GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Showers likely this morning, way warmer. Like, it's going to be getting comfortably into the 50s today. First we get the leftovers from last night's weather, though any bits of rain should clear out by around mid-day. Then as the warm front that came in last night really settles in, temps keep climbing until late afternoon. There's a cold front behind it, which you'll hear as it gets gusty toward morning, though temps will only drop to around 40.Now that was a beautiful sunrise! If you were up early enough yesterday morning and looked eastward, you know this already. Here are some views:
From Brownsville, looking toward Claremont (that's the shoulder of Mt. Ascutney there on the right), from Alan Keiller;
From Norwich a dramatically red sky, by Nick Krembs...
...which stretched at least as far as Springfield, VT, from Kelly Stettner.
Hartford pulls U-turn, enacts mask mandate. At its meeting Tuesday night, the selectboard voted 6-1 to reverse course from its 5-2 vote last month against a mandate. It joins Norwich, Thetford, Hanover, and Lebanon in imposing the requirement indoors. At the meeting, vice-chair Joe Major said that feedback on the earlier decision was running "10 to one" in favor of masks, reports the Valley News's Nora Doyle-Burr. The rule excepts children under 2, those whose disabilities make it hard to wear a mask, workplaces where masks create a hazard, and while people are eating or drinking in bars and restaurants.“It’s not just the damage. It goes beyond that.” That's Sgt. Jean-Miguel Bariteau of the Orange County Sheriff's Office talking to the VN's Liz Sauchelli about two drivers who pulled doughnuts in the snow at the Vermont Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Randolph. They did not damage any markers in the incident—actually, two incidents, since they did it early in the morning of Nov. 30, then returned that night and did it again—but did tear up the cemetery's grounds. Police are asking anyone with information to call 802-685-4875.SPONSORED: Sleeve Up, Upper Valley! It is critical to get as many people as possible vaccinated if we want to see an end to this pandemic. Vaccines help protect our children, loved ones, and community members from COVID-19. Anyone aged 5 and older can request a vaccine appointment at APD. Simply call (603) 442-5612, self-schedule through myD-H, or speak with your care team while you are here. There are locations across NH and VT offering the vaccine and many offer walk-in service without an appointment. Find COVID-19 vaccination sites near you at https://www.vaccines.gov/. Sponsored by APD."As an introverted person who would most like to spend all her time staring at a computer and imagining things, it's an effort to open up." It's fair to say, though, that Shonda Rhimes has figured it out. In an interview for Dartmouth's "Call to Lead" campaign, the multi-award-winning screenwriter, producer, director, and global media CEO talks about her time at Dartmouth—watching opening night of a production by her compatriots in the Black Underground Theater Association, "I knew I would always want to work in the arts"—as well as about leadership and the arts in Americans' lives.Hanover HIgh grad's film makes it to Sundance. God's Country, by 2004 HHS alum Julian Higgins—and co-produced by fellow HHS alum Anthony Ciardelli—stars Thandiwe Newton as a college professor navigating academic power dynamics, racism, and sexism who gets into a confrontation with two hunters trespassing on her property. It will air at the fabled Park City, Utah film festival next month. "'How do you be a good person in a world that feels indifferent and sometimes cruel?’ That’s a question I explore in every movie I’ve made,” Higgins told the VN back in 2015. (Thanks, LK!)Mascoma Lake ice-skating trails will expand this winter. For one thing, organizer Mary Reynolds tells the VN's Seth Tow, they'll be plowing rinks for hockey and figure skating, maintaining a trail up to the end of the lake, and putting in trails on the north side of Shaker Bridge as well as on the south side—an effort to make it easier to deal with winds on the lake. Ben Prime, owner of Nordic Skater in Newbury, NH, who did the plowing last year, will be involved again this year, Tow writes.Those Connecticut drivers... Just after midnight yesterday morning, an NH state trooper in Bow clocked a car with NY plates doing 110 on I-93 north. Turned out the car was stolen. He chased it north a bit, then south after it got off the highway and back on southbound. Troopers deployed "stop sticks," which deflated the car's tires... but the driver kept going, veering onto I-89 north with rapidly flattening tires. On his rims, he got off at Exit 1, and finally turned onto a dead-end road in Concord, where the pursuit came to an end. The 19-year-old driver, from Meriden, CT, was arrested."We watch them die, literally suffocating to death...That constant struggle wears on you, and it beats you down.” Martha Leighton is the chief nursing officer at Elliot Hospital, talking here to NH Bulletin's Annmarie Timmins about