Daybreak Friday 8/21/20

GOOD OF YOU TO SWING BY, FRIDAY!

Define "subtle." That's the word the weather folks are using to describe a disturbance sagging southward from Canada that may bring rain and thunder to these parts this afternoon. Sunny to start, and temps getting into the 80s, chance of precipitation starting mid-afternoon and lasting through the evening. Rain and thunder more likely (and heavier when it happens) the farther north you go. Down to around 60 overnight. 

Last numbers for the week.

Vermont Law School evacuates campus after "threatening" student email. The alert—“Please leave campus immediately due to unforeseen circumstances"—came by text yesterday morning; the campus reopened at noon without incident. It stemmed from an angry email written to a professor the night before, which the professor then shared with others, some of whom found it threatening. The letter was "ambiguous,” Royalton police chief Loretta Stalnaker told the VN. "I believe it was blown out of proportion."Want to know what it's like being a school principal right now? On any given day, Doug Heavisides gets 120-180 emails from students, parents, staff, fellow administrators, and the occasional pesky journalist. In a new Daybreak interview, the principal of the Hartford Area Career and Technology Center runs through what it's been like preparing to open school as protocols shift and tensions rise. "It’s a very intense landscape right now," he says. "What keeps me up at night is just trying to navigate that."Speaking of schools, SAU 70 (Norwich) and White River Valley SU among just a handful of VT districts to go in-person. VTDigger last night published a handy map showing how each district in the state intends to reopen. Most, like Hartford, Windsor, and Thetford, are going for a hybrid model, with remote learning as an option. Rivendell is one of only three that's all-remote except for students with special needs who require in-person learning.Springfield Hospital hopes to exit bankruptcy by the end of the year. In a meeting of the Green Mountain Care Board yesterday, interim CEO Mike Halstead said the plan is to separate the hospital from its community health centers in Charlestown, Springfield, and elsewhere. The hospital declared bankruptcy in June, 2019, and expects to finish this fiscal year on Sept. 30 with an operating loss of $3.6 million, reports the VN's Nora Doyle-Burr.Ummm... Let's let the VT State Police tell it. "On 08/19/2020 at 1811 hours, Vermont State Police received a call for a family fight in South Royalton. After investigation it was determined no crime had been committed. When [one of the participants] was told no crime had been committed and we would not be arresting him he became disorderly. [He] was then taken into custody for disorderly conduct..."World Cup skiing sticks to Europe this winter, which means no Killington. This November would have been the fifth women's world cup race at the resort; the event brings the glitz of the international racing circuit—and thousands of fans—to the mountain. But with various federations' decision to restrict alpine ski racing to Europe at least through December, Killington, Lake Louise, and Beaver Creek, CO will miss out until the 2021-22 season.Into mountain biking? So's Travis Paige, and he's just made your life easier. When his son got interested in the sport last year, he dusted off his 25-year-old bike and the two hit a few trails together. This year, they've been out exploring, and the Lebanon photographer has put together a post highlighting 20 spots—with photos, maps, and descriptions—of places to shred. He's got some well-known spots—Boston Lot, Hurricane Hill—but also some you've probably never tried, like the Cornish Town Forest, the Aqueduct Trails in Woodstock, and the Page Hill trails in Hill, NH. Mascoma Valley Preservation lands $315K grant for meetinghouse. The money comes from the Northern Border Regional Commission, part of a $4.4 million package headed to NH, and will help the group convert the historic Grafton Center building into a marketplace and event center. "It will be transformative for Grafton," MVP president Andrew Cushing tells the VN's John Gregg.Out of quarantine, art. Back when the pandemic hit, Northern Stage's youth actors, drawn from all over the region, were just about done getting their production of Frozen, Jr. ready. As education director Eric Love describes it, "Now I was at home, disappointed, dejected, and scared of the unknown. And it wasn’t just me. It was every cast member of the show." So they launched "Portraits of the Pandemic," an effort to write, reflect, keep in touch, and keep up with everyone's experiences. Love is now curating their stories into an audio play, to premier this fall. In the meantime, here's a taste (scroll down). Drought conditions in NH, VT have worsened. About a fifth of New Hampshire, from the Seacoast west through most of Merrimack County, is in serious drought; Grafton and Sullivan counties are experiencing moderate drought. Northern VT, meanwhile, is listed as "abnormally dry" by the State Drought Monitor at the U of Nebraska; southern VT is in moderate drought. The drought has led to "late fall" water levels on Mascoma Lake, according to an email to Daybreak, leaving some boats stranded.But hey! Good news! You can now go to Costa Rica. The country's pulled back on travel restrictions for residents of NH and VT, as well as ME, CT, NJ, and NY. You'll have to show proof of residency and have a negative Covid test result 48 hours before departure. Oh, and you'll have to quarantine for two weeks after you get back.NH mall owner pivots, explores making room for Amazon. The Simon Property Group, which owns the Mall of New Hampshire, the Mall at Rockingham Park, and the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, has been struggling with what to do as existing tenants fold. The answer: partner with "the nemesis of traditional retailers," as NH Business Review's Michael Kitch puts it, to turn some of that empty space into Amazon warehouse and distribution space, and buy or invest in companies that lease space in its malls. Since 1778, Vermont has put a woman in statewide office all of 11 times. That little tidbit is in Paul Heintz's searching piece in Seven Days looking at the state's, um, halting progress on putting women in positions of political power. He focuses on Emerge Vermont, which helps train Democratic women to run for office; its alums include Senate Majority Leader Becca Balint, who's unopposed in her bid to become president pro tem, and lt. gov. nominee Molly Gray. But there remain plenty of obstacles, from longtime-incumbent men to voter sentiment to the way the press portrays women candidates.And Green Mountain College goes to... the whiskey guy. Raj Peter Bhakta founded Shoreham-based WhistlePig, which distills rye whiskey, and on Tuesday he bought the 155-acre Poultney campus—the college closed last year—for $4.8 million. His plans are a bit murky. His wife told Poultney's economic development director Wednesday that the couple intends to create a sustainable agriculture project involving food and medicine, reports VTDigger.  Bhakta left the distillery last year to create Bhakta Farms, focused on "farm-to-bottle" spirits.Personal hoverboard, personal hovercraft, manned drone... "It goes by many names." Whatever you want to call it, as Jake Laser's neighbors—and his 1.19 million YouTube followers—know he's been using the pandemic to build one in his parents' basement and backyard in Norwich. It's the latest on a "long list of sometimes painful devices that let me fly," says the recent St. Lawrence U grad. In a new video, he details how he made what he calls the hardest thing he's ever built, and then, well, flew it. Not far, but still... Oh: He credits his rolla-bolla and unicycle experience as a kid at the Van Lodostov circus camp down the street with helping him balance on it."2020—the year poor spelling turned deadly." I'll say!

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And here's some flying of a different sort. Tarek Rammo & Kami-Lynne Bruin are Netherlands-based circus artists with, among other things, some serious duo straps skills.

set to French composer Yann Tiersen's equally lyrical "Porz Goret." If you've seen

Amélie

or

Good Bye, Lenin

, you know Tiersen's work. 

Have a fine weekend. See you Monday.

Written and published by Rob Gurwitt         Banner by Tom Haushalter    Poetry editor: Michael Lipson  About Rob                                                    About Tom                             About Michael

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