Daybreak Thursday 7/30/20

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Cooling down (though it's all relative)... There's a broad area of low pressure to our north that's slipping our way, and it's responsible for a slight chance of showers in the afternoon. Apart from some fog this morning, though, it'll be a pleasant day—mostly sunny, highs in the mid-80s, not too much humidity. Gentle winds from the west. Down to around 60 tonight.You can find the most colorful things in the woods. Photographer Jim Block and his wife were out hiking last weekend and came on an abandoned building that they'd discovered a few years back, only this time it was covered in graffiti. Clearly, a good number of people with time on their hands have been extremely busy. He also happened to go by one of the most famous pieces of graffiti in the region, "Chicken Farmer" rock in Newbury, NH. That's in there, too.Meanwhile, in Newport, NH... Photographer Travis Paige was mountain-biking in the town forest and spent some time at the two remarkable covered railroad bridges there. The bridges date to 1907 and 1908, and were designed by the Boston & Maine's bridge engineer—who trained at Thayer. These were functional works of art: Check out the view down the interior of the Pier Bridge, which these days carries the Sugar River Trail over the Sugar River. Okay, okay...

So, is NH seeing an uptick? On his Granite Geek blog, the Monitor's David Brooks writes that, thanks to higher numbers over the weekend and on Tuesday (Monday's low figure of 7 was an artifact of testing reports, he believes) his 14-day running average is the highest it's been all month. "So it looks like we have begun moving in the wrong direction, after all," he says. But this was before yesterday's numbers came out, and the more significant deaths and hospitalizations numbers won't tell us much for a few weeks yet.

Dartmouth swim team goggles the Green to protest cuts. Upset by the college's move to cut swimming and diving, along with several other varsity sports, team members placed 853 pairs of swim goggles around the Green yesterday morning. Each represented a child who's gotten a lesson over the last five years from a team member. "It's really important that the school knows that by eliminating the swim team, they have eliminated effectively the Upper Valley's biggest water safety program," junior Susannah Laster told WMUR.Upper Valley goes for pets during pandemic. Local veterinarians and humane societies have been seeing more dog and cat adoptions than usual over the last few months, reports Virginia Dean in the Mountain Times. “During this time of everyone staying at home, they are feeling that this is when they have extra time to devote to a new pet,” says Hanover Vet's Wendy Nelson. The question, of course, is what happens when the pandemic's over. “Time will tell," says the Lucy Mackenzie Humane Society's Jackie Stanley. Shelters "will respond and be there as they have always been.”Midnight-voting farmhouse, Fort at No. 4, buildings in Sunapee and Orford get historic designations. No, the farmhouse is not in Hart's Location or johnny-come-lately Dixville Notch. It's in Millsfield, where artist and town clerk Genevieve Nadig is believed to have held the first midnight vote in 1936 as a way of putting the town on the map. On Tuesday, the state's Division of Historical Resources added it to the register of historic places, along with the fort in Charlestown, Sunapee's Old Abbott Library and the 1898 schoolhouse that now holds Orford's town offices.Acquitted murder-for-hire suspect sues Plainfield and state police. Maurice Temple and his mother, Pauline Chase, were arrested in three years ago "after police said they conspired to pay [police informant Mark] Horne to kill Temple’s ex-wife, Jean Temple," the VN's Anna Merriman writes. The jury acquitted Temple of all charges. Now Temple has sued the town and state officials, charging that he was "entrapped."Regional emissions pact benefits kids' health, study says. In findings published yesterday, a team led by environmental scientist Frederica Perera of Columbia U looked at reductions in airborne pollutants around the Northeast due to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (known as RGGI). They concluded that it helped the region avoid hundreds of cases of childhood asthma, preterm births, and low birth-weight babies, with resulting cost savings of between $191 million and $350 million over those people's lifetimes.NH will remain only New England state not to require masks in public, Sununu says. VT's mask mandate begins Saturday, but on the other side of the river, the guv tells the Laconia Daily Sun he doesn't see a need: People are wearing them voluntarily, many businesses require them, and a state mandate would be unenforceable, he argues. The Sun notes that his comments come as up to 18,000 people, many from out of state, are expected at a NASCAR race in Loudon this weekend (the track just announced masks will be required in common areas) and for Motorcycle Week in Laconia later in August. "I thought your blurb about absentee ballots was a bit discouraging...   we’re actually quite fortunate with how easy it is to vote without health risk in NH." That's Daybreak reader Talia Manning, responding to Tuesday's item about Ethan DeWitt's Concord Monitor piece laying out how to get an absentee ballot in NH. As Talia notes: "Any concern about Covid-19 is a legitimate reason to vote absentee, which is much less restrictive than in years past." Read the whole "Letter to Daybreak" at the link."This is a little bit bigger than a hot oil spill on a Friday night." That's chef Matt Jennings, talking to a team of Seven Days reporters about the impact of the pandemic on restaurants. In an impressively researched, impossible-to-summarize deep dive, they find that owners and workers are trying to figure out how to keep themselves and diners safe, dealing with inventory snafus, figuring out how to work with fewer staff, and, of course, facing heart-stopping drops in revenue...with PPP due to run out in a few months.Task force "revisiting" VT school distancing guideline, may drop it to three feet. It had initially issued guidance to schools to plan for six feet of distance between students, but based on new recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, reports Seven Days' Alison Novak, may cut the distance in half, at least for younger students. The change might affect schools' scheduling plans, and Champlain Valley's superintendent tells Novak that "it is very frustrating to be out this far with a plan and then hear (through the grapevine) that the guidance indeed may change.”VT makes $2 million available for broadband-to-the-home. A new program at the Dept. of Public Service will offer up to $3,000 to help consumers extend telecommunications lines to their homes. The idea is to expand access to broadband during the pandemic. More info and application form at the link. With the VT primary closing in... For his "Vermont Conversation" podcast, veteran journalist David Goodman talks to former education secretary Rebecca Holcombe and Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman about their approaches to the pandemic, school reopening, what distinguishes them, and their visions for Vermont as they face off for the chance to challenge Phil Scott in November. Audio only.“This cow thing, in my opinion, isn’t getting any better.” VT farm trades in 500 cows for 1,500 goats. Staring at low cow's milk prices and stagnating sales, Brian and Steve Jones, fifth-generation dairy farmers in Hyde Park and Johnson, are making the switchover for purely economic reasons. But along the way, they'll be giving a huge boost to the in-state origins of Vermont Creamery's goat cheese; most of its milk comes from Canada. “I really feel that goat’s milk is the way we can stay relevant here,” says Ayers Brook Farm's Miles Hooper, whose goat-farming boosterism helped the Joneses decide to switch.News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:

And now that you're in the mood for some music, let's jump into the day with Gershwin... though not quite like you've heard him before. Here's pretty-much-everything-musical phenom Jacob Collier (14 of him, actually)

(Thanks, DM!)

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