GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
The Hopkins Center for the Arts is helping sponsor Daybreak this week. Missed the Hop’s star-studded opening weekend? Don’t worry; the arts are back in full swing. The season is filled with world-class performances, from intimate recital hall concerts to groundbreaking dance, jazz, comedy, magic, family programming, resident ensembles and more. Check it all out here!
Showers, possible thunderstorms. As low pressure brings a front through the region this morning, it’ll produce a relatively warm rain to start, with temps in the upper 50s this morning and headed into the low or mid 60s. Widespread rain is likely into mid-afternoon, then there’s a chance of showers the rest of the day and night, with lows dropping into the mid 40s as this system clears out.
About that sponsored block up top. Back in January, 2020, the Hopkins Center became the first organization to run a sponsored post in Daybreak. Ever since then, Upper Valley businesses, churches, nonprofits, performing arts groups, farms, and others have used those posts to keep us abreast of what they’re doing. Today, the Hop ushers in a new feature: a short top-of-newsletter post that’ll run for a week—something sponsors have asked about and readers might find valuable, given (though how could this possibly be?) that not everyone reads Daybreak every day. Thanks for making room for it in your morning!
We are (on the) water. Before dawn on Saturday, a crowd of several hundred began gathering by the fog-laden river at Kendal Riverfront Park in Hanover for a “Sunrise Gathering” featuring performances by Yo-Yo Ma, Mali Obamsawin, Jeremy Dutcher, and others to greet the dawn, part of the Hop’s opening weekend celebration. The audience wasn’t just on land, though…
Here’s the scene on the river before things got going, from Patty Piotrowski
And afterward, as paddlers started heading home, here’s what Doug Donaldson saw from the VT side of the river.
Oh, and hey, while we’re at it: Witches on paddleboards yesterday on Mascoma Lake (via the Upper Valley VT/NH FB group). (Thanks, HHC!)
“Weird” car draws police, bomb squad to Dartmouth. Yesterday morning a bit after 11, reports Eric Francis for Daybreak, witnesses reported seeing a woman pour “caustic-smelling liquid” into a car in the lot behind the college’s main dining hall. Faced with a packed car taped with handwritten messages and leaking what smelled like ammonia, firefighters called in the bomb squad, while police and firefighters “made contact” with the woman, who was taken to DHMC for evaluation. A bomb squad arrived just as dusk was falling, blasted into the car, and metered the air inside for any hazardous materials, finding ammonia and bleach. Eric’s report and photos at the link.
In Fairlee, “trying to squeeze more housing into any possible nook and cranny.” If you’ve followed small-town developer Jonah Richard’s Brick + Mortar posts (here’s the latest), you know that he’s all about pursuing and creating what’s known as infill housing. Now, he’s the subject of a profile by VT Public/VTDigger reporter Carly Berlin, who writes that “Richard’s teams have built nearly 20 homes and are in the planning stages for 45 more in Fairlee alone.” His persistence in the face of red tape and funding challenges has drawn the attention of state leaders. “We need and want a Jonah in every town,” says one. Berlin details Richard’s career and strategies.
Dartmouth rejects feds’ higher education compact. In an email to campus on Saturday, President Sian Beilock notified the college community that Dartmouth will not be signing onto the compact that the Trump administration sent to nine colleges and universities Oct. 1 asking them to agree to a range of policies in exchange for preferential treatment on federal funding. “I do not believe that a compact—with any administration—is the right approach to achieve academic excellence, as it would compromise our academic freedom, our ability to govern ourselves, and the principle that federal research funds should be awarded to the best, most promising ideas,” Beilock wrote. The Dartmouth’s Iris WeaverBell and Jeremiah Rayban report.
“Uncomfortable” texts led to harassment charge against Hartford PD officer. You may remember that last month, VT’s Criminal Justice Council announced it had taken away Lt. Karl Ebbighausen’s state law enforcement certification, alleging he’d “sexually harassed a number of persons” working with the HPD. This weekend, the Valley News’s Lukas Dunford went up with a story based on texts Ebbighausen sent Brieanna-Lyn McKeage, a mental-health worker embedded with the division Ebbighausen oversaw. Those led her to report him (he resigned a week later) and to what she contends was retaliation by the department. Dunford unpacks events.
“No Kings” protest draws 5,000 to WRJ-W. Leb. In all, writes Dunford for the VN, Saturday’s demonstration pulled in about 1,000 people more than a similar protest in June—including “a gaggle of about seven people dressed in inflatable costumes”: a shark, a chicken, a panda, a Tyrannosaurus rex, a lobster, a burger and Godzilla. “There’s nothing more terrifying to authority than people in inflatable suits,” said Lyme’s Michael Hinsley. Dunford talks to people there, alongside photos by Alex Driehaus. In Chester, the VT GOP organized a counter-rally in support of President Trump and his policies. WCAX’s Calvin Cutler checks in with some of the attendees.
As mounting levels of road salt seep into NH’s waterways, officials ponder ways to adjust public expectations. The state’s water bodies and aquifers are getting saltier, reports NH Bulletin’s Molly Rains, “posing a mounting threat to drinking water and wildlife.” Despite some companies’ and municipalities’ voluntary efforts to cut salt use, levels are rising as more roadways and parking lots get built, warmer winters require more salt (“On the coldest winters, we apply the least salt,” says the state’s Ted Diers), and this year’s drought has boosted salt concentrations in water. There are some regulatory proposals, but Diers argues the real challenge is cultural: convincing people that “you can be safe and use less salt.”
VT state senator resigns over chat group, cites receiving “some of the most horrific hate one could imagine.” Sam Douglass, the Orleans County senator who’s been under pressure from Gov. Phil Scott and other VT GOP leaders to step down ever since his participation in a racist group chat among Young Republican leaders became public, announced late Friday that he would do so effective today. “I know that this decision will upset many, and delight others, but in this political climate I must keep my family safe,” he wrote, going on to apologize. “The contents of the article do not reflect me or the values of our state,” he wrote. Seven Days’ Hannah Bassett reports, with Douglass’s full statement at the bottom.
The Monday Jigsaw: WRJ’s Bridge Street in 1927. “We need rain, but be careful what you wish for,” writes the Norwich Historical Society’s Cam Cross to accompany this week’s jigsaw, of Bridge Street in a November, 1927 flood. He’s got a present-day photo of the scene and an image from a 1913 flood that dislodged the covered bridge there on his Curioustorian blog.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from Friday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
Dartmouth’s chemistry department presents “The Hidden Life of Spices”. It’s National Chemistry Week, and they’ll be talking about the science behind spices, writing, “There will be interactive demonstrations, thermite explosion, liquid nitrogen ice cream, and spicy Buldak noodle.” 11 am in Fairchild Tower.
Also at Dartmouth, “Getting Fitted for the Work: Harriet Tubman’s Preparation for a Lifetime of Courageous Action”. This lecture by Harvard history prof. Tiya A. Miles “will reconstruct the early life of abolitionist Harriet Tubman, considering how relationships, religious faith, and environmental knowledge prepared her for a lifetime of bold activism and creative community building.” 4:30 pm, Filene Auditorium.
Patty Griffin and Rickie Lee Jones at the Lebanon Opera House. There’s a (small) handful of seats left for the two legendary musicians, mostly in the balcony. 7:30 pm.
And for today...
Well, sure. Griffin and Jones, though not together…
See you tomorrow.
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