Daybreak Thursday 11/19/20

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Warming trend! Though, you know, everything's relative. And you won't even notice until this afternoon. The wind's going to be coming from the south today and we'll eventually get back to around 40, with clouds and sun. Down to about freezing overnight.The right early morning light will make you pull over every time. At least, if you're a photographer and you've got your camera with you. Headed out for an early hike, Etna photographer Jim Block stopped not once, but twice on his way to Little Mt. Washington (a high point in Grantham) because the burst of color through the trees was so compelling. So, as it happens, were the eventual views. And so was the "Wait For Walk Signal" button some wag has attached to a tree out there.Break-in at Indigo. Sometime early Sunday morning, a burglar or burglars smashed in the window pane in a side door off Main Street in Hanover and let themselves into Indigo, the popular women's clothier. There, according to owner Mia Vogt, they "banged up" the cash register and made off with both cash and a pile of expensive Canada Goose parkas. "It's definitely a wake-up call," says Vogt. "It's a desperate time for everybody." Hanover police have pulled camera footage. They hope to get video "that is more than an unidentifiable blob walking down the street," says Lt. Scott Rathburn. "Then we’ll put those out and see if people can give us a hand."So, yeah, that was a C-130 fuselage drawing gawks at Exit 19 yesterday afternoon. It was being hauled... somewhere, and had tied up traffic in Concord earlier in the day. The Monitor's David Brooks was able to learn a little: According to Greg Heilshorn, the NH National Guard’s public information officer, Brooks writes, "the plane’s serial number indicated that the fuselage was from a C-130...that was built in 1974 and decommissioned last year." Maroon link takes you to a pic and video from the Miracle Mile, but you'll need to be a member of the Upper Valley VT/NH FB group to see it.The Fort, NH attorney general reach settlement over racism allegations. The settlement comes after the AG's Civil Rights Unit filed a discrimination charge in response to allegations that employees at the Lebanon diner—including a supervisor— "repeatedly referred to the business’s only Black employee using racial slurs." The employee eventually quit. The Fort, which denies any wrongdoing, has agreed to annual anti-discrimination training and to report every six months on all complaints and their resolution.Hartford Selectboard changes mind, opts to move forward with pool project. Hang on, because this could get confusing. As you'll remember, back at Town Meeting, voters passed a $3.3 million bond measure to rebuild the Sherman Manning pool. Then, last month, the selectboard voted to bring the bond to a re-vote next year, given concerns about spending money during the pandemic. Then, Tuesday night, it reversed itself, voting 4-1 to get moving on the project. The Valley News's Anna Merriman breaks down the events. Sarah Copeland Hanzas drops bid for VT House speaker. The Bradford Democrat was the first to declare her interest in the post after current speaker Mitzi Johnson appeared to lose her district on Election Day. But Copeland Hanzas has now told her colleagues she sees no point in opposing current majority leader Jill Krowinski, as "many members of the House see her ascendancy to the speakership as a logical next step," writes Seven Days' Paul Heintz. Woodstock's Charlie Kimbell remains in the race, and he and Krowinski intend to compare notes after a recount in Johnson's race is held on Friday.DHMC aims to develop land near Jesse's for workforce housing. The hospital network yesterday announced that it's issued a request for proposals from developers to build up to 400 units just south of the Hanover-Lebanon line. The move comes as the hospital constructs a new patient tower. “We are trying to make sure that as we build the new pavilion and we (add) 300 to 400 employees, we provide housing that will accommodate them," VP of Facilities Management Thomas Goins tells the VN's John Gregg.Organizers seek shift in funds from police to social services; Lebanon debates. The campaign, called Care, Not Cops, has been trying to gather petition signatures, reports NHPR's Daniela Allee; a counter-petition organized by West Leb Feed & Supply's Curt Jacques has 1,200 signatures. Police Chief Richard Mello is sympathetic—he just doesn't want the money coming from the police budget. "They're right on the money as far as society in general, not just the state of New Hampshire,” he tells Allee. “Across the country we need to allocate...more resources to mental health or substance abuse crises.""A dainty, delicate bird. Looks like a piece of loose bark." That's how writer and naturalist Ted Levin describes the brown creeper he watched methodically making its way up a tree the other day, searching crevices for spiders, cocoons, or insect eggs. "Sounds like an errant hearing aid," Levin writes, "high and thin, barely audible...louder than a thought, quieter than a twittering beech leaf." It's an intent, "unorthodox" little bird that likes to keep to itself. Record number