GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Still some storm remnants around. Just for this morning, though, as various weather-producers exit off to the east. Chance of snow through the morning, though we may also see some sun for a bit, highs today only around 40. Decent winds from the northwest, with gusts up to around 30 mph. Low 30s/high 20s tonight. That fox family. Remember the fox photo in Elise Tillighast's Northern Woodlands post the other day? Well, Thetford's Tig Tillinghast, who took it, got a whole series of remarkable pics. Anthea Lavallee, who directs the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation, had come upon a fox and her kits and let Tig know about them; he planted some remote cameras to get a sense of how they moved about, and then, he writes, "I visited with a big lens to get these shots at just the right time because Anthea knew just when would be perfect." Med students protest cheating expulsions, sanctions. About 60 Geisel students gathered in yesterday's rain, the Valley News's Nora Doyle-Burr reports, to take issue with what they called an "isolating, alienating" investigation into allegations that 17 students had accessed course materials during exams. Dartmouth's Diana Lawrence would tell Doyle-Burr only that 10 "notifications of a decision" went out this week, “including multiple cases in which students admitted to the conduct in question”; students say three people have been expelled, while seven more face lesser sanctions.How do you divert tourists hell-bent on getting up to Waterbury or Stowe? Get them on an e-bike and show them the "many hidden gems of our region." That, writes Li Shen in Sidenote, is part of the thinking behind Vermont Bike & Brew, the business Thetford's Jonas Cole runs on Academy Road in the house he grew up in. Shen looks at how the business did during the pandemic (stronger sales and rentals than expected, but a shortage of actual e-bikes, most of which are made in China and Taiwan), and at the obstacles to their wider "lifestyle" use in these parts.SPONSORED: In a health emergency, you need to be seen as quickly as possible by highly trained medical professionals. Our hospital is located just 1.5 miles from exits 18 and 19 off interstate 89. We offer short wait times to care, friendly staff, and providers trained in emergency medicine. The same emergency physicians who provide care at APD also provide care at DHMC. We don’t want you to experience an emergency, but we are always here for you when you do! Sponsored by APD."Embracing the Zoom town." On his Bricks & Mortar blog, Fairlee developer Jonah Richard writes about the potential for small-town revitalization as remote work grows. People are already moving here, he writes: "Even now, a beat-up lake house gutted down to the studs in my town asking $600,000 just went under contract in less than a week. It’s like a feeding frenzy from Jaws but with thousands of Bruces." To make it last, though, he argues that towns need to focus on making themselves attractive to individuals, especially through faster internet and opportunities for social activity and networking."Winter weather whiplash." Get used to it. At least, that's what Alix Contosta, a UNH researcher, tells NHPR's Rick Ganley. There's evidence, she says, that the winter swings between frozen and thawed that we've been seeing are getting wider and more common as the world warms. She's also looking at whether the soil, paradoxically, is getting colder in winter, with less snow on top to insulate it, which may kill roots and disrupt soil structure. And freeze-thaw cycles can ruin roads, winter recreation, and lots of other things we've been taking for granted, she says.Hannaford announces it's keeping food waste from all 183 stores in the region away from landfills. It's the first large grocery chain in New England to do so, writes David Brooks in the Concord Monitor. The breakthrough comes from a partnership with a Maine company that can separate food from its containers, which it then turns into biofuel. “We couldn’t afford to pay people to scoop yogurt out of yogurt cups...to take food out of their containers,” says Hannaford's sustainability director. Still-edible food goes to food pantries."All of a sudden, it was like: ‘Here’s the guidance and the mandate, and do it in two weeks.’ So it’s a little discouraging, as educators." Monday was the day that schools and school districts in NH were supposed to return to five-day, in-person classes, per Gov. Chris Sununu's order. Most have done it, some have gotten waivers, and at least one is ignoring it, reports NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt. Most schools had planned to return in early May anyway; the earlier deadline, says the head of the state school administrators' association, "created a little bit of mayhem where probably it didn’t need to."VT to open vaccines to part-time residents April 29, including out-of-state college students. The move will come 10 days after NH opened vaccine registration to everyone over 16, including people who live out of state. In VT's case, the health department announced yesterday, the date rests on vaccine availability from the feds, and could be moved up if the Johnson & Johnson vaccine becomes available again. VT legislators balk at Scott administration plan to exempt some Covid relief projects from Act 250. The administration's hope is to speed up construction of affordable housing and other projects funded by the federal American Rescue plan in downtowns, village centers, and nearby neighborhoods. But the idea got a cool reception at the House Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday. "We just have the potential here to lose a lot of what makes Vermont Vermont if we’re not careful here,” Middlebury Democrat Amy Sheldon tells VTDigger's James Finn.VT gets national attention for Covid-safety precautions in prisons...and for the toll they've taken. The state is the only one in the country, report Danya Issawi and Derek Norman in the NYT, to have no inmates die from Covid-19. But what it took was isolating some prisoners in their cells for all but 10 minutes a day. There's been at least one suicide and another attempt among incoming prisoners in 14-day quarantine, and inmates say that "existing mental health issues have been aggravated both by isolation and by the