GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Daybreak Break Reminder: After tomorrow, Daybreak will take a step back until Aug. 23 for rest and refurbishing. However, during that time I'll be publishing CoffeeBreak, a quick, just-the-fun-parts version on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. You can learn more and sign up here.Becoming sunny, hot, humid. Today's a slot between two more active weather days, with weak high pressure and fast airflow aloft bringing warm, moist air into the region. We'll start out foggy this morning but get sunny quickly, with temps rising into the high 80s. Upper 60s tonight.Look down!
An answer to the Upper Valley's housing shortage—for very small people? That's what Andrea Macdonald and her friends have been joking as they stumble across the little "fairy houses" that have begun appearing in Mink Brook. "It is so fun to run into something like that and imagine someone is doing it anonymously just for the joy of it," she writes. "Now we are wondering when/where the next one will pop up!"
Meanwhile, of course, you can find plenty of whimsy and beauty just growing out of the ground, too. As in this cabbage Janice Fischel photographed on one of her walks around Hanover.
"He is, and always will be, scum who sexually exploited a minor.” Rose Earl did not mince words yesterday at the sentencing hearing for former Randolph Union co-principal David Barnett. Earl, whose complaint in 2017 helped lead to Barnett's prosecution, spoke during the remote hearing about the betrayal she and her family felt at Barnett's actions, reports the Valley News's Anna Merriman. Barnett was sentenced to 9 months to a year in jail—suspended except for one month—as part of a plea deal that includes 18 months of probation and agreement not to seek future work at a school.Hanover now third municipality in NH to okay community power. What with all the other election results from Tuesday, it was hard to focus on this, but it's a big deal. In essence, community power allows towns to choose where they buy their electricity, and Hanover follows Keene and Harrisville down that road. The state still has to develop the rules that will allow community programs to begin providing electricity supply, Amanda Gokee notes in NH Bulletin, but even so, Town Manager Julia Griffin tells her, "This is going to be a very fun project for the coming year." Leb takes the issue up at a public hearing tonight. SPONSORED: Niles took a fall at the skate park and hurt his hand. Hear more about his visit to the APD Emergency Department in this video. APD is conveniently located just 1.5 miles from exits 18 and 19 off interstate 89 in Lebanon, NH. Our emergency department offers short wait times, friendly staff, and emergency-medicine trained providers. We don’t want you to experience a health emergency, but we are always here if you do. View Niles’ ED video to see for yourself. Sponsored by APD.JAG's back. Or at least, the theater company will be, come next month. Over five successive weekends, Susan Apel notes on Artful, it will present "live theatrical productions: workshops, concerts, burlesques, and staged readings that illuminate Black life and Black aesthetics." The venue? A hill at King Arthur on Route 5 in Norwich. Susan also notes that global consultanting firm Deloitte just featured founder Jarvis Green as the only North American in a new six-profile film series on "resilience." You can find “The Inclusive Storyteller" here.With shows close to sold out, Opera North aims beyond a successful season. “One of the thoughts that we’ve talked about from day one is that we want Blow-Me-Down Farm to be a true park for the arts,” company director Evans Haile tells the VN's Alex Hanson. Its circus-inflected opener, Havana Nights, innovative in-the-round La Bohème, and show of songs from from Andrew Lloyd Webber, Elton John and Paul McCartney, Music of the Knights, are all either sold out or close to it; the company is opening dress rehearsals for the first two, and may be able to expand seating for the last. Charlestown crash: Preliminary FAA report says ultralight hit power line. The only other detail the report adds is that the man killed in Saturday's accident, Paul Harrison, 54, of Ryegate, was a passenger in the single-engine Bailey Dragonfly at Morningside Flight Park; Ilya Rivkin, 47, of Windham, Maine, was the pilot. (Union Leader, paywall)NH undergrad institutions struggle to meet diversity goals. For instance, UNH and other colleges in the state university system, a four-member Granite State News Collaborative team found, have had limited success diversifying despite 20 years of efforts—in part, UNH's chief diversity officer says, because "It’s hard to convince potential future students that UNH is for them if they don’t see anyone that shares their identity while they are here.” Dartmouth has made better progress, the team found, but argues that "Hispanic and Black students are underrepresented" compared to their national college populations.Despite cut in unemployment benefits, NH employers still having trouble hiring workers. It's been a month since Gov. Chris Sununu ended the federal benefit add-on, but there are still a lot of “We’re hiring” signs out there. Unemployment claims have dropped since Sununu announced the move, but the issues are structural, Timmins writes: relatively few younger workers, shortages of affordable child care and housing, and "too few skilled workers for fast-growing fields like health care and manufacturing." Vermont resident? You can take two college classes free to boost your work skills. The offer comes from UVM and CCV through the Upskill Vermont Scholarship program, reports WCAX's Calvin Cutler. There are courses in cybersecurity and digital marketing, artisan cheese and the business of craft beer, graphic design, drone workshops... “If you’re ready to invest in yourself this is the time and this is the year to do it,” says CCV President Joyce Judy. Koffee Kup, Vermont Bread workers to get back pay. In the weeks since Koffee Kup and its subsidiary abruptly closed their doors, creditors have been queueing for a slice of the proceeds of their sale to national baking giant Flowers Foods; the 250 workers at plants in Burlington and Brattleboro seemed