Daybreak Monday 3/8/21

WELCOME TO THE WEEK, UPPER VALLEY!

Sap's gonna flow... Though maybe not today, since it'll only reach the mid-30s and it's been cold in the woods. But with the high pressure that built in last night and warm air wafting in on south winds that start up tonight, we're at the start of a warming trend. Nothing but sun until late in the day, partly cloudy overnight, down to the low 20s.So. Daybreak has reached 10,000 subscribers (that was you, BJ!). Sure feels like a big number. And it's due entirely to you all—last time I promoted it was in 2019. To those of you who've mentioned it on your walks, or forwarded it to friends or family, or peppered your acquaintances with Daybreak items until they gave in and subscribed for themselves: A huge thank you. You're ace marketers! Feel free to keep it up: Just forward a copy to someone you think might like it and point them to the blue "Subscribe to Daybreak" button below.And speaking of colored buttons... Since about two-thirds of you have never seen me do this, it seems like a good time to mention the maroon "Yes, I count on Daybreak" button at the bottom of the "news" section. Daybreak depends on your generosity to keep going. If you can't afford to contribute, please don't fret: I'm really happy to have you as a reader. But if you find that your day or week doesn't feel right without it and you'd like to see it continue to evolve, hit the maroon link or the button below and check out the options. There are plenty. And thanks! Now, on to...Yes, that was a fireball. If you were lucky enough to be out yesterday evening around 5:38 with a view of the northern sky and saw something bright and orange streak across it, NASA says reports have come in from VT, NH, ME, MA, and Canada (including around here). The meteor first appeared "at a height of 52 miles (84 kilometers) above Mount Mansfield State Forest. Moving northeast at 47,000 miles per hour (21 kilometers per second), it traversed 33 miles (53 kilometers) through the upper atmosphere before burning up 33 miles (53 kilometers) above Beach Hill in Orleans County south of Newport."Beginning this morning, Dartmouth will ease restrictions. At least, that was its plan as of Friday, when Provost Joe Helble emailed the campus to say that given declining Covid numbers, in-person classes and undergrads in research laboratories can start up again, and that indoor spaces, including the libraries, will reopen. There's a "but" however: It depends on low new-case numbers and no parties over the weekend. Or as he put it, "no major COVID-19 guideline violations." Guess we'll find out today.Vittles coffee truck taking over Local Buzz space in Bradford. Since May, 2019, Kendall and Travis Gendron's Vittles Espresso & Eatery has been a fixture in the parking lot at Kinney Drugs in town. Now, like a handful of food trucks before them (including JUEL in WRJ and Taco's Tacos>Lalo's in Lebanon), they're settling down. Sarah Copeland-Hanzas, who opened The Local Buzz 11 years ago but now has "another job that keeps me busy,” as she tells the Valley News's John Lippman, meaning her gig chairing the government operations committee in the VT House, is renting them the spot. SPONSORED: Downtown Hanover 128-seat restaurant/bar for lease. This time, the link will work! Includes full build-out for high-volume restaurant, newly refurbished. Across the street from the Hopkins Center and Starbucks Coffee. Generous lease terms and equipment allowance. Free rent until September, when Dartmouth plans full on-campus status. New outdoor dining courtyard. Free customer garage parking next door. Landlord seeks exciting new dining/food concept adding to Upper Valley quality of life. Sponsored by Crotix, LLC (603) 359-3300.Northern Stage to go open-air. At least for part of its season. In her Artful blog, Susan Apel lays out the scrappy theater company's 2021-22 season, which will begin in June in its newly constructed outdoor theater—in space between the Barrette Center and its offices next door—with two shows: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) and Million Dollar Quartet, suspended from last year. Then, in February, it moves indoors with Heisenberg and then Spamalot.Leb, neighboring towns talk over regional social worker. The idea, City Manager Shaun Mulholland tells the VN's Tim Camerato, is to fund someone able to help people find mental health resources or long-term care or nonprofits and state programs that help those in need. The idea's been broached before, but foundered on questions about how to divvy up the costs. Still, says Canaan administrator Mike Sampson, “The need is huge,” and officials in towns including Hartford, Norwich, Enfield, and Hanover are engaged. The move comes as towns look at improving access to social services.What else was around when the Mount Holly Mammoth was alive? Remember the Dartmouth researchers who wrote last week that it's possible mammoths and humans overlapped in this region? Ted Levin got musing about what else might have been around on the tundra and by the inland sea west of the Greens back then: "golden plovers, snow buntings, Lapland longspurs, hoary redpolls, gyrfalcons, and snowy owls, perched on a grass-covered esker, scanning the barren lands. Lynx were moving back. Caribou were already here. And likely musk ox, Arctic fox, and polar bear (on the lakeside of Vermont)."