Daybreak Monday 10/5/20

WELCOME TO THE WEEK, UPPER VALLEY!

Some fog and cloudiness early, then partly to mostly sunny. Highs getting into the mid-60s. Winds from the south this afternoon, temps down into the mid-40s overnight, with some high pressure passing through."It's about the size of a good-sized pineapple...but wider, of course." Remember Friday's link to Ted Levin's post about the bald-faced wasp's nest he saw two crows dismantling? Fran Brokaw has one outside her house, still intact...and extremely impressive.Town-by-town election info for the Upper Valley. The election is four weeks from tomorrow, but in NH and VT absentee ballots are out and already starting to be returned. So Daybreak's pulled together some things you should know: A general info page that in turn takes you to two separate pages, one for NH, the other for VT, with town-by-town details on whether they have dropboxes and how to deal with absentee ballots, voting location and hours, contact info for town clerks, and other stuff clerks want you to keep in mind.Lebanon man struck, killed by Amtrak train in Maine. Just before midnight Saturday, William Grizzaffi, 52, was walking with his wife and a friend from downtown Old Orchard Beach back to a local motel. He stopped on railroad tracks a couple of blocks in from the beach as an Amtrak train was approaching and was hit as he tried to move off the tracks. Police said in a news release yesterday that they believe alcohol was a factor; town and railroad police are investigating.Dartmouth TB vaccine moves a step closer to being ready. Though Covid is catching up, tuberculosis remains the world's most deadly infectious disease (1.5 million deaths per year compared to 1 million to date from Covid-19). A multi-university team led by Geisel's Ford von Reyn has just finished up a three-year Phase 2 trial in Tanzania of its DAR-901 vaccine, which demonstrated that it may protect people who are infected with TB from actually developing the disease itself. That theory will now get tested in a final stage of trials."It has everything an orchid could possibly want to be happy for the rest of its life!" That's Alan Brout, who'll be celebrating his 70th Dartmouth reunion next year, talking about the greenhouses atop the life sciences center on campus. If you've ever been up there, you know that two of its rooms feature a 1,500-orchid collection first donated by Brout in 1996 after he and his wife moved to a condo and, for some reason, it didn't have room for over 1,000 plants. The Dartmouth's Soleil Gaylord talks to him about how he got started and where the orchids come from.Who are those masked families out on the roads? In case you're wondering, the CHaD Hero kicked off yesterday for its two-week, virtual 2020 version. Instead of thousands of people massing on the Dartmouth Green, people in 22 states are taking to their own roads and trails for the annual fundraiser. It lasts until Oct. 18.No, last week's rain didn't really improve the well situation. Though concern about wildfires has abated somewhat, the Monitor's David Brooks notes that for those on private wells, conserving water still matters. The problem is winter's approach. "Once the ground freezes, rain and melting snow have difficulty soaking into the soil and getting down to aquifers," he writes. "Wells may not get recharged until early spring because that moisture will stay above ground."VT to commission Statehouse portrait of nation's first Black lawmaker. His name was Alexander Twilight. Born in Corinth in 1795, he graduated from Middlebury in 1823 and in 1836 was elected to the state House. The portrait is part of an effort to bring marginalized people "into the artwork" on the Statehouse walls, writes VTDigger's Ellie French. David Schutz, Vermont's state curator, had planned to spend the next year raising the $30,000 needed for the painting, but the National Life Group recently stepped up with the full amount. "Hike-ity Hike Hike" looms, but at least "Humuhumunukunukuapuaa" is out. In the annals of Upper Valley bravery, Kaitie Eddington surely deserves a spot. She's the program manager for the Upper Valley Trails Alliance, and she has no middle name. As a fundraiser for the UVTA, she's letting the public choose one for her. For $10, you get to vote for your favorite, and each week the two with the fewest votes drop off the list. There are six left: Marie, Danger, Passport, Hike-ity Hike Hike, Peach!, and Lark. Voting ends Oct. 31. (VN)

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You know, let's just swing into the week. Back in 1962, Ella Fitzgerald did a concert in Berlin. She was in her mid-40s, at the height of her powers, singing to an enraptured crowd there for the third time in as many years. The recording of that performance, however, was lost... until early this year, when one of her former drummers and a Verve exec were digging through a newly discovered box of tapes and found, well, gold. Verve released the album on Friday.

See you tomorrow.

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