GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
That sun took forever to come out yesterday, didn't it? But let's take what we can get, because today, though it'll be warmer, will also be getting cloudier, at least later in the day. There's a cold front moving in, and though light showers are going to be spreading west to east, not much if anything is expected to fall in the CT River Valley. Highs today in the mid or upper 50s, winds from the south. Low in the lower 40s.The birds of early April. Over the last couple of weeks, Etna photographer Jim Block has been out and around, from Hanover, Lebanon, and Norwich to New London, Springfield, and Wilmot. His camera has caught bald eagles—including a new nest—as well as wood ducks, hooded and common mergansers, buffleheads (yeah, no, I hadn't heard of them either), mallards, cardinals, hawks, woodcocks, bluebirds... wow, it's hard to keep up.Yeah, those rainbows. Thanks to all of you who sent in photos of Tuesday's rainbows after all the drama was passed. Though Daybreak has a policy of not running pet photos, every few years there's just got to be an exception, and this one is it: Abby, the Payson family's rescue Great Pyrenees in Thetford Center, framed perfectly by a rainbow's arc.Advance Transit, Dartmouth Coach drop mask mandates. Those decisions, of course, come in the wake of federal judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle's ruling blocking the federal mandate on public transportation. In addition to AT and Dartmouth Coach, reports Liz Sauchelli in the Valley News, Cape Air has followed suit. Local school buses follow policies set by the various school superintendents. The ruling, AT director Van Chesnut tells Sauchelli, comes as some relief. "It is very difficult to drive for hours while wearing a mask and our drivers, bless their hearts, they’ve been doing this for two years," he says.Leb considers direct role in expanding housing. “It’s become the No. 1 issue in the Upper Valley,” says City Manager Shaun Mulholland, and today the city council will take up a resolution laying out policies the city should pursue, especially when it comes to affordable and workforce housing, reports the VN's Darren Marcy. Approaches include allowing clusters of cottages and making city-owned land available to developers. "The city doesn’t build housing; we’re not in that business,” city planner David Brooks says. “But we can partner with projects to see them happen.”SPONSORED: Need a booster or vaccine? APD is here to help. While we are all tired of the back and forth of COVID-19, one thing remains the same: vaccines and boosters save lives. Same-day COVID-19 vaccine and booster appointments are often available at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital in Lebanon. You can schedule for yourself through a myD-H account, or call (603) 442-5612. Please note, masks are still required. Sponsored by APD."Punch lines that land with knockout strength [and] sly ripostes that take an extra beat to catch." The cast of Northern Stage's production of Spamalot has a "fine facility for comic rhythm," writes Seven Days theater reviewer Alex Brown—and Carol Dunne's direction "salts in sight gags, luxuriously long takes, rat-a-tat rejoinders and the underlying secret of all comedy: communication between performers." All in all, Brown says, it's an over-the-top production "aimed squarely at those who've spent the pandemic missing dance numbers that fill the stage, silliness served by the bushel and glitter guns."Well, that didn't go as planned. A bill that got bipartisan support in the NH House to do away with the state's embalming requirement and give families the option of natural burials has been reworked by a Senate committee to "clarify" the current embalming law, reports NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee. After lobbying by the state's funeral industry, which was concerned about potential lawsuits over unpreserved bodies, the measure now requires funeral homes to embalm, keep the body refrigerated before viewing, or seal it in a closed casket.Another sentence handed down in VT's EB-5 scandal. This time, a federal judge in Burlington has sentenced William Kelly, a close advisor to former Jay Peak owner Ariel Quiros, to 18 months in prison and three years of supervised release, reports VTDigger's Alan J. Keays. Kelly "took the lead in developing what regulators have termed a 'Ponzi-like' scheme," Keays writes. Jay Peak's former CEO, Bill Stenger, was sentenced last week to 18 months for his role in the scam. Quiros is scheduled for sentencing next week.As VT legislature enters final stretch, guv, lawmakers spar on key measures. The Senate yesterday passed its version of the state's $8.2 billion budget, and next week the House may take up a long-awaited $200 million pension reform plan. Gov. Phil Scott wants to see changes to both, reports VPR's Peter Hirschfeld, and said Tuesday he is "contemplating" vetoing the pension measure if it doesn't give new state employees a defined-contribution option. He also opposes legislators' boost to social service spending and move to axe a $50 million