GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Enjoy today. We're between fronts and should have a fine, sunny day with temps getting into the lower or mid-60s. Possible showers tonight, temps down into the mid-40s. One thing to note: We're going to see decent winds out of the southwest today with gusts getting up toward 30 mph. So while the weather folks write that "recent rainfall has allowed for fine fuels to remain wet," they also warn that burning of any kind today is "not recommended at all."Which brings us to fire danger. Hanover reader Bill Brown checks in with two extremely useful links for the next six or seven months. If you're in NH, the state puts out a daily "fire weather" email that you can sign up for here. It's a little hard to parse unless you know that NH's Upper Valley towns are contained in areas 2 & 3. Meanwhile, VT makes things much easier, with a website.Oh, also: There should be enough open sky tonight that it's worth looking upward, since there's a geomagnetic storm forecast—thanks to some plasma hurled our way from a dead sunspot—and so at least a possibility of auroras. (Thanks, JF!)"What's a memoir?" "It's a fancy word for writing down stuff [you] can't remember." And in Lost Woods, Henry's hard at work on his. As he does every week here, Lebanon writer and illustrator DB Johnson chronicles the doings in his favorite patch of woods. And this week on his blog, he lets us in on how a strip comes together, from initial idea to dialogue to early sketches to how to build timing into a handful of panels to, eventually, what you see on the page.::face_palm:: You'd think a simple thing like square footage would be idiot-proof. But no. On Wednesday, I misread the Lebanon property record for the Valley News building and made it sooo much bigger than it actually is. It's 29,918 sq. ft. in the purchase-and-sale agreement, 28,879 on the website... but in any case not 76K. Total land is about 4 acres. For space reasons, I wrote that the buyer is LockNLube, but the formal new legal owner is EJB Holdings, an LLC formed by LockNLube president Jay Boren for purposes of the sale. LockNLube will share the building with the VN. Boren explains at the link.SPONSORED: What does the post-pandemic future look like for our children? The Family Place will present its Force for the Future luncheon next Wednesday, April 20, from noon to 1:15 pm as a free Zoom webinar. Titled “Route to Resilience: Paving the Post-Pandemic Path,” the lunchtime speaker panel will discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged our children’s mental health and early development and illuminated the vulnerability of our childcare and education systems. Check out our remarkable panel of speakers and register at the maroon link. Sponsored by The Family Place.There's speeding, and then there's... whatever this was. 100 mph in a 40 mph zone, anyway. That's what Cornish police officer Ethan Yazinski's radar clocked a motorcycle at on 12A on Wednesday. He flicked on his blue lights but then turned them off again when the guy sped up to escape, according to the press release from Cornish chief Doug Hackett. Yazinski watched the bike veer off the roadway, and he and Hackett found it, abandoned. Shortly after, they busted a 22-year-old Lebanon man for reckless operation, aggravated driving while intoxicated, and other offenses.The US Justice Department weighs in on the Wilder investigation. After receiving information that William Hillard possessed explosive devices, the ATF, FBI, VT State Police Bomb Squad, and Hartford police searched his home on Wednesday and found "explosive devices and materials as well as an AR-15-style rifle and ammunition," the DOJ press release says. Hillard was arrested and made an initial court appearance yesterday. A detention hearing is scheduled for today. If eventually convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.Vermont Law School names new president. The school's board yesterday announced it's chosen Rodney A. Smolla, who is currently dean and a law prof at Widener University Delaware Law School, and before that was president of Furman. The board noted that it has split what had been a joint president/dean position so that the new president could focus on "higher level strategies" and on a strategic plan aimed at "elevating the school’s world-renowned environmental program and first-of-its-kind restorative justice program.""Humor that is very simple and straightforward—and incredibly insane.” That's how Northern Stage producing artistic director Carol Dunne describes the humor that underlies Spamalot, its stage adaptation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In the Times-Argus, Jim Lowe takes a look at the production—which includes the original Broadway costumes, which Northern Stage rented to take a load off its staff. “We have this tremendous opportunity to play with props that were designed for the Broadway show that are bigger and more outrageous than we could have come up with," says Dunne.Been paying attention this week? Want to play the UV version of Wordle? The News Quiz folks have some questions and their new feature for you. Questions like, what's Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health's new name again? And what are officials worried might spread to poultry? And is it true that VT's highway rest areas will be closed indefinitely? You'll find those and others at the maroon link...plus the Vordle at the end.Hiking Close to Home: The Mt. Pemigewasset Trail. This week, the Upper Valley Trails Alliance suggests this roughly 3-mile out-and-back hike to the peak of Mt. Pemigewasset. By