GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Daybreak is brought to you this week with help from The Prouty. Join the community where hope starts and cancer ends. Bike, walk, row and more to fuel lifesaving research and care at Dartmouth Cancer Center. Hope starts here. Hope starts with you. Join us July 10–11. Details here.
Sunny, warm. A warm front came through this morning, which is why things got cloudy and maybe even a little rainy where you are, but with high pressure building in the skies are clearing for the rest of the day. In fact, we’ve got a few days of unseasonably warm weather ahead, with highs today getting into the high 70s or low 80s, overnight lows in the lower 60s.
Oh, and hey, while we’re thinking about the skies…. Just over a week ago, the Mount Lemmon Survey in Arizona discovered an asteroid, labeled 2026 JH2, that will pass the Earth later today at about a quarter of the average distance to the moon. The object, measuring between 52 and 114 feet, will shoot by at a distance of 56,628 miles while traveling at 19,417 mph. There’s no danger, but that’s pretty darn close, and Europe’s Virtual Telescope Project will show it live starting at about 3:45 this afternoon (it’ll reach its closest point at about 5:57 pm). It will appear as a sharp dot of light against long streaks of stars, the telescope’s director says.
And still thinking about the skies… The experimental balloon show at the Post Mills Airport drew a crowd of both onlookers and balloonists over the weekend, and Doug Donaldson was there. “It is easy to take human flight for granted, but balloons bring back the magic,” he writes. “And besides, they are so-o-o colorful!” He sends along these photos of…
And one balloonist dropping down to high-five an ecstatic group of kids.
Dog rolls down car window, jumps onto I-91. Last night around 6 pm, the VT State Police say, a Jack Russell Terrier mix named Dallas hit the power window button as the car he was riding in approached the interchange with I-89 in Hartford, rolled down the window, and then escaped. He “was last seen running south in the northbound lanes near mile marker 68,” the Valley News reports. State troopers searched the area but couldn’t find him, and the Royalton Barracks are hoping anyone with information will call 802-234-9933. Dallas has a microchip and responds to his name.
Jury finds Lyme’s Lance Goodrich guilty in 2021 shooting death of his cousin in Orford. As Alex Ebrahimi writes in the VN, prosecutors made a case to a Grafton County that Goodrich had admitted to murdering Brooke Goodrich in text messages, writing that his wife, Melina, was angry at Goodrich and had decided to leave him because “I don’t have a backbone to stand up to anybody in my family”—and that after the shooting, he’d fled to his grandmother’s house in Newport, NH, and barricaded himself inside. Goodrich’s attorney tried to pin the blame on Melina, but after four and a half hours of deliberation Friday afternoon, the jury found Goodrich guilty.
SPONSORED: How is Artificial Intelligence Transforming America? Six lectures. Six Wednesdays. One of the most important conversations of our time. This July and August, the Osher at Dartmouth Summer Lecture Series brings nationally recognized voices on AI to Lebanon and screens worldwide. This year’s series opens with “What Can the Declaration of Independence Teach Us About Artificial Intelligence” with Duke’s own Brinnae Bent on Wednesday, July 8. Join us at Lebanon Opera House or YouTube Livestream. Register per session or save with the full series. Sponsored by Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Dartmouth.
Longtime WISE executive director to step down. Peggy O’Neil, who took over the Lebanon nonprofit in 2003, will leave by the end of the year, WISE announced Friday. Over her time leading the group, which focuses on serving and advocating for victims of sexual and domestic violence, O’Neil has expanded the organization’s infrastructure, reach and programs; she also oversawthe purchase of a building to serve as its program center and two others that have become emergency shelters. WISE had six employees and a $300K budget in 2003; now it employs 20 people, with a yearly budget over $2 million. It serves 23 Upper Valley towns.
SPONSORED: With Memorial Day around the corner, it’s a fantastic time to pick out all your favorite plants for the garden. Crossroad Farm has you covered with a beautiful array of hanging baskets, annual flowers, veggies and herb starts that are ready to be planted. The first field greens are in, along with a widening assortment of other local produce, including asparagus, radishes, and herbs. Open daily from 9am-6pm in Post Mills and Norwich. Sponsored by Crossroad Farm.
Inside NH’s ties to global gift card scam. Todd Bookman’s NHPR story, which went up late last week, starts with a murder outside a Derry warehouse a year ago. The building, he reports, is “one of more than a dozen facilities” in NH where iPhones, iPads, and other Apple devices are transferred after being purchased using money from stolen Apple gift cards. NH, authorities say, “appears to be the epicenter of this global criminal operation for a simple reason: the state’s lack of a sales tax.” It all starts with a gift card that’s stolen from a store, its details recorded, and then inserted back in its packaging so an unsuspecting customer can add money to it. Lots more at the link.
"The more I study bears, the more I realize we'll never really fully understand them”: Inside VT’s effort to get inside black bears’ dens. As you no doubt remember, VT Fish & Wildlife researchers have a multi-year project going to look at what’s driving their reproduction rates—especially as they migrate east toward the Connecticut River, where food sources are more plentiful. Last summer, they put collars on nearly 20 mother bears, then over the winter visited their dens and checked on them and their babies. WPTZ’s Jack Thurston has an in-depth report on the project, with lots of Fish & Wildlife footage of the activity in and around the dens.
The Monday Jigsaw: A painting of Alden Partridge. The painting of the founder of what became Norwich University hangs in the university’s library in Northfield; in the background are the two barracks that used to stand on what is now the Norwich Green. In addition to his place in early American history, writes the Norwich Historical Society’s Cam Cross, Partridge is notable for his remarkable ability to walk—like, from Norwich to Williamstown, MA, where he climbed Mount Greylock then walked home again, 220 miles in four days. More on Cam’s Curioustorian blog.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from Friday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
At the Kilton Library in Lebanon, a tick talk. Lynne Labombard and Josh Hunt, who’ve both had Lyme disease, will talk over tick-borne diseases (including Alpha-Gal and Lyme), how to prevent tick bites, how to remove a tick the right way, and more. 6:30 pm.
And for today...
Scottish singer Karine Polwart and pianist/composer Dave Milligan with “Come Away In”. (Thanks, JM!)
See you tomorrow.
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