Daybreak Thursday 6/3/21

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Well, you knew it couldn't last. There's low pressure moving around off to our west, and various fronts associated with it will bring us a mostly cloudy day with a chance of rain this afternoon rising to a likelihood tonight. There's also a slight chance of thunderstorms this afternoon and evening. Temps will get into the mid 70s, and only drop into the lower 60s tonight. Winds from the south.A natural camera obscura. Maybe you know about this? Turns out that the little gaps between the leaves of a tree can essentially act as pinhole cameras, projecting images of a light source—like, for instance, a solar eclipse—onto the surface below. On a stroll through Lebanon recently, Mike Tegart found the same principle at work under a streetlight. "I did nothing except point my camera at the ground," he writes. "The grass and sidewalk were covered in square images." Which makes for a slightly eerie photo.Sharon Academy lands $1.9 million federal loan to expand. The money, which comes from the USDA's Rural Development program, will go to replacing the high school's signature yurts with a 5,000 square-foot science and arts wing including two large laboratories, a makerspace, and darkroom. The school will also expand its parking lot with EV chargers and create a commercial kitchen to support local food production."Bonnie" re-arrested for violating conditions of release. Yesterday evening, a VT state trooper and Orange County deputy went to Amanda Conant's mom's home in Randolph, where Conant was under house arrest after her arraignment Tuesday on burglary and larceny charges in connection with a crime spree throughout various Orange and Windsor county towns. Conant wasn't there. According to a VSP press release, the officers found out she'd gotten a ride to a different house in Randolph, where they again took her into custody. She's now in the state prison in Springfield and will be arraigned again today.SPONSORED: In a health emergency, you need to be seen as quickly as possible by highly trained medical professionals. Friendly staff, short wait times, and trained providers are here at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The same emergency physicians who provide care at APD also provide care at DHMC. We don’t want you to experience a health emergency, but we are always here for you when you do. Sponsored by APD."This is the first building I went into outside of my house." That building is the North Thetford Church, and Jesse White is one of a crew of volunteer bell-ringers who still toll the bell at 7 pm each evening. Long after many churches gave up their daily pandemic bell-ringing in support of essential workers, the parishioners of the United Church of Thetford have kept it up, writes Nick Clark in Sidenote: in support of people who are still getting sick and dying, essential workers, and others. "We're going to keep going as long as we feel we need to," White says. "The pandemic is still raging in places, and people are still being affected."Hartford dives back into parking. At a two-hour public meeting on parking issues in WRJ Tuesday evening, Hartford planner Matt Osborne told selectboard members that the village's revitalization has produced "dramatic increases in evening occupancy, steady increases in midday occupancy. We also saw at or near full occupancy [of parking spots] in the downtown core section." Though voters last year rejected the idea of parking meters, a good bit of the discussion, reports Anna Merriman in the Valley News, revolved around the prospect of bringing them to town. People who've been in temporary homeless shelters are "like different people when they become housed." That, says The Haven's director of shelter and clinical services, Renee Weeks, is because "they feel safe, they feel stable. It’s a sense of relief that they can now focus on their health or their substance use.” To mark its 40th anniversary, the organization has launched a series of 40 short essays, which it's posting regularly: profiles of its clients, its work, its volunteers, and its supporters. In the latest, Weeks explains the thinking behind the "Housing First" approach to helping people in need.Heads up: There may be the occasional loud noise up in the sky in southern reaches of the UV this month. Pilots in F-15s from the Air National Guard's 104th Fighter Wing, based at Barnes National Guard Base in Westfield, MA, are going to be doing an average of 12 training runs a day throughout June in an area that starts south of the MA-VT border and extends north to around Perkinsville. They'll be flying between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm.Last coal-fired power plant in New England? It's in NH. Tuesday, the last unit of the Bridgeport Harbor Station in CT to burn coal shut down—due to be replaced by a natural gas plant. That leaves the Merrimack Station in Bow as the last coal-burning plant in the region. It doesn't