IT'S FRIDAY, UPPER VALLEY!
It may look a lot like yesterday, but this time the system's come from the Great Lakes. The upshot's kind of the same, though: off and on showery and sunny. Daytime highs are running below normal: Today, temps will climb rapidly through the morning, but still only reach the 60s. Tomorrow should be nicer.King Arthur Flour recalls flour. You may remember that back in May, people were getting sick from e. coli in flour, and the Aldi's chain had to recall all 5-lb. bags of its Baker's Corner flour. Now KAF is caught up in it: Wheat used by ADM Milling to make 5-lb. bags of King Arthur flour has been linked to the ongoing outbreak. King Arthur yesterday said it's recalling 14,218 cases. Lot numbers and helpful FAQs at the link. No need to worry if you bought your flour at the Norwich store or through the website: It's not affected.NH says "never mind" on investigation of Charlestown woman who helped son vote. Earlier this week, the VN reported that Dee Milliken was under investigation for voter fraud after she'd helped her son, who has cerebral palsy, cast his ballot. In a letter yesterday, the AG's office cleared her. Disability advocates and US Sen. Maggie Hassan, whose son is disabled, had criticized the inquiry. (VN, sub reqd)Father whose son was found shot in Norwich last year pushes partnership between state police and communities. Dana Colson, the Royalton man whose son, Austin, disappeared and was found dead in Norwich last spring, has become an advocate for "Intelligence Based Policing," with weekly meetings between state police and the public focused mostly on drug dealing, domestic violence, and burglaries. Officers from the Royalton and Middlesex barracks meet locals every Wednesday night. "It's about saving kids. Mine is gone, but maybe I can help save somebody else's kids," says Colson.Feels like it's about time for a hit of full-on summer right now. A visitor to Quechee just posted a languid, water-filled YouTube video of the river life in these parts: drone shots, the covered bridge, paddling, cows, the river everywhere. Just a reminder of what's in store once we get the sun back.Kirsten Gillibrand beefs up campaign staff, heads to the Upper Valley today and tomorrow. The NY senator and presidential candidate will be at Lucky's in Lebanon today at 3, then at Murphy's with actor Connie Britton at 4:30. Tomorrow it's New London in the morning, then Claremont for the "Rural Pride" celebration.NH House sends gun, redistricting commission, and a stack of other bills to guv's desk. Two of the bills would impose a waiting period and background checks for gun purchases; Sununu is likely to veto those, and neither bill has the votes to override. He had also opposed the original bill creating an independent commission to draw political boundaries, but the revised version on his desk lets lawmakers vote on legislative, Executive Council and congressional district lines; he's given no indication how he leans on it.Sununu is, however, all set to approve sports betting in the state. The House yesterday accepted minor Senate changes to a measure legalizing betting on professional sports and most Div. I college sports, except for games involving New Hampshire schools. Vermont's farmers have been struggling to bring in hay. The wet, cold spring may have been fine for vegetables, but it's been lousy for farmers who depend on hay for their herds' forage. Many of them haven't been able to get a first cutting in yet. VPR yesterday spent some time with Heather Darby, an agronomist and UVM Extension prof, talking over what it all means for farmers and consumers.Regrettable people/power-line interactions on the rise, says GMP. On average, someone crashes into a utility pole once a day in its territory, the utility said in a release yesterday that pretty much pleads with the public to be careful out there. More than half those crashes caused outages. Also, we're felling trees onto power lines more often -- 26 times so far this year, which easily exceeds the pace of the last few years. And customers dug into, damaged, or severed lines 52 times last year, five times the rate five years ago. It's already happened 27 times so far this year.Vermont has no economic development strategy and desperately needs one. That's Bill Schubart, retired businessman and former chair of the VT Journalism Trust, in a VTDigger commentary. The state too often confuses feel-good efforts for actual economic development, he says. He proposes a robust strategy, from a database of all existing businesses to a network tying researchers and businesses together to a central development authority. Oh, and: "Imagine if our vision of a 'real Vermonter' were someone of any age or color who chose Vermont for its opportunities, lifestyle and values." Radical.The New Republic is up with a very long look at Bernie's history in Vermont, "Bernie's Red Vermont." It gets deep into the state's leftist weeds and Sanders's place among them: his roots in the Liberty Union Party, the coalition he built in his runs for Burlington mayor, the alliances and compromises and jockeying that marked his time in Burlington. The sub-hed reads "How Sanders’s brand of American socialism emerged from the crucible of the Green Mountain State’s squabbling counterculture," but it's less about VT than a small coterie of squabblers. SO FRIDAY, WHAT'CHA GOT?Well, there's ArtisTree in S. Pomfret... For starters, its exhibit of three artists who developed dementia is opening tonight with a reception. What's quite remarkable is that even as their minds changed, their hands were able to propel their artistry forward. The exhibit "follows the artistic transformations that accompanied their disease progression, providing a window into each artist's unique experience." Runs from 5:30 to 7:30.Then at 7:30, ArtisTree hosts three superb musicians: Jeremiah McLane, Owen Marshall and Corey DiMario, playing as The Grinding Stone. McLane (accordion) has played a huge role in the growth of traditional music in Vermont and New England generally. Marshall (guitar, bouzouki) was a founding member of the great Portland ME trad Irish band The Press Gang. And DiMario (bass) founded the Boston bluegrass quintet Crooked Still, and plays with his wife, fiddler Lissa Schneckenburger, in Low Lily.Or look, it's summer. That means movies outside. Back to the Future's going to be at Huse Park in Enfield. Starts at sunset. If you're looking to be south, the jam-groove band Doctor Jones will be doing a reunion show at the Harpoon Brewery in Windsor. You might have caught them back in the 'aughts -- they disbanded in 2008. Now, for one night at least, they're getting back together. You can sit there, beer in hand...The Black River Action Team in Springfield is opening an exhibit: “Our River Runs Through It: How we connect with the Black River.” BRAT started as a cleanup effort back in 2000... and just kept going. The displays --photographs, interactive art, hand-built kayaks, habitat and engineering studies -- offer multiple ways of looking at one of the region's major tributaries and the ways the towns and people alongside it use and understand it. Raffle, food from Artisan Eats in Hartland... It all gets underway at 5 pm in the Great Hall at 100 River Street in Springfield. Have a great weekend. See you Monday.
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