Daybreak Thursday, 6/25/26

Slightly warmer, clouds building in, showers likely late tonight. The mix of sun and clouds will shift over the course of the day as an upper-level disturbance and warm front head this way; highs will reach somewhere around 80. There’s a chance of rain before midnight, a likelihood to a certainty after that, rain could be heavy at times. Lows tonight in the mid 50s.

Birds just chillin’… On and off the water.

Log truck rolls over on Route 4 in Lebanon. According to a press release from the city’s police department yesterday afternoon, the incident occurred at around 1:30 pm, after the truck took the Exit 17 ramp off I-89 North. “Preliminary information indicates the truck experienced brake issues while descending the off-ramp and was unable to slow down, causing it to roll over at the intersection [with Route 4]. As a result of the crash, the truck's load of logs became dislodged, and several logs struck a vehicle traveling on Route 4. Only minor injuries were reported.” Route 4 was closed for a few hours; as of late yesterday, the ramp still was. James M. Patterson’s VN photos here.

SPONSORED: 2026 is the Summer of Art at Billings Farm & Museum, where creativity and craftsmanship are celebrated around every corner. Visitors can experience the 40th annual A Vermont Quilt Sampler, featuring 59 remarkable quilts from across Vermont; discover the playful and thought-provoking installations of Art on the Barns by Gail Rickards; and explore Pieced in Light, a contemporary stained-glass exhibition by Dayna Sabatino and Megan Altemose in the historic 1890 Farm Manager’s House. Come for the cows and stay for the stunning art. Exhibitions are included with admission. Sponsored by Billings Farm & Museum. 

One big issue this July 4? Fireworks are too expensive. This 4th, for the first time since 1975, the dogs and other sensitive-eared beings of Hinesburg, VT will enjoy a blast-free Independence Day (at least, free of those paid for by the town). As Seven Days' Ian Curry reports, tariffs on Chinese products have sent firework costs skyrocketing. In addition, a Pennsylvania company recently bought East Montpelier's Northstar Fireworks, from which towns in the region have long bought July 4 shows, and now charges a $20,000 minimum. Lebanon, however, got a $20,000 donation from Novo Nordisk, allowing it to revive its fireworks show (from Storrs Hill, July 2).

With closures in Springfield VT, Quechee, and elsewhere, challenges for independent pharmacies become clear. Those pharmacies, along with one in Ludlow and another that’s soon to close in Rutland, were part of the family-owned Smilin’ Steve chain, started in Rutland in 1982 by Steve Hochberg. His son Jeff, who now runs the company, tells VT Public’s Howard Weiss-Tisman that it’s a sign of the ills of the national healthcare industry—and a pricing structure controlled by a tiny handful of pharmacy benefit managers. “No one really wants to roll up their sleeves and actually identify the real problems and create solutions that are meaningful,” he says.

SPONSORED: Norwich-based Partners in Global Change is holding an online auction of paintings. The two-week-long event features paintings by Faimie, the oldest and longest-resident child at Tysea Children’s Home in Jacmel, Haiti, to raise funds to keep Tysea open and its children safe, healthy, educated, and happy. The auction will start on July 10 and end the 24th. See the paintings and auction program at the burgundy link. Our dear Faimie has a talented eye for color and for composition, sort of a very young, primitive Matisse.  Please consider bidding. Donations welcomed at partnersinglobalchange.com. Sponsored by Partners in Global Change.

Outdoors at King Farm in Woodstock, “excellent community theater” from BarnArts. Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa “is a wonderful choice for the company’s annual outdoor show, with the setting itself supplying the lazy summer clouds to stir the viewer’s own sense of reverie,” writes Seven Days’ veteran theater critic, Alex Brown. “The story portrays quiet heartache and the resolution of women who’ve failed the one great test of marrying and now pass their lives caring for each other as best they can.” Recalled by the son of one of five unmarried sisters—an adult remembering his aunts in rural Ireland when he was 7—”the characters seem summoned from the narrator’s memory to come to life again in a blazing present.”

$1.7 million. That’s how much the NH legislature has paid to reimburse lawmakers’ mileage expenses since the current two-year term began in December, 2024, reports the Globe’s Steven Porter (no paywall). But it’s not all distributed evenly. At the top of the list: Charlestown’s Steven Smith, who’s deputy House speaker, with $44,000 in reimbursements (“The mileage I submit is accurate,” he tells Porter). The list of top recipients (scroll down) is made up of both Republicans and Democrats (#2 is Bethlehem Democrat Jared Sullivan, with $20,102), including Haverhill GOP Rep. Rick Ladd ($18,440) and Plainfield GOP Rep. Margaret Drye ($11,018).

SPONSORED: Pompy’s 4th of July Sale starts today, bringing some of the season’s best savings on handcrafted furniture. Shoppers can save 30% on new dining room orders, 25% on all other new furniture orders—including fully upholstered pieces—and 25-60% on select in-stock furniture. Whether furnishing a dining room, living space, bedroom, or office, customers can take advantage of significant savings on furniture built with lasting quality and expert Vermont craftsmanship. Sponsored by Pompanoosuc Mills.

