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Potentially vulnerable Dem senator close to making re-election decision in key swing state

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Potentially vulnerable Dem senator close to making re-election decision in key swing state

Longtime Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is the last remaining Democrat up for re-election in the 2026 midterms in a competitive seat who has yet to publicly announce her intentions.

But that decision may be coming shortly.

Shaheen is expected to announce later this month whether she will seek a fourth six-year term representing the key New England swing state in the Senate, sources in New Hampshire confirm to Fox News Digital. The Washington D.C.-based Punchbowl, which covers Congress, was first to report the news.

The sources add that Shaheen will hold a major fundraiser on March 20 in Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest city. The senator will likely come to a decision regarding her political future and have some kind of announcement by the time of the fundraising event.

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Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., speaks at a policy event on lowering the cost of prescription drugs, at NHTI Concord Community College, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Concord, N.H.  (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

There is intense speculation regarding whether the 78-year-old Shaheen, a former governor who first won election to the Senate in 2008 and who this year became the first woman in history to hold one of the top two positions on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will seek another term in office.

Shaheen raised a paltry $170,000 in the final fundraising quarter of 2024, which sparked buzz that the senator might not be preparing for another re-election campaign. But sources in Shaheen’s political orbit noted that the senator did not emphasize fundraising in the fourth quarter of last year, which included the final month of the 2024 presidential election.

Then there’s the timing. At this point six years ago, during the 2020 cycle, Shaheen had already announced her re-election.

Her busy schedule may be one reason. The senator recently attended a major foreign policy summit in Munich, Germany, and then visited Ukraine in a show of support for the embattled nation, which has been fighting for survival following a Russian invasion three years ago.

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With Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer anxious to know where his conference’s senators facing elections in 2026 stand, a Democrat source on Capitol Hill tells Fox News that “the pressure in Washington for Sen. Shaheen to make a decision is growing.”

National Republicans see opportunities to flip the Senate seat in New Hampshire from blue to red, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee has already run ads targeting Shaheen over her defense of USAID funding that the Trump administration is axing.

“The vast majority of Democrats want Jeanne Shaheen to run one more time, and they’re extremely anxious for her to make the decision, because the political climate is so challenging right now, and she would be the strongest chance of retaining the seat,” a Democratic source in New Hampshire told Fox News.

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Former Sen. Scott Brown, the former senator from Massachusetts who later narrowly lost to Shaheen in New Hampshire in the 2014 election, is seriously considering a 2026 run, in a possible rematch against Shaheen.

Brown, who served four years as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand during President Donald Trump’s first administration, has been holding meetings with Republicans across New Hampshire for a couple of months and has met with GOP officials in the nation’s capital.

Former Sen. Scott Brown is interviewed by Fox News Digital on Dec. 24, 2024 in Rye, New Hampshire. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

It has been 15 years since Republicans last won a Senate election in New Hampshire, with Democrats victorious in the past four elections.

Sen Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Fox News Digital recently that “the great thing about Jean Shaheen is she is in her community every week, talking to people about the things she works on, on their behalf. She’s common-sense, she’s bipartisan, and so I’m optimistic we will hold her seat.”

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Republicans flipped four Democrat-held Senate seats in last November’s elections to win back control of the chamber. They now control the chamber and are aiming to expand their majority in 2026.

Besides New Hampshire, the GOP is targeting battleground Michigan, where Democratic Sen. Gary Peters announced in January that he would not seek re-election. Also on their 2026 radar is Georgia, another key battleground state where Republicans view first-term Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff as vulnerable.

Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota announced last month that she would not bid for another term in next year’s midterms, giving the GOP hope that it might be competitive in the blue-leaning state.

But Republicans are also playing defense in the 2026 cycle.

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Democrats plan to go on offense in blue-leaning Maine, where moderate GOP Sen. Susan Collins is up for re-election, as well as in battleground North Carolina, where Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is also up in 2026. 

And Democrats are looking at red-leaning Ohio, where Republican Lt. Gov. Jon Husted was appointed in January to succeed now-Vice President JD Vance in the Senate. Husted will run next year to finish out Vance’s term.

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Pennsylvania

10-year-old stabbed Dollar Tree employee during robbery in Pennsylvania, police say

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10-year-old stabbed Dollar Tree employee during robbery in Pennsylvania, police say


Generic police lights (FOX 9)

A 10-year-old boy who allegedly robbed a Dollar Tree store in Pennsylvania is also accused of stabbing multiple times one of the employees trying to detain him.