White Mountain standards it's a moderate climb or a nice half-day challenge for a family, and it offers a great view/effort ratio—especially in the spring, before the leaves and bugs are out. The trail starts off in the Notch with some annoying road noise, but you quickly rise across streams and into beautiful woods. Check the weather and bring spikes in case of ice and/or mud. The trailhead is at the Flume Visitor Center.Upgrades coming to Franconia Ridge trails. In the Monitor, David Brooks writes that over the next five years, the trails that make up the Franconia Ridge Loop, "often recognized as one of the world’s greatest day hikes," will get a series of repairs and reroutes thanks to a $1.1 million federal grant. As many as 1,000 people a day may take the 11.6-mile loop during the summer; parts of it were first built back in 1826. Work will start toward the end of August on the Old Bridle Path and continue there through the fall.NH Senate kills bill requiring public notice of immigration checkpoints in NH. The measure, which had passed the House, would have required the feds to notify the press and public 24 hours before immigration checks planned for roads in the state up to 100 miles from the border. The Senate vote fell along party lines, reports NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee. “If the federal government’s trying to protect us, we shouldn’t be interfering with them,” argued one GOP senator. Democrats favoring the bill contended that federal agents have been using immigration checkpoints "for fishing expeditions."With new "mental health" docket, NH circuit courts hope to improve handling of involuntary emergency admissions. The problem, writes NH Bulletin's Annmarie Timmins, is that state law requires someone admitted involuntarily for mental health treatment to be released after 3 days if they haven't had a hearing about their confinement—leading to some people being released even when their safety or that of others is still at risk. The new approach gives two judges and dedicated court staff responsibility for scheduling and hearings for some 2,600 involuntary admission cases a year.“Hey, Laura Ingraham, I'd love to take you out for coffee or dinner. And I'd love to be able to have an opportunity for you to see me for who I am." That's Nikki Ellis, an assistant principal in Burlington who is transgender and who led a February school-district webinar called “Let’s Talk About Gender Identity and Expression" that became a target last week for Fox News host Ingraham. On The Vermont Conversation, Ellis talks to host David Goodman about that experience, rising anti-LGBTQ sentiment, and how people in VT have responded."I got lost along the way": former Jay Peak president Bill Stenger sentenced to 18 months in prison. A federal judge yesterday handed down the sentence for Stenger's role in the so-called EB-5 financial scandal that defrauded foreign investors, left a giant hole in the ground in Newport, VT, and has led to tough ongoing questions about the Shumlin administration’s role. The project at the heart of the case "was a complete fiction from beginning to end,” the judge noted. Stenger is the first to be sentenced in the case; VTDigger's Alan J. Keays and Anne Galloway break it all down.VT prisons reopen to visitors. After two years of generally strict no-outsiders regulations, writes Sasha Goldstein in Seven Days, they've also resumed classes and in-person services to inmates, and will no longer require new inmates to quarantine alone for two weeks. "While we know the virus entered our facilities from the outside, we also know that many positive things come from the outside: family, friends, programming, education, and support services," corrections commissioner Nicholas Deml writes in a statement.The Mic Release, the Kamikaze, the Back Tuck, the TJ... Oh, and let's not forget the Torminator. Can we agree from the start that Tori Boggs can do stuff with a jump rope that the human body wasn't made to do? Yet Boggs, who's a pioneer in competitive jump-roping, has mastered it all. She breaks down her moves with slo-mo help from this Wired Obsessed video. But you know what pretty much says it all? The occasional legalese on the screen: "Her jump rope feats are potentially dangerous physical activities that may be harmful or cause serious injury if you are not properly trained."
And the numbers...
Just in time for rising case numbers, Dartmouth has ratcheted down its reporting. As of this week, it stopped requiring weekly asymptomatic testing, so now only reports active cases within the previous 7 days—and does that only on Tuesdays. So... As of Tuesday, there had been 196 undergrads with active cases during the previous 7 days, 103 grad and professional students, and 40 faculty/staff.
NH cases continue to rise, with a 7-day average now of 236 new cases per day, versus 200 on Monday. The state reported 157 new cases Tuesday, 263 Wednesday, and 305 yesterday, bringing it to 305,119 in all. There were 5 new deaths reported during that time; the total stands at 2,464. Under the state's new rubric of reporting only people actively being treated for Covid in hospitals, it reports 9 hospitalizations (-1 since Monday). The state reports 275 cases in Grafton County (+100 since Monday), 55 in Sullivan (+4), and 144 (+32) in Merrimack. In town-by-town numbers, it says Hanover has 197 (+85), Plainfield 27 (+2); Lebanon 23 (+2); New London 11 (+1); Claremont 11 (+1); Enfield 10 (+3); Haverhill 6 (+1); Grantham 5 (no change); and Piermont, Warren, Orford, Lyme, Canaan, Springfield, Sunapee, Cornish, Newport, and Charlestown 1-4 each.
