Daybreak Wednesday, 7/22/26

Getting sunny, maybe some showers still. On the whole, we’re moving toward clear weather today, though there may be a few hiccups—there’s a cold front coming through, and if showers show up there may be a thunderstorm, too, though that’s most likely in the mountains. Highs today around 80, and given mostly clear skies tonight, overnight lows in the low 50s.

Views. But not quite the way you think of them.

What’s up with the Valley News? Since the beginning of May, the region’s newspaper of record has lost four key veterans. The first to go was managing editor Geoff Hansen, who moved into a position with parent company Newspapers of New England. At the end of June, news editor Nora Doyle-Burr left for a senior editor role at VTDigger. Top editor Matt Clary gave notice around then and stepped down July 10. Senior photographer Jennifer Hauck left last week. This leaves two senior reporters, a longtime photographer, and a small knot of spirited younger reporters. Top brass haven’t responded to inquiries about what’s going on. More at the link.

A little more on the woman arrested for trying to take a Leb police officer’s weapon. Meanwhile, the VN’s Alex Ebrahimi fills in the picture on Saturday’s “chaotic” arrest after Sheila Healy, 39, parked in the middle of Mechanic Street. As she was resisting being arrested, Ebrahimi reports, she yelled, “I’ve never done anything wrong. Please God, Senator Sanders, help.” In court filings, she lists her employer as US Sen. Bernie Sanders. She served as the New England labor director on his 2020 presidential campaign, but a Sanders spokesman tells Ebrahimi she “has not had any formal role or voluntary role since the end” of that campaign. She was due to be arraigned yesterday.

Federal appeals court overturns lower-court ruling releasing Mohsen Mahdawi. In its decision yesterday, reports VTDigger’s Shaun Robinson, the 2nd District court in New York ruled that District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford last year should not have ordered the release from immigration custody of the Columbia U. student activist and Upper Valley resident. Instead, the judges decided, Crawford “should have waited to [intervene] until after Mahdawi’s case was adjudicated by the federal immigration court system,” Robinson writes. The appeals court did not weigh in on Mahdawi’s free-speech claim that he was targeted by the government for criticizing Israel.

SPONSORED: Immigrants and refugees need your generosity now more than ever. Hearts You Hold currently has over 300 requests from individuals and families trying to make a new start in this country, just waiting to be funded by caring people like you. Some are local to the Upper Valley or to VT and NH, others are in New York, Ohio, and elsewhere. You can sort the requests by state or category to find the folks you want to support. You’ll find them all—from basic household goods to basic clothing to swimming lessons to helping fund summer camp for a pair of refugee brothers in Rutland—at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Hearts You Hold.

Have we grown too old to take our shoes off in an art gallery? In this week’s Enthusiasms, Peter Money dips into three books: Autumn, part of Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet; poet Mahmoud Darwish’s The Adam of Two Edens; and, oh so briefly, Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company (The Story of an American Bookshop in Paris). As a reviewer wrote, Smith’s novel “does not trouble itself with plot mechanics, nor with the creation and maintenance of suspense. This is a confident, witty plunge into the matter of language”—and in his Enthusiasm, Peter, too, plays with language. Plus, he writes, “there is no escaping the junkyard of the self.”

A celebration of quilts—and quilters—at Billings Farm. The museum’s annual quilt showcase is under way, and UVM Community News Service reporter Emily Rodin took advantage of a 40th anniversary event recently to tour the exhibit (open through Sept. 7) and talk to quilters. About his “Modern Tokyo Cabin,” for instance, CraftStudies ceramics teacher Tony Luckino told her, “I kind of followed the rules but broke the rules every step of the way.” And many of the quilts, Rodin writes, tell deeply personal stories, like Katie Kalata’s quilt celebrating her son’s black belt in karate, which incorporates pieces of the uniform he wore through his years of practice.

SPONSORED: Antique Tractor Day is rolling into Billings Farm & Museum on Sunday, August 2. This day of farm power, from 10 am to 5 pm, features tractor parades, the fan-favorite Slow Race, tractor-drawn wagon rides, and, of course, plenty of vintage tractors! Whether guests are carburetor-curious, well-oiled enthusiasts, or full-throttle tractor buffs, all ages will enjoy this annual tradition. Guests can get their fill of tractors from yesteryear, fuel up with on-site food vendors, and cool down with a cup or cone from the Farmhouse Scoop Shop. Sponsored by Billings Farm & Museum.

Controversy develops around Charity & Sylvia. As Seven Days culture intern Cecilia Luce writes, at the end of June, historian Rachel Hope Cleves took to social media to claim that Norwich cartoonist Tillie Walden’s new narrative nonfiction graphic novel doesn’t adequately credit her 2014 biography of the same 19th century gay VT couple. But as Luce also writes, Walden did years of archival research, painstakingly created what one museum director calls “the textures of everyday life” for the couple, invented dialogue between them, and wrote in public notes on her research, “It is not possible for me to overstate how important Rachel Hope Cleves’ book on the subject was to this project.” Walden has remained publicly silent. More at the link.