In an era of intense rainstorms and heavy use, maybe straight up the mountain isn’t the best trail idea after all. As Molly Rains writes in NH Bulletin, “It’s common for trails in the White Mountains to follow direct routes up slopes, eschewing twists and turns, or switchbacks, that would moderate their ascents.” That was fine for decades, she writes, but now it means trails “tend to be aligned with the path of rainfall runoff”—an issue these days. Add in the Whites’ popularity with hikers, and trail crews are rethinking things: adding switchbacks, stone staircases, and most frequently, water bars. The first two are expensive; the last requires lots of volunteer labor to clear them.

50 NH leaders read the Declaration of Independence. The video unveiled at a press conference in Concord yesterday was put together over three months by Michael O’Meara of Concord Community Television and the Secretary of State’s office. It includes every living former governor as well as Gov. Kelly Ayotte, the congressional delegation, Ken Burns, the AG, town clerks and moderators, legislators, exec councilors, mayors, and plenty of others. “It is a snapshot of history and it will be something that can be saved for generations,” Secy of State David Scanlan—who also kicks off the reading—said at the press conference. InDepthNH has the story.

Over the gaps in Middlebury, more than 40 Vermont works by Frederic Church. The famed 19th century landscape painter made nine trips to the state, starting when he was 22, writes Alice Dodge in Seven Days. Some of the results make up “Frederic Church in Vermont” at the Middlebury College Museum of Art—from sketches (which “pay attention to the particulars of individual landscape elements as though each were a character,” Dodge writes) to paintings like the small but thoroughly grand “Study for New England Scenery” (with “four mountains, some waterfalls, a mill…tiny cows, a couple crossing a bridge with a wagonload of goods and their dog.”) Thru Aug. 9.

Ants: Flying through the air at 15 times the g-forces endured by jet pilots. The ballista spider has a preferred prey—green tree ants—and it’s willing to do whatever it takes to ensnare them, writes Smithsonian’s Sarah Kuta. Researchers in Australia discovered the spiders in a rainforest in Queensland and, using high-speed cameras, filmed them spinning intricate webs with up to 60 tension lines. Within seconds, a green tree ant is trapped, and a fraction of a second later it’s launched through the air into the main web. The researchers believe the scheme lets the spiders pick off an ant without notifying the rest of the “highly aggressive” colony.

The Thursday Crossword. It’s puzzle ninja Laura Braunstein’s “midi” — enough to make the world go away for a few minutes, but nothing that’ll put you behind for the day. If you’d like to catch up on earlier puzzles, you can do that here.

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.

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HEADS UP
The Jenny Brook Bluegrass Festival in Tunbridge gets going. It’s the 25th anniversary of one of New England’s premier bluegrass gatherings, with concerts, workshops, jam sessions, and a bluegrass Who’s Who from Tony Trischka to Gibson Brothers to Seldom Scene to Appalachian Road Show and lots more. Music starts up at noon today, 11 am tomorrow and Saturday, and a 9 am bluegrass gospel sing on Sunday.

Andrew Silver's Silver Circus at the Abbott Library in Sunapee. For the library’s summer reading kickoff, Silver “explores the concept of perseverance as he is faced with the daunting task of presenting a full circus show all by himself”—a new vaudeville show with magic, juggling, physical comedy, and lots of audience participation. 1 pm.

King Arthur Baking’s Summer Music Series with Spencer Lewis. It’s BBQ Night on the patio, with Randolph’s Lewis and the rich tones of his acoustic steel-stringed guitar providing the music. 4:30 to 7 pm, with food until 6:30 or whenever it sells out.

At Feast & Field in Barnard, Mojo Birds. The Durango, CO-based roots-rock and soul band with an Afro-Peruvian tinge, inspired by the likes of The Band and Al Green. Gates and food at 5:30 pm, music at 6.

Interplay Arts’ jazz faculty concert. As they write, their “all-star faculty from around the country gather for a rollicking, joyful, and always very special concert. Admission by donation to our educational non-profit, to benefit scholarship students.” 7 pm in the Hayes Auditorium in Kimball Union Academy’s Fitch Hall, Meriden.

At the Hopkins Center, Circa and “Humans 2.0”. The incredibly talented (and unbelievably strong) Australian troupe is back with Yaron Lifschitz’s sequel to “Humans,” the show they performed at the Hop in 2019. You can get a sense of it in the trailer at the link. In the Moore Theater at 7:30 pm tonight and tomorrow, 2 pm Saturday.

Fitz and the Tantrums at the Lake Morey Resort. The kick-in-the-door dance band fronted by Michael “Fitz” Fitzpatrick and Noelle Scaggs just began their “Man on the Moon” tour—Morey is its second stop. Gates and lots of food at 6 pm, music at 8.

And for today...

It’s a fair bet you won’t be hearing this at Jenny Brook. At a concert in Allentown, PA last month, Punch Brothers (Chris Thile, Brittany Haas, Noam Pikelny, Chris Eldridge, and Paul Kowert) found fresh nuance in an extremely familiar tune that fits right in with their “American country-classical chamber music” label—but in ways that John Williams and Darth Vader probably would never have imagined.

See you tomorrow.

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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt      Poetry editor: Michael Lipson    Associate Editors: Jonea Gurwitt, Sam Gurwitt

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