Daybreak Thursday 5/28/20

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Partly sunny, cooler. Though "cooler" is just relative, of course: Temps will still reach the mid-80s. Thanks to some weak disturbances, there's a slight chance of showers tonight, but the main event isn't until tomorrow afternoon. Breezes out of the south today, lows tonight only in the mid-60s. 

Halting progress continues...

Some Hanover restaurants re-open for outdoor dining; others still shut. Boloco, Lou’s, Murphy’s, Pine, and Umpleby’s have all begun seating patrons outside, reports The Dartmouth's Coalter Palmer. But other spots, including Molly's and Market Table, remain completely closed. “Unemployment benefits for some people are more than they were making at the restaurant. So it’s hard to take away those benefits," says Molly's owner Anthony Barnett. He says he also wants to wait until staff members with kids at home "are done with remote learning."Rivendell voters axe budget. The vote, conducted by mail, saw the largest ever "turnout" in a Rivendell election, the VN's Tim Camerato reports. Voters rejected, 484-349, a $12.3 million budget that would have increased spending by nearly 10 percent and maintained staffing levels and programs at the district's schools.You've just graduated from college into the worst economy most people have ever experienced. What do you do? Roya Paydarfar went to Hanover High and then to Northeastern, came home with the pandemic, looked around at the dismal prospects in her field of interactive design, and decided to create something herself. She's turning a project she started in school—connecting older people who need tech tutoring with younger tech intuitives—into a web app and service. In a new Daybreak interview, she talks about how she got to this point and what she hopes to accomplish despite the times.Leb mall to get a new mural. For the moment, at least. Three Tomatoes has opened for outdoor dining under a large tent that runs along the mall, and at the end, to protect diners from the wind, owner Robert Meyers erected two bare wooden panels, which, as AVA Gallery noted in a press release yesterday, "presented an eyesore." So Meyers got in touch with AVA to find artists to decorate them, and starting yesterday, a group of Upper Valley high school students began designing a mural. Susan Apel has more.SPONSORED: They're not just for power outages any more! Thinking about adding a home battery storage system? Battery prices have fallen 80 percent in the last five years—and they qualify for a federal tax credit when connected to a solar array. They give you solar when you want it, solar when it pays the most, and solar for your electric vehicle. In fact, Solaflect Energy has six reasons why it’s time to get connected, and some of them may surprise you. Check out our website. Together, the power is in our hands to make a difference. Sponsored by Solaflect Energy.Suicide Six skull stolen. The S. Pomfret ski area yesterday reported to state police that the Texas Longhorn skull had been taken from the wooden frame on which it was mounted at the summit of the mountain, probably sometime last week. This can't have been easy: "The skull was described as being six feet wide, and weighing approximately 50 lbs," the police report says. VSP is looking for help from the public, tip lines at the link.AT reopens for day and overnight hiking, but not thru-hiking. That's because although most of the trail has been reopened by the Park and Forest services, facilities—including the Appalachian Mountain Club's White Mountain huts and hiker shuttle, and all shelters and tent sites in Maine—remain shuttered. “Day hikers can mitigate exposure,” says Sandra Marra, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's president, “but there is no feasible way thru-hikers can because of the closures.”Dartmouth to apply for half of its federal relief funding. Under the federal CARES Act, the college has been allotted $3.4 million, half of which must be used to provide students with emergency financial aid. At yesterday's online "community conversation," president Phil Hanlon said the college intends to apply for that funding. "Our students have needs like students from every institution,” he said. So far, Cornell has taken money for the same purpose, Harvard, Yale, and Penn have turned it down, and Brown and Columbia are still deciding, The Dartmouth reports.You don't see this every day. At least, not in 30 seconds. VINS's Emily Johnson has created a time-lapse video of spring arriving at the Forest Canopy Walk. It goes from bare trees and a view through multiple sunny and cloudy days to the first tinges of green to nothing but leaves and a few indistinct trunks in front of you. In only a bit longer than it took to read this.Nor this. William Daugherty has a lovely drone still of last night's sunset, taken from Plainfield looking over toward layer upon layer of Vermont mountains. One in five New Hampshirites believe it's likely they have or had Covid. That's according to a joint Geisel/UNH Survey Center poll that was out in the field in early May. Of those who work as first responders, a full 66 percent believe they're likely to have had it. And though only a quarter of the 830 people surveyed want to have a test to see if they currently have the virus, a full 78 percent would like an antibody test to see if they had it in the past. NH suicide hotline calls drop. Lebanon's Headrest, for instance, normally gets about 150 calls a month; there were 110 in April, reports Jordyn Haime for the Granite State News Collaborative. This isn't entirely unexpected, says Ken Norton, director of the state chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. When there's a crisis, "people often kind of pull things together a little bit.” In addition, he says, people in need also face a lack of privacy to make phone calls, are concerned about exposing themselves to Covid, and want to avoid emergency rooms and hospitals."I'm sure, if you polled 180 legislators, they'd all say next year is going to be horrible." That's VT Senate President Tim Ashe in a Seven Days' piece by Tim McCallum noting that, while legislative leaders aren't expecting "a historic exodus," they do say that "a highly uncertain environment is putting tremendous stress on incumbents and potential candidates alike." Several veterans are stepping down; others see the next session as an unparalleled opportunity to make a difference. One big concern: how to campaign.Vermont may allow indoor dining soon. That, at least, was a hint that Gov. Phil Scott dropped at his press conference yesterday, according to VTDigger's Anne Wallace Allen. He did not elaborate. He also said he expects to announce a timetable for gyms and cleaning services on Friday, and that he'll be loosening restrictions on public gatherings. Vermont has a lot of stimulus and relief money to spend, but not much consensus on where it should go. Altogether, the state still has about $1.1 billion to spend, notes Seven Days' Paul Heintz, and a long list of funding requesters, from hospitals to municipalities to brewers to restaurants. And all sorts of needs—think expanding broadband, or replenishing the Education Fund—that have been long-term issues that seem more urgent now. Heintz runs down the various conflicts and demands embroiling Montpelier."They seem to react much better to Caravaggio than to Monet." Earlier this month, three Humboldt penguins from the Kansas City Zoo got to tour the city's closed Nelson-Atkins Museum. The museum's director, Julián Zugazagoitia, had expected them to take to the soothing blues of Monet's "Water Lilies." Turns out they have a taste for the Old Masters. Link takes you to the video.

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Reading Deeper

About a month ago, BBC Radio 1 put together

starring a panoply of to-the-minute musical artists—the guys from Biffy Clyro, Ellie Goulding, Dua Lipa, the Foo Fighters themselves, YUNGBLUD, Jess Glynne, Sigrid, Coldplay's Chris Martin... Scroll down to the comment by David Little, who created a time-stamped cheat sheet for who's playing/singing when. Serious shoutout to the sound engineers who pulled it all together. 

(Thanks, AS!)

See you tomorrow.

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