Daybreak Thursday 11/12/20

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Back to fall. Things are going to dry out behind yesterday's cold front, but temps will also drop. We start out pretty cloudy, but ought to see some blue sky by later in the day, high only in the mid-50s, winds starting from the west but shifting to the north over the course of the day. Down to about freezing tonight.An island in a sea of land: Take two. If you tried to get to Jerry Bergen's lovely drone photo yesterday of the fog over the Jericho section of Hartford, you may have run into a dead link to his site. Here it is again, on the Daybreak Google Photos page. Newport nursing home administrator hopes situation improving. Woodlawn is the site of the biggest Covid outbreak in the Upper Valley, with 35 confirmed cases and two deaths among residents who had the disease. Chris Martin, the facility's administrator, told the Valley News's Nora Doyle-Burr on Tuesday (link is to NHPR version, no paywall) that with no new cases in a couple of days, he's hoping "we're on the other end of the curve." He said a plea for help with staffing has brought in new workers.“Most kids have Sever’s disease for a year or two. Mine just lasted longer than most.” Sever's is pretty common in growing kids: The heel bone grows faster than the leg’s muscles, causing inflammation and, in the case of Leb High's Zach Whitcomb, a triple-sport athlete and center on the football team, hairline fractures in his heels. On his Octopus Athletics blog, Tris Wykes profiles Whitcomb and his determination to keep playing despite the pain as he was growing. It's less now, Wykes writes, but has left its mark. "If I’m where I need to be and I’m not stumbling to get there, I’m fine,” Whitcomb says.

