WAIT, YOU HAVEN'T LEFT TOWN YET, UPPER VALLEY?
And why would you? It's going to be mostly sunny today, high getting up toward 80. There's a cold front booking it through the region and it might get gusty, and this afternoon there could be clouds and a slight chance of showers up in the northern towns, but mostly it should be beautiful out. Cooler air after the front, but nothing dramatic. There'll be no Daybreak on Monday. I mean, if you can't sleep in on Labor Day, when can you?Crash closes I-89 South in Sharon for much of yesterday. A dump truck hauling firewood broke down around 11 am, came to a stop in the middle of a bridge over the White River above Sharon, and then was hit by a moving van. The southbound lanes weren't reopened until nearly 6 pm. Eric Francis has pics and details. And a small mystery: "On this three mile stretch of road in Sharon in the last two months I think we’ve had four tractor trailer accidents," the town's assistant fire chief tells him. "It makes me wonder why." Norwich looks into "unusual financial activity." It appears to involve electronic transfers from the town's general fund, but everything's murky. Police Chief Jen Frank says it's not known yet whether they're fraudulent or who's behind them. “We believe that we will have quite a bit more information on Tuesday when all the banks are open in all the regions we are trying to reach out to,” she tells the VN. (Sub reqd)The New World Festival is in Randolph this weekend, and the Chandler's looking for volunteers. They need people to help set up and clean up, monitor venues, work in the festival store, sell tickets.... Three hours' labor gets you free admission.King Arthur Flour raises minimum wage to $15/hour. It goes into effect Monday, and will apply to all seasonal, part-time and entry-level full-time employees. The current wage is $12.50, higher than either Vermont's ($10.78) or New Hampshire's ($7.25). The company will be holding a job fair Sept. 7. Separately, the VN points out that MIT's living wage calculator estimates a four-person household in VT needs $25.73/hour to support the family.Most of those pigs in Orange have been captured. That, at least, is what farmer Walter Jeffries tells the AP. But town clerk Angela Eastman says it's not over yet. She spotted 16 in the town right of way yesterday. "Cars are unable to pass, people can’t walk on the road because the pigs chase them,” she says. The town's taking notes and fining Jeffries based on the number of pigs in the right of way. So far the figure's at $81,955.Goats and sheep, on the other hand, are fine upstanding citizens... Leb's going to be using them to chomp down poison ivy at Riverside Community and Civic Memorial parks, Basin Field, and along the Mascoma River Greenway. “We’re not going to have that many out there, but they’re going to be working hard,” the town's rec director says. (VN, sub still reqd)Silver Star story Biden told in Hanover comes under scrutiny. It involved a Navy captain in Afghanistan who'd rappelled down a 60-foot ravine under fire to retrieve the body of a comrade, then resisted when Biden tried to pin the medal on him because his buddy had died. The Washington Post looked into it, and concludes "the former vice president has jumbled elements of at least three actual events into one story of bravery, compassion and regret that never happened.""We in Claremont are desperate, other communities are desperate. This is very, very discouraging. If I sound angry, we are." That was Claremont School Board member Frank Sprague in Concord yesterday pleading with legislators to meet the spending figures they'd committed to in the vetoed state budget. As the hearing got under way, the guv said he's willing to incorporate most increases to school funding sought by Democrats in their budget.Pres. Trump's revival of NH voting fraud allegations unnerves some Republicans in state. He recently dusted off his claim that "thousands and thousands" of people had come to the state "from locations unknown" to vote in the 2016 election. State officials investigated after that election and found no evidence. "We’ve never been in a situation like this, where there’s so much dry kindling across the landscape and we’ve got someone all too willing to light the match,” says former GOP chair Fergus Cullen. You'll be relieved to know that Wendy Auger gets to keep her PB4WEGO license plate. She got special dispensation from the guv himself. Headline writers are going wild with "Live Pee or Die" jokes.This is getting to be a habit: Vice President Mike Pence will be flying into Burlington this morning for a Labor Day weekend visit to VT. He did it last year, too, going to Lake Hortonia in Hubbardton. There will be temporary flight restrictions at BTV around the time of his arrival, in case you have plans up there. And if you notice a bunch of serious-looking men and women with discreet earpieces stationed around the airport...VT arms dealer imported gun used in shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival last month. It may also be tied to the weapon in the El Paso shooting earlier this month. In fact, Seven Days' Paul Heintz reports, "In the more than five decades since Century Arms established a presence in Vermont, its weapons have found their way to Nicaraguan contras, Mexican drug cartels and American mass shooters." State legislators last year let the company continue importing, manufacturing and exporting high-capacity magazines — even though they banned their sale in the state.GMP gets rate hike. The Vermont PUC yesterday approved the utility's request for a 2.9 percent boost, subject to modifications. That's on top of a 5.4 percent hike approved last fall, whose effects were mitigated last year by one-time federal tax cuts. In other words, come fall your bill will be going up by more than 2.9 percent.Dartmouth prof's Bigfoot tweet garners Bradford some attention. Earlier this week, Bradford resident Alexander Chee, a novelist and associate prof at Dartmouth, tweeted out a pic of a notice that went up at the town PO insisting that the year-long closure of the Creamery Bridge over the Waits River has nothing to do with a Sasquatch. "These rumors born of agitated imaginations are to be ignored and disregarded," the note said. Lots of Twitter response, a Seven Days article, an NBC spot, MSN... As for the mystery behind the delay, Chee tweets: "I underestimated the state bureaucracy."If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
OKAY, HOW YOU GOING TO KICK OFF THE WEEKEND?
The abbey is in Bethlehem, CT, and Mother Noella has been a cheese-making Benedictine nun there for decades. PhD in microbiology, Fulbright to study cheese-making in France, subject of the PBS documentary "The Cheese Nun"... No surprise she's giving the keynote for the Dartmouth bio department's symposium on the science and culture of fermentation. Registration is at capacity, but they'll let people in if there are no-shows tonight.
He put his grandfather's refurbished 1937 Leica IIa screw-mount camera into the hands of eight local photographers and gave them two weeks to master it and take pics; the results are now on the walls. Reception runs from 5:30 to 7.
Seems the perfect night to head to Mountain View Farm for a stargazing party hosted by the Upper Valley Land Trust. Astronomer David Russ will have two of his telescopes handy for viewing — these are not, by the way, your typical backyard yeah-let-me-just-set-this-thing-up type of telescope — and will be leading a tour of the night sky. UVLT's providing snacks and drinks. 7:30 to 10:30.
Acoustic Truffle at Salt Hill in Leb, Better Days at Skunk Hollow, jazz guitarist Gary Robinson on the Leb Mall, Jack in the Pulpit at Windsor Station...
On Sunday at 2, Hanover High cellist Justin Zhou and a group of area high school students will be raising funds for the Haven at a concert of Bach, Beethoven, Dvorak, Gershwin, Glinka, Monti, Mozart, Clara Schumann, and Vivaldi. At the Norwich Congregational Church.
Whatever you do, have a fantastic, restful weekend. See you Tuesday.
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