“What a handful of people can accomplish under minimal direction and sunny skies in a field of garlic is a sight to behold.” Last Sunday was garlic harvest day at Luna Bleu Farm in S. Royalton, and Dave Celone was among the volunteers who showed up to help owners Suzanne Long and Tim Langford get the work done—with thousands of heads to be pulled, brushed off, and sorted. A bit ham-handed, Dave found himself wondering “whether I was making enough headway to be worth it to farmers who could do this work with their eyes closed.” But with wood-fired pizza, blueberries to pick, and conversation, “I cherished this day.” He explains why at the link.

An NH bowling alley stars in a film about a game that’s “full of chance and failure.” Carson Lund, an LA filmmaker, grew up in Nashua bowling at the now-defunct candlepin joint called Leda Lanes. His new movie, The Pinsetter, looks back nostalgically at “a local business trying to keep its head above water.” The Monitor’s Catherine McLaughlin (here via NHPR) reports on Lund’s search for an appropriate stand-in for Leda Lanes, “a space that felt like it had like different layers of history already within it.” Concord’s Boutwells Bowling Center fit the bill perfectly. McLaughlin detours into the oddities of candlepin: “It’s a truly democratic sport,” says Lund.

Two looks at the Democratic VT lieutenant governor contest. VTDigger’s Shaun Robinson talks to the three candidates hoping to take on GOP incumbent John Rodgers in November. Former Lt. Gov. Molly Gray, who held the office from 2021 to 2023; longtime Peter Welch aide Ryan McLaren; and 2024 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Esther Charlestin will all face off in the Aug. 11 primary. Robinson talks to them about their priorities and how they highlight “key differences in the experience they’d bring to the job.” Meanwhile, Vermont Public yesterday held a debate among the three. You’ll find that here.

Why the closing of a paper mill in Glens Falls, NY will hurt loggers over here. In particular, reports VTDigger’s Olivia Gieger, Finch Paper is closing its pulp mill, which purchases low-grade pulp wood—wood with knots or twists or other features that make it undesirable. But for Vermont loggers, having a source to process low-grade wood like hemlock makes some jobs economically feasible—and raises the value of land with a lot of hemlocks. The Glens Falls mill is one of very few in the region that handle that wood; its closing, Randolph Center’s Sam Lincoln, “is going to have an enormous impact.”

Out on the trail with Dale Sanders, who’s hiking the AT again. At the age of 91. Sanders, whose trail name is Grey Beard, first hiked it when he was 82, and he’s trying to reclaim his record as the oldest person to hike it end to end. NYT’s video team caught up with him recently as he was on his way up Mt. Lafayette. “I feel, when I’m in the woods and the sun is shining, I’m in my best mood,” he says. “I’m not knocking the gym, but you have to get outside.” The camera follows him as other hikers ask for selfies with him, he goes in for hugs with his two-person support crew, climbs boulders, and finally comes in sight of the Lafayette summit. “Oh, thank God!” he yells.

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

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HEADS UP

Lynn Nottage and Nona Hendryx at the Top of the Hop. It’s today, not yesterday—apologies for the error in yesterday’s Daybreak. The two-time Pulitzer-winning playwright of Sweat and the musician and Roth Visiting Artist will sit down together to talk about their new theatrical collaboration to kick off a series of events celebrating 35 years of New York Theatre Workshop residencies at the Hop. Songs by “the magnetic and soulful” Britton Smith throughout. 6 pm, free but ticket required.

Beecharmer at the Enfield Shaker Museum. The museum continues its free outdoor concert series with the duo of Jes Raymond and Jakob Breitbach, and their “playful twang with artful arrangements, tight time-polished harmonies, virtuosic fiddle, skillful flat picking, clammer banjo, and upright bass” to draw from the deep well of American roots music. 6 pm outside the Stone Machine Shop, The Box will be there with food.

At the Norwich Bookstore, Lara Call Gastinger with A Perpetual Journal Practice. Gastinger is an artist and botanical illustrator from Charlottesville, VA, as well as a lecturer on plant identification and drawing at UVA. She “has made it her mission to teach artists and nature lovers how to keep a nature-focused perpetual art journal,” and her new book guides readers through the process and fine points. 7 pm.

“Rediscovering Calvin Coolidge” at the Center at Eastman. Matthew Denhart, president of the Calvin Coolidge Foundation (and a Grantham resident) will both tell stories from the life of the 30th president of the United States, from his upbringing in Plymouth Notch, VT to his time in the White House, and talk about why there’s been a recent effort to reassess his legacy and time in office. 7 pm in the Draper Room.

And for today...

Back on July 3, the powerhouse British singer Raye opened the Montreux Jazz Festival channeling Nina Simone’s performance of Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention’s “Who Knows Where the Time Goes,” fully in command of the song, the stage, and the audience.

See you tomorrow.

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