Thayer prof lands $400K grant for space station research. Zi Chen's three-year study will test the effects of buoyancy and gravity "on the growth and shape of brains and hearts in chicks’ early embryonic development, which closely parallels that of humans," writes the Thayer School's Julie Bonette. The research ought to help in understanding some birth defects, body asymmetry, and how the brain develops its shape. “It’s rare to be able to test hypotheses such as ours," says Chen. Ordinarily, “any simulated micro-gravity conditions can only be done for a few seconds if you're lucky."SPONSORED: You voted at the ballot box. Now do it at the junction box. There's still a short window to take advantage of the full 26 percent federal solar energy tax credit for 2020. You won't just save on your energy bill. You'll also be voting for clean energy, energy independence, tackling climate change, and sustainable jobs in our community. Solaflect Energy is still taking orders for 2020, with room for more in 2021. Sponsored by Solaflect Energy.Killington inn goes biodefense in bid to keep visitors safe. "I’m a geek, and I’ve been studying this since we closed in March,” Bill Vines of the Birch Ridge Inn tells the Mountain Times. Now the inn's installed three units made by a Kansas company—the U of Oklahoma and Kansas State are also using them campus-wide—that emit dry hydrogen peroxide particles to reduce bacteria, viruses, and mold in the air. “Even if Covid goes away tomorrow, we’ll continue to use this technology," Vines says. "It provides a healthier living environment to our guests, our staff and to Mary and me—we live here, too!”One effect of VT travel restrictions: more crowded NH ski slopes? Vermont usually has double the number of annual skier visits as New Hampshire, InDepthNH's Paula Tracy writes, and far more skiers and riders coming up from CT and NY. But VT's new restrictions may change that, since NH at the moment requires a two-week quarantine only for visitors from outside New England. Even so, Tracy notes, like their counterparts to the west, most NH resorts are requiring advance ticketing and mask-wearing. Covid isn't a just southern NH problem any more. Though in the first wave it was concentrated in the more densely populated counties in the state's southern tier, WMUR notes, "the virus is [now] spreading at an alarming rate in the state’s most remote locations." Clarksville, up north of Colebrook, has the highest infection rate: 1 active case for every 27 residents; Brookfield, in the Lakes Region, has 1 for every 58 people, and Warner 1 case for every 93. NH residents who travel to NY, CT, NJ, DC, NM, and AK are also now facing two-week quarantine requirements because of the state's rising numbers.Delta pulls out of MHT. The airline stopped flying into and out of Manchester-Boston Regional Airport at the start of the pandemic, but had said it intended to return late this year. It then pushed the date back to 2021, but has now told airport officials that won't happen, either. The carrier is "removing all signage and Delta branding from gates 5 and 6," which it had long used, the Union Leader reports. Though airport manager Ted Kitchens says, "We think there’s still plenty of demand in the market for Delta, and it’s just going to be a matter of time for Delta to fix Delta’s issues," the gates are now available.Vermont to lose its only pharmacy school. The Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Administration announced Tuesday that it plans to end operations on its satellite campus in Colchester next June. “This decision was made because of the challenging prospect of turning around an enrollment that has been in decline since 2012. At this time, we need to focus on strengthening our recruitment efforts for the Albany campus,” said the college's president, Greg Dewey. (Thanks, JG!)Food box program extended; a distribution event every day in VT starting Monday. The federal Farmers to Families program was due to end last month, but has been extended for the rest of the year. Food boxes will be distributed each day at locations around the state, but you'll need to sign up in advance (at the maroon link). There are still a few slots left for Hartford a week from today and for Bethel on Tuesday, Nov. 24. The contract this go-round is with Lancaster Foods, based in Maryland; the VT Foodbank's John Sayles says that while there's no VT produce, the company's been reliable to work with.Amid uncertainty in VT Statehouse, one thing is clear: Becca Balint is likely to be the next Senate president. Seven Days' Paul Heintz says all 23 Democrats in the chamber told him they'll vote for her; even minority leader Joe Benning said he'd be willing to. And she'll be different from her predecessors. "Obviously, I'm a woman," she says. "I'm gay. I was an Army brat. I had family killed in the Holocaust... I'm willing to listen to anyone about anything—and I think that's because I never felt like an insider." Meanwhile, three senators are competing for majority leader, and the House speakership remains unsettled.Republicans appear to have been boosted by VT's mail-in voting, and it may stick around. You'll remember they were suspicious of the move to mail absentee ballots to all active voters. Now they're convinced it helped them. "It gave some of these rural [voters] their ballots on their table and they filled them out," state Sen. Corey Parent tells Seven Days' Kevin McCallum. Legislators will look into whether to make them permanent, and the director of VPIRG hopes they do. "We had 40,000 more people vote in this election than in any other election in history," he says. "How do you then say, 'No, turns out we're going to make it a little bit harder for you next time?'"Slate Ridge locals remain frustrated by state's response. Following up on its reporting about the fear among neighbors of the gunfighting training facility over in West Pawlet, VTDigger delves into their efforts to get a response from the state. Officials from Phil Scott on down say they've looked into allegations of threats and harassment, and that there's an ongoing investigation, but "residents say they’ve heard almost nothing from the agencies they’ve contacted," Digger reports. "Many of the neighbors own firearms themselves, and now rely on each other, instead of police, to respond when they believe a situation will turn dangerous."“Well, I’m carrying a swan. I have no idea what to do. I guess I’m just going to walk.” And cadge a car ride. And then take the swan on the subway, wrapped in an orange coat. That's what Ariel Cordova-Rojas did last week after she took a pre-birthday bike ride to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens and encountered a sick female mute swan. As it happens, Cordova-Rojas spent five years as an animal care manager at the Wild Bird Fund rehab center in Manhattan, so she knew where to take her. Thanks to the can-do-ness of her fellow New Yorkers, she eventually got the swan—and her bike—there.`Got spare cash? Want the only existing snapshot of Neil Armstrong on the moon? It was taken by Buzz Aldrin in 1969, and at the moment bidding for it is up to $21,420 in a Christie's auction of 2,400 vintage snapshots of the age of space exploration. There's also the first selfie in space (Aldrin, 1966, a mere $4K), Ed White's first US spacewalk in 1965, the first human-taken photo of Earthrise from the moon's perspective (bidding starts at $13K), and a whole lot more astronauts, rocket ships, and moonscapes.

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We will meet in the sweet light of dawn... 

Not entirely what you'd expect, if you're a Tull-head: Ian Anderson on acoustic guitar in what looks like a church or inn parlor, backed by string orchestra and baby grand, doing

 B

ut it works! And it seems kinda right just about now. Ignore the notes: They clearly have nothing to do with this.

See you tomorrow.

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