Big picture view:

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The Swatara Township Police Department reported that its officers were called around 5 p.m. on Monday to the discount store in Harrisburg where they found the boy being held by store employees. 

Timeline:

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After speaking with witnesses, officers determined that the grade-school-age child went into the store holding a fixed-blade knife, threatened an employee, and told her to give him all the money.

Customs officers use Heimlich maneuver to save choking toddler

The employee’s co-workers jumped in to help her. As they struggled to subdue the boy, he stabbed one of them multiple times, the police department reported. Its statement did not indicate how badly that employee was injured, only saying that medical treatment was needed.

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Dig deeper:

The suspect was taken by officers to a detention facility where he was booked on counts of robbery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and possessing an instrument of a crime.

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The Source: Information for this article was taken from Swatara Township Police Department. This story was reported from Orlando.

 

Crime and Public SafetyU.S.
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Rhode Island

Three generations killed during driving lesson after car plunges into river

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Three generations killed during driving lesson after car plunges into river


Three generations of a family, including a two-year-old girl, have been killed during a driving lesson after their car plunged into a Rhode Island river.

Police received a report that a car had driven into the Seekonk River in Pawtucket on Sunday evening at the small boat-launching area, The Boston Globe reported.

After hours of searching for the submerged car, authorities pulled it out of the water Monday afternoon. The 45-year-old woman, a 22-year-old woman and the two-year-old girl inside the car were found dead.

Pawtucket resident Josue Gomez told The Globe it was his wife, Floridalma Arceno, their daughter, Linora Sucely Gomez, and their granddaughter, Ana Sofia Garcia Gomez, who were killed in the accident.

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Gomez said Arceno was teaching their daughter how to drive with their granddaughter in the car when his wife called him in a panic and said, “‘It won’t brake, it won’t brake.’’

Three generations, including a two-year-old girl, have been killed during a driving lesson after their car plunged into a Rhode Island river
Three generations, including a two-year-old girl, have been killed during a driving lesson after their car plunged into a Rhode Island river (Google Earth)

“It was the last thing she said to me,” he said.

Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves told reporters that a “Good Samaritan riding a jet ski in the vicinity heard the car enter the water and attempted to help,” The Providence Journal reported.

“While this was occurring, another individual called 911, and first responders were on scene within 3 minutes,” Goncalves said.

Gomez said he hurried to the boat ramp Sunday evening, but the car was already submerged.

Police tried to find the car, but suspended the search around 1 a.m. Monday due to poor conditions, according to reports.

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The search resumed Monday morning, and by around 2:30 p.m. ET, a tow truck pulled the car out of the water.

“They were good people,” Gomez told The Globe.

The car was submerged for hours before authorities were able to pull it out of the Seekonk River in Pawtucket, Rhode Island
The car was submerged for hours before authorities were able to pull it out of the Seekonk River in Pawtucket, Rhode Island (Getty Images/iStock)

The Independent has reached out to the Pawtucket Police Department and the Rhode Island Office of the State Medical Examiners for comment.

Authorities called it a “tragic accident,” and said there were no indications of foul play, according to reports.

“Preliminary findings suggest the vehicle was in proper working order,” Pawtucket Detective Sergeant Paul Trout said in an email to The Globe.

Pawtucket Mayor Donald R. Grebien called the incident a “heartbreaking tragedy” in a statement shared with the media.

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“Our community mourns alongside them, and we want them to know they are not alone during this unimaginable time,” Grebien said.



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Vermont

She moved from Paris to Vermont and found her ‘dream job’ opening a bakery – The Boston Globe

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She moved from Paris to Vermont and found her ‘dream job’ opening a bakery – The Boston Globe


BURLINGTON, Vt. — Shelley MacDonald and her husband, both Canadian citizens, had been living in Paris for over a decade when the pandemic hit. She’d been selling baked goods and hosting a dinner club called Paris Bread in their apartment. She wanted to open a business in the United States, where she could operate in English. It was time to leave, except that, at the moment, only American passport holders could fly into the United States.

With ingenuity and grit, the couple discovered a visa for foreign entrepreneurs and secured one from the American Embassy the day it reopened after lockdown. Once their passports were stamped, they had 30 days to fly out and move everything they owned to this picturesque college town.