capital investment program he'd proposed in the budget.VT Foodbank to launch "innovation lab" to explore ways to end food insecurity. The $3 million, two-year program will use pilot projects—such as home-delivered meal kits or order-ahead programs for local food shelves—to analyze and then potentially "scale new, systemic, state-wide solutions to food insecurity," the Foodbank says in a press release. “We have a lot of great ideas," the Foodbank's Cassie Lindsay adds. "They bubble up and percolate but sometimes don’t have a place to land on our team—now they will.”This is a big year for climate policy in the VT legislature. But is it enough? That's still an open question, VPR's Abagael Giles tells host Mitch Wertlieb. There's Act 250 reform, changes to current use laws, a new Clean Heat Standard, money for weatherization and easing the way for EVs... But the state also has created targets for cutting emissions drastically by 2050, and if it misses, new regs are in the offing. Despite all the spending, Giles says, "There's some concern that we aren’t really planning for the future, that this welcome one-time money won’t get us to 2050 alone."VT's cannabis free-for-all. Vermont's recreational cannabis market launches in October, and there are a lot of people angling for a slice of what one estimate puts at a $230 million market in a few years, report Derek Brouwer and Sasha Goldstein in Seven Days. Some are cashing in their life savings, emptying their 401Ks, and taking on debt to finance retail stores or edible manufacturing or grow operations. At great risk. "Supply problems, regulatory confusion, laboratory backlogs, licensing delays, insurance and banking hang-ups, and zoning battles all present possible pitfalls," Brouwer and Goldstein write.What a solar eclipse looks like. From Mars. One of the little tricks up the sleeve of NASA's Perseverance rover is a high-def camera with serious zoom capability. Earlier this month, the rover's operators turned the camera on the sun to catch the transit of Phobos, the planet's vaguely potato-shaped moon (which, at 20 km across, is much smaller than ours). The agency put up the results yesterday. Mesmerizing, and over in an all-too-brief 40 seconds."After a big day of screaming I feel lighter and brighter." Of course, Ashley Peldon isn't just any screamer. She does it for a living, doing post-production screams for Hollywood. You've heard her in Paranormal Activity, Scream (of course), and other flicks. "We are like stunt people, doing the hard stuff that could be damaging to an actor’s voice or is out of their range," she says in this "As told to..." in the Guardian. She explains how women's on-screen screams have evolved and other nuances of being a scream artist.Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
This evening at 7, the Lebanon Opera House brings back the Fly Fishing Film Tour—an annual festival of short films from around the world. This year it's fish and anglers from Costa Rica to Australia to Louisiana and elsewhere. LOH will be donating a dollar from each ticket to the Upper Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited.
And at 7:30 pm tonight through Saturday (plus at 3 pm Sunday), the Parish Players present their 2022 Ten-Minute Play Festival at the Eclipse Grange in Thetford. Eight short plays by a mix of playwrights local and otherwise, from a guy trying to cadge a quarter for a laundromat dryer to squirrels tired of the dog in the yard to sex advice for the animal kingdom to a worker who goes to extremes to teach a lunchroom fridge thief a lesson, plus more. Masks, vax or negative test proof.
Also at 7:30 both tonight and tomorrow night, the Hop brings in writer and performance artist george emilio sanchez doing a solo piece, In the Court of the Conqueror. It's the second in a series, "Performing the Constitution," and focuses on the 200-year history of Supreme Court rulings that have chipped away at Native American tribal sovereignty and land rights—as well as on his California upbringing in an Ecuadorian immigrant household with its own prejudices toward indigenous people. In the Bentley Theater.
And at 8 tonight, New London's Flying Goose Pub hosts VT-born-and-raised fiddler Patrick Ross—who, though he's the fifth generation in his family to pick up the fiddle, has also mastered guitar, banjo, mandolin, and cello, and uses them all in his solo concerts.
A bit under two weeks ago, the Oregon Symphony held a 125th anniversary gala. It was hosted by mandolinist Chris Thile and featured, among others, Xavier Foley, a young double bassist and composer who's been making a name for himself as a bass soloist—not something you find often in the music world. Before the concert, Foley and Thile were hanging out backstage...
(which Bach originally wrote for pipe organ and orchestra then repurposed), with Thile taking the well-known melody and Foley the bass line. They blaze.
See you tomorrow.
The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers and writers who want you to read. this. book. now!
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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