Daybreak Monday 7/27/20

WHAT A PLEASURE TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!

Okay, just hang on another day. It'll be mostly sunny and hot today, temps getting to around 90 with some extremely unhelpful high humidity. A round of showers and potential thunderstorms will move through this afternoon, but won't offer much relief—lows tonight will again be in the 70s. But there's a cold front headed our way tomorrow, bringing temps that seem a bit more human as the week goes on. Some rain may linger tonight.Meanwhile, though... Nice sunrise yesterday morning above Plainfield, eh? William Daugherty (or at least his drone) was up early. Should we do a little catching up?

VT Law School gives muralist 90 days to remove artwork. The large, eight-scene painting, “The Underground Railroad, Vermont and the Fugitive Slave," has hung at VLS since 1993. Students have objected for years to its depiction of Africans and of slaves; on Friday, the school's board of trustees agreed, but amended an earlier recommendation by VLS president Thomas McHenry that the mural be painted over, giving artist Sam Kerson time to remove it. Kerson is not yet sure how he'll proceed.That's some family! The Dartmouth reports that there are 11 bear sows with cubs in and around Hanover this summer, most of them thought to be Mink's daughters. “Bottom line, we can coexist with this great extended family of bears in our region,” says town manager Julia Griffin. “We just need to manage our trash, our recycling, our grills and our bird feeders.”Hartford, Green Mtn. Economic Development Corp launch grant program for small businesses. The effort will give qualifying businesses in Hartford a grant of up to $2,000 from the town's business revolving loan fund to cover rent or mortgage payments, help meet payroll, make Covid-related alterations, and the like. Applications opened on Saturday and will run until 5 pm on Aug. 10. Details at the link.Dartmouth student pursues hunger strike over sexual misconduct allegations. Computer science PhD student Maha Hasan Alshawi launched the strike July 14 to protest the college's handling of her allegation that she was sexually harassed by her supervisor and that the department chair unfairly gave her a “low pass” as a teaching assistant in retaliation for reporting the incident. The college has said it will open an external investigation; Alshawi objects to several of its preconditions, including that she seek medical treatment.Rockefeller Center changes webinar protocols after Zoombombing. The incident took place during a public panel on career development last week, when an intruder posted racist and misogynistic comments in the meeting chatroom. The Center will now bar public-event attendees from using audio or video, and questions for speakers must be submitted in advance. “We thought that we were relatively low risk in light of what we do,” says the Center's Bob Coates. “We were trusting that people would not be so despicable...but they obviously were.” “This is an opportunity for people to do something positive. They want to help.” It's been nearly three weeks since 17-year-old Sierra Longmoore lost control of her car near the Bradford-Newbury line, flipped multiple times, and came to rest against an oak tree. She's been in a coma ever since. The VN's Jim Kenyon looks at the outpouring of support in Bradford and nearby towns, including the “#SierraStrong” yard signs you might have seen up and down Route 5; they sell for $20 apiece, with proceeds going to her family. “We have a lot of thank-yous to give out, and it will never be enough,” says her father."I'm a Latina; I was born a badass." Daniele Fenn, of N. Haverhill, is a nurse at DHMC. She's also one of 50 women—one from each state—featured in InStyle mag's "The Badass 50: Healthcare Workers Who are Saving the Day." Fenn, who's Brazilian, came up with an easy way for her co-workers, using signs with simple phrases, to communicate with Covid patients who don't speak English well. The mag's choice for VT is Gwen Moore, lead CT scan technologist at UVM Medical Center.New NH law tackles campus sexual violence. It began as a bill filed by state Sen. Martha Hennessy of Hanover, then was folded into an omnibus measure signed last week by Gov. Chris Sununu. The result of a statewide and national campus effort, it requires colleges and universities to work with local crisis centers and law enforcement, provide anti-retaliation protection for reporting parties, and appoint a "confidential resource adviser to help survivors understand their options," writes the Concord Monitor's Alyssa Dandrea.School superintendents, principals feel left in the lurch. In an open letter to the school community this weekend, Harwood, VT superintendent Brigid Nease wrote, "Under the guise of local control and the need to respond flexibly to the differences in each district, leaders were told by state officials to basically go figure it out." That's left them mired in the complexities of scheduling and staffing for a fall term that may be remote, or in-person, or a hybrid.  The Free Press's Austin Danforth summarizes Nease's letter and looks at the differing school re-opening approaches around New England.ShiftMeals becomes VT program model. The Skinny Pancake effort to feed laid-off workers and their families has produced nearly 60,000 meals (3,000 of them for the Upper Valley) with support from the Vermont Foodbank and other donors. Now, reports the VN's Nora Doyle-Burr, a state task force is taking a leaf from the program and looking at how to get $5 million of federal CARES Act money to other restaurants to make food for people in need.And for my next trick... Three people were injured in a one-vehicle crash up in Glover, VT yesterday. We'll just let the state police report take it from here: "Investigation revealed the vehicle was traveling north on VT RT 16, just north of Glover Village when it traveled off the traveled portion of the roadway to the right and struck a tree. After striking the tree, the vehicle came to rest in the middle of the roadway... The operator reported he passed out behind the wheel just minutes after trying to see how long he could hold his breath for."The view from other people's windows. So we can't leave the country, or even travel safely to other states. But as the folks behind Window Swap point out, that doesn't mean our eyes have to sit still. "We're here to fill that deep void in our wanderlust hearts by allowing us to look through someone else's window, somewhere in the world, for a while," they write. Just hit the link, and start globe-surfing (or submit your own): Ljubljana, Paris, Tokyo, Santiago, Bangkok, New Zealand... Works better in Chrome and Firefox than Safari.News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:

And let's just keep that all-over-the-world-from-one-place vibe going, okay? Here's the Playing for Change band romping with Miriam Makeba’s "Pata Pata."

It's nice to be back — hope you had a good few weeks. See you tomorrow.

Written and published by Rob Gurwitt         Banner by Tom Haushalter    Poetry editor: Michael Lipson  About Rob                                                    About Tom                             About Michael

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