actually run very often, but its owner, Granite Shore Power, wants to keep it online, reports the Concord Monitor, because it can guarantee electricity production when needed, which earns the company millions in so-called capacity payments.Expanded? Pared back? Clarified? Or just plain confusing? Where "divisive concepts" stands in NH. The measure has drawn plenty of attention as the Senate finalizes its version of the state budget bill, and in NH Bulletin, Ethan DeWitt explains how the measure has morphed since the House passed it. Impossible to summarize, but in essence: it shifts jurisdiction to the state Human Rights Commission; broadens what counts as discrimination; allows public employees to opt out of training if they feel it doesn't adhere to the law; and, opponents say, does nothing to clarify what's actually prohibited. NH Senate votes on budget today. And in some key areas, it differs from the House version. On NHPR, Josh Rogers lays out some of the key differences. Among other things, the Senate strips out a House mandate that state health officials find $50 million in savings—but does not fund 200 positions that were axed by the House plan; sets aside $30 million for a new secure state psychiatric unit; makes it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion after 24 weeks, but does not require service providers to separate abortion and family planning services; removes curbs on governors' emergency powers."The whole thing doesn't feel right." And that's putting it mildly. Residents of Marlboro, VT, are watching in alarm as the former campus of Marlboro College (now part of Emerson, in Boston) gets tussled over by guys with grandiose plans. First it was Seth Andrew, who was arrested in April on federal wire fraud and money laundering charges. Now, reports Seven Days' Derek Brouwer in a look at the whole mess, it's a secretive Canadian would-be cryptocurrency mogul to whom Andrew flipped the property and then, a month later, tried to claim it back. In the wings, depending on the legalities: Marlboro Music.Ravens? Raiders? Rutland controversy not done yet. Though it was supposed to be, after the school board last year voted to retire the school district's "Raiders" mascot and arrowhead logo, then in February chose "Ravens" to replace it. But now the board has a new chair, who's created an ad hoc committee to look into whether Robert's Rules or Order were properly followed and, if not, whether the vote should be invalidated. On VPR, host Mitch Wertlieb talks to Rutland Herald reporter Jim Sabataso about what's going on, and the national attention the issue's drawn.Planning ahead, VT might install first-ever wildlife crossings—for timber rattlesnakes. The problem, writes Kevin McCallum in Seven Days, is that snakes trying to cross Route 22A in Rutland County to reach their feeding ground sometimes like to stop and sun themselves just where truckers headed north from Route 4 are hitting their stride. So Fish & Wildlife has proposed five tunnels under a mile-long stretch of road near West Haven. Construction is still at least five years out, and funding hasn't been secured yet, but officials are optimistic that federal infrastructure money might help."What else do you do when it's 90 degrees?" If you're Brooks Curran, a photographer and skier, the answer's obvious: go skiing anyway. Toward the end of May he headed up to Sugarbush and, despite lots of bare patches, got in a run. Here it is from his point of view. As one commenter asks, "What kind of wax is best for new grass?""I once again completely underestimated my adversary." Remember Rick, Marty, Frank, and Phat Gus? Sure you do! They're the scheming, acrobatic squirrels bent on birdseed that former NASA engineer Mark Rober tried to frustrate last year with an obstacle course in his back yard. Now he and they (or their namesakes) are back, with a new, diabolical set of obstacles that are the only way to get to a Fort Knox (well, Fort Knuts) of walnuts. Same warning as last fall: It's about 20 minutes and, though he does stop to tout a course he leads, don't think you're just going to dip in for a few minutes. (Thanks, NH!)

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Though she studied classical cello when she was growing up in Ontario, after moving to San Francisco Zoë Keating moonlighted with dance troupes, theatre companies, and rock bands while supporting herself working in software. It was just a short step to putting the two together, as she developed her multi-layered, expressive, looped approach while performing late-night improvisations in a warehouse. By the time she moved to Burlington, VT in 2017, Keating had built a dedicated bi-national following that bridges rock, contemporary classical, even jazz.

which she originally wrote for her son while he was still in utero.

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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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