a choice that could have caused irreversible harm. That reality is something I will live with, and learn from, for the rest of my life.”
LaPlaca served as mayor through 2025 but remains on the township committee. Terrance Benson was sworn in as mayor of Lumberton this year.
NEWARK, New Jersey — A United Airlines flight headed to Newark, New Jersey returned to the Los Angeles airport Monday about 40 minutes after taking off for an emergency evacuation after a reported fire, authorities said.
All flights at the LAX International Airport were ordered to remain on the ground for about half an hour during the flight’s return and evacuation, according to advisories from the Federal Aviation Administration. No injuries were reported.
The flight, which was en route to Newark Liberty International Airport returned to LAX to address an issue with one of the engines, the airline said in a statement. There was no mention of a fire, but the LA Fire Department said it responded and there was a fire that was contained as of an hour after the plane’s landing.
The flight took off at 10:43 a.m., began to turn around at about 11 a.m. and landed again at 11:19 a.m., according to flight tracker FlightAware.
The LA Fire Department said they assisted with the evacuation of more than 250 passengers and crew. Passengers exited the plane on the taxiway using slides and stairs and were taken to the terminal, the airline said.
The airplane was a Boeing 787-9, a variant of the popular line of 787 Dreamliner long-haul aircraft.
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