lack of regular mental health services," Issawi and Norman write."When do we start saying, 'We're overwhelmed and there's just too many things'?" That's Tony D'Amato, who directs UVM's forestry program, talking to Seven Days' Margaret Grayson for her intriguing in-depth look at four native VT tree species—ash, American chestnut, red pine, and sugar maples—and the threats they face. Fungi, insects, diseases, and a changing climate are all challenging the region's forests. As Vermonters respond, D'Amato says, it's been manageable so far, but "add seven more beetles and 10 more invasive plants, and then that might be a pretty tough scenario."Life in VT: Notch road opens, closes, opens, closes... The state highway through Smuggler's Notch was closed yesterday, WCAX reports, so that crews could focus on plowing without worrying about cars or trucks going off the winding road. It reopened for the season on April 13...but then promptly closed again for the last storm, then reopened. Then came yesterday's snow. Anyone up for a pool on how many more times this happens?The milkshake shakedown. Every once in a while, a story comes along that you can't imagine would be interesting but suddenly there you are, finishing it. In Wired, Andy Greenberg dives deep into the highly engineered, expensive, and extremely temperamental milkshake machines that McDonald's makes its franchisees buy and maintain, but won't let them fix—and the pair of renegades who hacked the machines to make them easier for franchisees to fix. And, naturally, set off a clandestine "cold war" with McDonald's and Taylor, the company that makes the machines.So... what does a spider web sound like? At a press conference last week describing the work he and a team of MIT scientists have been carrying on for several years, materials engineer Markus Buehler pointed out, "The spider lives in an environment of vibrating strings. They don't see very well, so they sense their world through vibrations, which have different frequencies." The team has mapped those frequencies to different notes, and a few years ago, with an artist named Tomas Saraceno, created a harp-like instrument based on the web of a Cyrtophora citricola spider. Here's what it sounds like.
And the numbers...
NH reported 362 new cases yesterday for a cumulative total of 92,391; the state's seven-day weekly average has decreased 20 percent over the week before. There were 2 new deaths, bringing the total to 1,273, while 124 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 5). The current active caseload stands at 3,090 (down 69). The state reports 203 active cases in Grafton County (up 16), 64 in Sullivan (up 4), and 261 in Merrimack (down 5). In town-by-town numbers, the state says Claremont has 26 active cases (up 2), Haverhill has 17 (down 3), Newport has 13 (down 1), Lebanon has 9 (no change), Hanover has 8 (down 1), Sunapee has 8 (no change), Charlestown has 6 (no change), Enfield has 5 (no change), and Piermont has 5 (no change). Orford, Lyme, Dorchester, Canaan, Orange, Grafton, Plainfield, Grantham, Springfield, Newbury, and Croydon have 1-4 each. Wentworth and Rumney are off the list.
VT reported 73 new cases yesterday, bringing it toa total case count of 22,238 (up 126 over the last two days). There was 1 new death, which now number 243, while 27 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 1). Windsor County has gained 3 new cases and stands at 1,288 for the pandemic, with 64 over the past 14 days, while Orange County added 7 new cases and is at 694 cumulatively, with 116 cases in the past 14 days.
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Today at 1, Caldecott award-winning author and illustrator Jason Chin—who grew up in Lyme and went to Hanover High, and whose mother was a longtime art teacher at Oxbow Union High—will lead an Earth Day story hour and draw-along on illustrating nature. It's presented by VTDigger and the Children's Literacy Foundation, and while there's no charge, every donation you make in any amount (to VTDigger) will generate a book donation to CLiF to be given to a child in Vermont.
Starting at 5 pm, Pentangle Arts and Sustainable Woodstock host renowned author and environmental activist Frances Moore Lappé with a talk, "Climate Crisis in Focus: Finding Hope Through Democratic Action," followed by a Q&A. She'll talk about the opportunity for change presented by overlapping political, economic, and climate crises. No charge, but you'll need to register and you can donate to Pentangle and Sustainable Woodstock.
At 6 pm, the Dartmouth Political Union presents Abigail Hing Wen, who is "data platforms tech evangelist" for Intel and an expert on the ethics of artificial intelligence. Among other things, she'll be talking about AI-powered information bubbles, AI regulation under the Biden administration, and gender discrimination in the tech industry.
This evening at 6:30, the Hartland Public Library hosts a Vermont Humanities talk on mindfulness with William Edelglass, who teaches philosophy at Emerson College and is director of studies at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. He'll trace the history of various forms of mindfulness from multiple traditions, and look at how it appears in Western institutions.
At 7 pm, Woodstock's Norman Williams Public Library hosts local poets Cleopatra Mathis and Ewa Chrusciel. Mathis, who teaches writing at Dartmouth, will read from her book, After the Body; Chrusciel, who teaches at Colby-Sawyer, will read from her book, Of Annunciations.
And at 8 pm, the Hop presents DeLesslin George-Warren, an artist, activist, and educator in the Catawba Nation (centered in the Carolinas). He'll be premiering his work Manu, a blend of lecture and opera about the Catawba past, present, and future. No charge.
A year ago, several major watersheds to the west, the Hudson River Valley-based rock/folk group The Mammals released a jaunty Earth Day crowdsourced video of their song "East Side West Side." Written by band mainstay Ruth Ungar (yes, Jay's daughter), it is not about NYC (or Cleveland, or LA, or any other east-west city), but a "shore to shinin' shore" tribute to finding common ground. And, yeah, to dancing around wherever you happen to be at the moment. (Thanks, KK!)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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