Since 2022, MacDonald has run Belleville Bakery & Catering near City Hall in Burlington, Vt., down the street from the University of Vermont. She’s training staff, including students, and offering confections you might see in a Parisian patisserie, most not as fancy. She has different varieties of all-butter croissants, cinnamon snails and feta-garlic snails made with croissant trimmings, tempting lunch items such as bacon cheddar quiche and tuna sandwiches with smoked Gouda on homemade onions buns, and dinners such as lasagna, rigatoni, and chicken pot pie to take home.

Shelley MacDonald, a Canadian citizen, lived in Paris before moving to Burlington.Sheryl Julian

“I think the town is adorable with kind people who help you when you don’t need to be helped,” says MacDonald, sitting in the bright bakery. “There’s something very special about Vermont.”

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She and her husband — the hyperrealist painter André Beaulieu — picked Burlington because they had visited often when they lived in his hometown, Montreal. “The real reason is so that I could open a business in English,” she told her 48,000 Instagram followers, “so that I could function in my native language, for all of the reading and writing and dealing with lawyers and accountants and plumbers that you need to do when you own a business.”

MacDonald describes their new situation as “the best of both possible worlds, where I get to live in English in a really cute space, and he gets to live with me in English in a really cute space and he’s really close to home.” She describes her business as her “dream job.”

The 100-year-old building whose storefront she renovated is large and airy, with bakers in the kitchen in full view making croissant and brioche doughs, prepping cookie batters and galette pastry.

Quiches at Belleville Bakery.Sheryl Julian

MacDonald moves quickly, laughs easily, and greets customers warmly. “People come into a bakery looking for a treat and some kind of care,” she says. When you’ve finished eating, you don’t have to take your plates and cups to various bins for recycle and trash. That system horrifies her. “No bussing,” she says. “We take care of you.”

Her clientele skews older, she has noticed, and they’re looking for somewhere to go. “The demand is enormous,” she says. She describes her personality as “Shelley takes care of people.” Remembering her days running an underground restaurant, MacDonald now offers twice-monthly Sunday brunches and dinners, both served at a long table farmhouse-style so everyone talks to their neighbors.

MacDonald, who is willing to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, also has a successful mail-order arm to send cookies across the country. They’re thick and perfectly round in flavors such as orange gingersnap, pistachio chocolate, and lemon pistachio shortbread.

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She also gives classes in the bakery and writes a weekly newsletter, which she snail-mails for free. “People are lonely,” she says. They want to receive real mail.

Feta-garlic snails at Belleville Bakery.Sheryl Julian

Born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, MacDonald, 59, also lived in Vancouver. She met Beaulieu in Montreal. His large, striking artworks hang in the bakery.

In order to get a US E-2 Investor Visa, they had to invest $15,000 in a new US company (some applicants invest considerably more) and have secured premises in the destination city. Sight-unseen, they rented a painting studio in The Soda Plant in Burlington for Beaulieu, which qualified them.

The bakery’s name is the English version of Beaulieu’s surname. Beaulieu means “beautiful place,” she says. Belleville, which means “beautiful city,” is easier for Americans to spell.

Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, who happened to be there when I was — she said she stops by often since her office is so close — describes the bakery as “loveliness in this corner. [MacDonald] draws people into this community.”

Cinnamon snails at Belleville Bakery.Sheryl Julian

The bakery has become known for its I am Proud of Me Banana Cake. It’s really banana bread, but when MacDonald made it in France, customers wondered why it was called bread.

When you buy one, MacDonald asks you what you’re proud of. She’s heard many comments, mostly emotional. One woman in her 20s was going to drive on the highway for the first time, someone else was excited to have completed exams. Then a man came in to say he was proud of his wife for finishing chemo.

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“She’d been planning this cake during her treatment,” MacDonald told a local TV reporter who did a segment on her. Donations started coming in so other cancer patients at the local hospital could get a banana cake; MacDonald also sends cakes to a palliative care center and a teen drop-in center.

Those efforts came to the attention of a program director at the University of Vermont, who called MacDonald in the middle of Vermont’s dark, cold February winter. The administrator was running a mental health day for freshmen. She bought 100 banana cakes from MacDonald and asked her to come and hand them out.

The line was an hour long. Students waited patiently, not just to get an I am Proud of Me Banana Cake, but also for a moment to tell MacDonald what was on their mind.

Belleville Bakery & Catering, 217 College St., Burlington, Vt., www.bellevillevt.com


Sheryl Julian can be reached at sheryl.julian@globe.com.

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