“We don’t want to lose anybody.” That was Joan Holcombe, one of the founders of the Mascoma Lake Skating Association, talking to the VN's Alex Hanson on Saturday at an ice-rescue workshop on Mascoma Lake. The event, organized by the association and led by the Leb and Enfield fire departments, was aimed at teaching the roughly 100 people who showed up how to recognize danger and, if needed get themselves or someone else out of the water. Hanson lays out the basic rules—and talks to Priscilla Geoghegan, one of the women who fell into Canaan Street Lake back in December.Federal watchdog knocks WRJ VA for response to complaints. In a letter to the White House last week, Henry Kerner, a lawyer who leads the federal Office of Special Counsel, said the VA's investigation of allegations of misconduct against anesthesiologist Fima Lenkovsky brought by four female employees fell short. "The reports evince a willingness to resolve issues in favor of the agency, despite significant evidence to the contrary," Kerner writes, "and a reluctance to conduct further review to resolve unanswered and potentially troubling questions.” The AP's Michael Casey has more.Here's a switch... The new Johnson & Johnson vaccine has to be stored above freezing, but it was in the 20s all weekend so volunteers at NH's first mass vaccination clinic at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon resorted to keeping vials next to hand warmers or storing them in their clothing, reports NHPR's Alli Fam. The clinic wraps up today and officials are hoping to have added 11,000 people in all to the vaccinated list by the time it's done.Judge orders Slate Ridge to close permanently. An environmental judge ruled on Friday that Daniel Banyai, the owner of the tactical weapons training facility in Pawlet VT that's been in the news a lot, must dismantle all of the buildings on his property that do not have a zoning permit. The judge also ordered Banyai to pay Pawlet $46,603 in fines—$100 for each of the 466 days since he was first served by the town for violating its permitting regs. This is a policy crunch week for the VT legislature. Friday's the deadline for the House to send its bills to the Senate and vice versa, and VTDigger's Kit Norton and Xander Landen look at what lies ahead as the legislature narrows its options. A state-level Covid relief bill, certainly. Making universal mail-in balloting permanent has a head of steam coming out of the Senate. Probably broadband expansion and a framework for retail marijuana. And legislators are weighing the state's pension crisis, though no firm plans have taken shape yet. The world of Vermont museums is transforming. That's the conclusion Seven Days' Dan Bolles reaches after surveying the museums around the state, battered by a 75 percent drop in attendance—on which many depend for paying the bills. "We're all basically in survival mode," says the Shelburne's director. One bright spot: the science-museum collaboration that the Montshire has struck up with VINS, Fairbanks in St. J, and Burlington's ECHO. "We're now in constant contact with each other to see what opportunities there are for us to work together," says the Montshire's Marcos Stafne.Mountains look different at night. Even well-known, well-loved local ski hills. William Daugherty was out at Whaleback the other night with his drone, capturing the action below. It was so cold out, he notes, that "two iPhones died before we could get a full flight completed."Oh, wait!... Here they are! Just for today, though. Photos will move back to the top tomorrow.

Time to catch up.

News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:

Back in the summer of 2019, Paul McCartney was performing in Vancouver. On the set list was "Blackbird," and just before he went on stage he met a 16-year-old from Cape Breton name Emma Stevens... who, he then told the audience, made him nervous about performing his own classic because the version she'd just posted to YouTube, which had gone viral, "is so beautiful." That version?

It's in Mi'kmaq

, the language that Stevens and other young members of the Eskasoni First Nation have been trying to revive.

(Thanks, DC!)

See you tomorrow.

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