unvaccinated patients who don't believe in Covid and refuse to be intubated. Timmins was given access to the ICUs at both Elliot and Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, where staff are going all out and overflow patients are in hallways. Both hospitals are seeing younger, previously healthy unvaccinated patients who are arriving in worse condition than in previous waves.And it's not just Covid patients and their caregivers who are suffering. The surge in both NH and VT has produced plenty of "collateral damage," writes Colin Flanders in Seven Days. "I feel like the sand is falling rapidly through the hourglass," says one patient who was two days away from surgery at APD to relieve painful pressure on her spine when the hospital had to postpone to free up beds. Hundreds of surgeries have been put off around VT, and smaller rural hospitals are desperately trying to keep patients who need specialized care going until a bed frees up at a bigger hospital.Get ready for another VT town meeting year a lot like the last one. Some towns opted to wait until warmer months, when they could hold meetings outdoors; others went to Australian ballots. But the law allowing towns to make those choices was good for one year only. So now, reports Kevin O'Connor in VTDigger, legislators are readying another go-round. They hope to pass it first thing next year, to give towns time to warn meetings by Jan. 30, the deadline if they plan to hold town meeting on Tuesday, March 1.Resettling VT’s Afghan refugees is especially hard right now. The state’s housing crisis is making a difficult situation even more difficult for the families VT has welcomed. As Derek Brouwer writes in Seven Days, many Afghans hoping to build roots in their new communities are having to relocate from one temporary housing arrangement to the next. The resettlement agency says it’s deploying all of its resources to find long-term housing solutions, including through organizations and individual homeowners donating their space. But, says VT refugee office administrator Tracy Dolan, “It is a unique time.”“My two biggest worries were hate crimes and deer ticks.” Rahawa Haile, a single, Black, queer woman, hiked the AT in 2016, and wound up writing about her memorable, often difficult journey for Outside. While she works on a memoir about that summer, Outside editor Elizabeth Hightower Allen checks in with Haile about the ups and downs, from feeling uncomfortable in some small towns to finding an inclusive community of fellow thru-hikers. Haile shares her hopes—”for all people to be safe outdoors”—and how to maintain that personal high after you leave the trail: “It’s work to hold on to that clarity [and] to keep yourself open,” she says.No need to worry about the Norwich police knocking on the door here. Not when a dog's named Gofetch Quantum Leap Frankie. Or Captain Nana Spider-Pig Wolfstein The Second. Also, they're in Wellington, New Zealand. The city council there has just posted its list of favorite dog names registered in 2021. Can you even imagine a dog named Nuggie McSchnugglebutt rampaging through a chicken coop (let alone daring to show up at a dog park)? Of course, it is also true that 76 people in Wellington seem to have registered dogs named Ruby this year.
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This evening at 6, Sustainable Woodstock hosts an online presentation by the VT Center for Ecostudies' Julia Pupko on lady beetles (you probably know them as ladybugs). They're in decline, and a dozen of VT’s native lady beetle species haven't been seen in decades—leading VCE to launch the Vermont Lady Beetle Atlas in an effort to learn more about how the state's lady beetle populations are faring. Pupko will talk about that effort and how ordinary people can participate and maybe help find the state's lost lady beetles.
Also at 6, in person, Still North Books & Bar is holding Still North After Dark—with drinks, a discount on books, and starting at 7, jazz by Sunday Table, the quartet of DHMCers who leave all that behind to play (and, in Grace Crummer's case, sing) classics from the American Songbook. Masks required except when actually eating or drinking; Sunday Table will be performing with masks on.
And at 7 pm, in person if you feel like making the drive to Stowe, livestreamed if you don't, Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center presents indie/soul singer (and VPR producer) Myra Flynn in a holiday concert with the Plattsburgh State Gospel Singers, the choir based at SUNY-Plattsburgh. Livestream tix are $10.
If you didn't know that Júníus Meyvant grew up off the south coast of Iceland and that his real name is Unnar Gísli Sigurmundsson, you'd swear he was from somewhere in the mid-South. Of the US, that is. The Icelandic folk-rocker can go full Stax when he's in the mood and his band sometimes veers toward pop, but when he's solo, with just a guitar in hand, the rough edges in his voice give him the soulfulness of a balladeer—
a few years ago.
See you tomorrow.
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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