The trend is clear in VT, too. The state reported 168 cases Tuesday, 304 Wednesday, and 327 yesterday (these are PCR test numbers, and do not include self-reported numbers from Vermonters taking at-home rapid tests), bringing it to 119,339 total and up to a 7-day daily average of 224, compared to 199 Thursday. There were no deaths during that time; they remain at 623 all told. Hospitalizations have also risen: As of yesterday, 35 people with confirmed cases were hospitalized (+7), with 7 in the ICU (+2). Windsor County has seen 40 cases since Monday and 132 over the past two weeks, for 8,856 overall, while Orange County gained 12 cases on the state's tally: It's at 4,896, with 56 in the past two weeks.
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Today at 4:30, Dartmouth's Political Economy Project brings in author and independent scholar Walter Stahr, whose award-winning biographies of John Jay, William Henry Seward, and Edwin Stanton have repeatedly shed light on the complex times those lesser-known figures inhabited. He's got a new book about Salmon Chase—governor, senator, treasury secretary, chief justice, and Dartmouth Class of 1826—who decades before Lincoln's presidency was an advocate of Black rights and voting rights and of ending slavery in the US. Chase maintained extensive ties to Dartmouth throughout his life, which Stahr will also highlight. Moore B03.
And at 5:30 today, the musicians and artists who are part of tomorrow's "Small Island, Big Song" performances at the Hop will visit Upper Valley Music Center in Lebanon to share their music, show off their varied instruments, and talk shop. The ensemble includes musicians from Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Taiwan, Tonga, Mauritius, and elsewhere—so as UVMC puts it, it's a chance "to learn about musical traditions that aren’t frequently heard in the Upper Valley."
At 6 pm, online, VINS presents Scott Weidensaul, author of the Peterson Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean. He'll be talking about his own owl research, owl biology and ecology, and recent intriguing discoveries not only about tropical species like the stygian owl, but even the most common and widespread owls in North America.
And tonight at 7:30, the Lebanon Opera House presents ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro. I can't really put it better than LOH does: Shimabukuro possesses a "seemingly limitless musical vocabulary—whether it’s jazz, rock, blues, bluegrass, folk or even classical—on perhaps the unlikeliest of instruments. He’s reinvented the applications for the tiny four-string instrument, prompting many to call him 'the Jimi Hendrix of the ukulele.'" There are still tix, so if you got shut out of tonight's sold-out Nikole Hannah-Jones talk at the Hop—or even if you never tried in the first place—go treat yourself.
Tomorrow morning from 9-11 behind Jake's Coffee on Mechanic Street in Lebanon, Sustainable Lebanon and the Lebanon Rotary Club are joining forces for a styrofoam collection day. They'll be taking in packaging foam used for TVs, computers, appliances, and all those packages you've had delivered, as well as foam coolers, all of which will be recycled. Food service foam, including clean food containers and egg cartons, is also acceptable. They ask that all tape and labels be removed and that the foam be clean and dry (no little bits of food sticking to it, okay?).
Tomorrow at 2 and again at 7:30, the Hop presents "Small Island, Big Song," a "musical journey across the breadth and into the soul of island nations of the Pacific and Indian Oceans." The project, which evolved from visits to 16 island nations by Australian filmmaker and music producer Tim Cole and Taiwanese film producer BaoBao Chen, brings together film, spoken word, and music—on traditional instruments—focused on the cultural connections among islands that are on the front lines of cultural challenges and climate change.
And at 7 tomorrow evening, Hop Film presents Oscar Shorts: Documentary—the short documentary nominees all in one place. Includes the winner, Ben Proudfoot's The Queen of Basketball.
And at 8 pm tomorrow, the Claremont Opera House hosts impressionist and Elton John impersonator Bill Connors for "American Elton Tribute," an evening of outrageous costumes and "Rocket Man." Well, also, other songs, too.
Jake Shimabakuro's latest album is a set of collaborations with a host of musicians—Willie Nelson, Bette Midler, Ziggy Marley, and others. Including Billy Strings, with whom Shimabakuro wrote and has been performing "Smokin' Strings," an all-instrumental duet that starts slow and... builds.
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Have a fine, heart-gladdening weekend. See you on Monday for CoffeeBreak.
The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers and writers who want you to read. this. book. now!
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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