of kids await psychiatric care in NH. In a new annual report, Moira O’Neill, director of the Office of the Child Advocate, cites "historic numbers of children awaiting acute psychiatric services" this fall. Early this year, reports NHPR's Sarah Gibson, fewer than 15 people under the age of 18 were on emergency room waiting lists; last month, the daily count shot up to over 30. It's not just the pandemic: NH Hospital closed its children's unit, and its replacement, Hampstead Hospital, does not treat every child.As NH scales back contact tracing, what replaces it is unclear. Ideally, Johns Hopkins researcher Crystal Watkins tells NHPR's Jordyn Haime, statewide mask mandates and restrictions on indoor activities would give the state a chance of staving off "health care system collapse as well as just increased deaths." But so far the state hasn't gone that route. Says DHMC infectious disease doc Michael Calderwood, "This has gotten so far, and the numbers are so high, that we can’t track down every case and every contact, and you just have to assume it’s out there and you have to mitigate your risk.”VT frontline workers will get hazard pay. The deadline for companies such as Home Depot and Target to apply to a state program on behalf of their workers was last night; in recent weeks, they'd faced pressure from outgoing Senate Pres. Tim Ashe and other legislators for not having done so earlier. Finance Commissioner Mike Pieciak says about 35,600 workers will see checks. But they won't include Dollar General workers. The company, Ashe tells Seven Days' Matthew Roy, "has shown absolutely no interest in helping their employees out. They’re screwing them over, plain and simple.” "Some Vermonters started believing in their own magic." That's human services Secretary Mike Smith talking to Seven Days' Colin Flanders about the state's abrupt emergence as a hot spot. Vermont is better prepared now, with better medical supply chains and treatment regimens. Still, hospital staffing is a concern. "We might have all the N95 masks or the disposable gowns we need to equip people, but we might not have enough people to take care of you," says public safety commissioner Michael Schirling. Flanders dives deep into state officials' thinking.Mass surveillance testing effort gets underway in VT schools. By tomorrow, some 25,000 teachers, administrators, custodians, paraprofessionals, and support staff will have been offered tests, reports VTDigger's Lola Duffort. So far, she writes, it's gone off "without a hitch." The idea is to give the state a better handle on the virus's spread, both in schools and in the wider community. “We’ll see where it is now...We’ll see where it is right before Thanksgiving. And we’ll see where it is right after Thanksgiving, and that will be really helpful to us,” says health commissioner Mark Levine."Yeah, just what we need — another task force in Montpelier." That was Phil Scott 10 months ago. Tomorrow, that task force—the 23-member Vermont Climate Council—begins its work, thanks to the legislature's override of Scott's veto. It includes 8 members of the administration and is required by next December to deliver a plan for steep reductions in carbon emissions and preparing VT for climate change. Advocates are hopeful that the state will finally "take the climate crisis seriously," one tells Seven Days. But Scott foe David Zuckerman asks whether his appointees might make the panel "drag its heels."Turtle comes home. In the wee hours yesterday morning, the Berlin NH police department got a call from the local hospital. A little white cat had gotten into the ER and was hunkered down, "happy to be warm"—it was 19 out, with wind and snow. Lt. Hollie Dube set a humane trap, and when she saw the cat, thin and dirty, decided to take it back to the station, where she posted a pic on a lost pets FB group. A Berlin woman responded because she thought it looked like her cat Turtle, who'd been missing for, um, three years. "Turtle started giving her head bumps under her chin and seemed to recognize her," the PD writes."Didn't even get to touch lava." People leave all sorts of online reviews after visiting a national park. That, believe it or not, was one for the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Amber Share, an illustrator and designer, looks for one-star reviews, designs a travel poster in classic retro style memorializing the comment, then posts it to her site, SubparParks, with her own pointed response. "Literally miles of white sand," someone wrote about White Sands National Park. "IDK, I feel like @whitesandsnps was pretty up front about this one," Share responds. She's been busy: There's lots more. 

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In the early 1960s, a constellation of remarkable performers, including Muddy Waters and Sonny Boy Williamson, toured Europe annually as part of the American Folk Blues Festival, drawing crowds and TV audiences (and, at the first British show, which was in Manchester in 1962, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, and Jimmy Page).

from 1965, featuring Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker, Big Walter Horton & Doc Ross.

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