to have been sent to the back of the line. But on Tuesday, reports VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor, Chittenden Superior Court Judge Samuel Hoar Jr. ruled they should be paid accrued vacation and sick time "as soon as can be done."Renters in VT earn an average of $14 an hour; they need $23/hour to afford the average two-bedroom rental. That stat's in a new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, writes Seven Days' Anne Wallace Allen. And help isn't arriving soon. The state got $150 million in federal funds to build new homes and rehab existing structures, including mobile homes, but the money will be parceled out over the next two years. And Gov. Phil Scott vetoed the landlord-registration bill, which among other things would have created a $5 million rental rehab fund. Everyone Eats extended, possibly through September. The popular program, which pays restaurants and farmers to produce and prepare food for people who need it, was scheduled to shut down June 30. Now, however, the state has renewed funding for it—though in a press release, the program notes that it "is anticipated to ramp down, with the volume of meals decreasing over the next few months as, hopefully, community food security stabilizes. Meals are still available in all 14 Vermont counties through a variety of distribution channels."Five for five. That's the number of available licenses for medical cannabis dispensaries in VT owned by out-of-state conglomerates. Dispensaries get a head start when the state's retail market debuts next year, and some people in the field worry that "Big Cannabis will control the market in 'buy local' Vermont," writes Chelsea Edgar in Seven Days. But Tim Fair, a lawyer who represents locals in the business, argues that the law limits current dispensary owners to one retail location, "which will prevent any single corporation from monopolizing the market," Edgar writes. She parses the debate."Birdlife at its most vivid, vulnerable, formidable, and playful." Audubon has just posted the top 100 entries for its 2021 photography awards—with not just the photos, but their backstories. It's an astounding array of birds and locations, mostly—but not entirely—in the US and Canada. Sincere apologies about the rest of your day.
And in yesterday's numbers...
NH reported 46 new cases yesterday, bringing it to an official total of 99,840. There were no new deaths, which remain at 1,381 altogether, while 12 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 1). The current active caseload is at 213 (up 13). The state reports 9 active cases in Grafton County (up 1), 3 in Sullivan (no change), and 19 in Merrimack (up 3). In town-by-town numbers reported by the state, Hanover, Canaan, Lebanon, Enfield, Claremont, Newport, and New London have 1-4 each.
VT reported 19 new cases yesterday, bringing it to a total case count of 24,516. Deaths remain at 258, while 4 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 2). Windsor County saw 1 new case and now stands at 1,527 for the pandemic, with 6 over the previous 14 days, while Orange County had no new cases and remains at 825 cumulatively and 3 over the past two weeks.
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This afternoon at 4, AVA Gallery will host photographer Jon Gilbert Fox for an online artist talk, "The Camera as Appendage." It's in connection with his exhibition at the gallery of compositions in red, white, and blue. "I have photographed the Red White and Blue as it was being honored, as well at times of desecration, and found it a powerful subject, even at its subtlest," he writes in his artist notes. "Despite that old adage that 'these colors don’t run,' I have found that red, white, and blue tones have bled into our daily lives and our surroundings."
At 6 pm this evening and tomorrow (and at 2 pm on Saturday), the Hop presents the LA-based urban-Latin CONTRA-TIEMPO dance troupe performing joyUS justUS outdoors, at Dartmouth's BEMA. For over 15 years, the company has blended salsa, Afro-Cuban, hip hop, and contemporary dance with with text and original music to explore big political and social themes—in this case the role of joy as an act of resistance.
At 6:30, NH Humanities and the Gilford Public Library present an online lecture, "Harnessing History: On the Trail of New Hampshire's State Dog, the Chinook." Bob Cottrell, curator of the history room at the Conway Public Library, will look at how dog sledding developed in NH and how the Chinook—bred in the early 1900s in Wonalancet NH by polar explorer Arthur Treadwell Walden—played a key role.
At 7, it's the second of this month's Canaan Meetinghouse Readings, with poet Cleopatra Mathis reading from her latest collection, After the Body: Poems New and Selected, and novelist Sue Miller (The Good Mother) reading from her latest, Monogamy. In addition, Mathis and fellow-poet Matthew Olzmann will join forces to pay tribute to poet and longtime Dartmouth writing teacher Gary Lenhart, who died in March.
And also at 7 but online, Gibson's in Concord hosts veteran Boston sports journalist Leigh Montville, reading from and talking about his new book, Tall Men, Short Shorts: The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and a Very Young Sports Reporter. Those were the finals that the talent-heavy Lakers—with Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, and Jerry West—were favored to win over Bill Russell and the aging Celtics but, over seven incredibly hard-fought games, didn't.
There can't be that many musicians who can pull off a full-blown, two-hour concert at the age of 75...then setting off on an 18-city tour. But that's what Joan Baez did in 2016 at New York's Beacon Theater, with an all-star lineup (Mavis Staples, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Paul Simon, Damien Rice, Nano Stern). It was not a 100 percent success. "A particularly embarrassing casualty was David Crosby, who was so confused he seemed barely present during his chaotic duet with Ms. Baez on the Beatles’ 'Blackbird,'" the NYT later wrote. But it did have its moments, as when Baez and Jackson Browne joined up for Browne's "Before the Deluge."
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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