GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Quiet again for most of today. We might even get some glimpses of the sky for a bit around midday. High in the mid-30s. Then, later this afternoon, another fast-moving low barrels through, bringing a chance of some snow and maybe freezing drizzle tonight. It should be done sometime after we've all gone to bed. Lows in the high 20s. Hartford town meeting warrant takes shape with pool proposal, infrastructure. At a public information session last night, residents and town officials discussed a $3.4 million proposal to replace the Sherman Manning Pools with a single pool and bathhouse. “Nobody wanted anything fancy,” Hilde Ojibway, who chaired the Pool Advisory Committee, told the crowd. Also on the warrant: sidewalk repairs and surface parking for South Main Street, and... get ready... the Welcoming Hartford ordinance. (VN)NH bill would require special safari hunting license for Corbin Park. Officially it’s the Blue Mountain Forest Association, but if you've heard of it at all, you know it as Corbin Park, the mysterious private hunting preserve in Croydon. It's something like 24,000 acres, surrounded by a 26-mile fence, where 30 rich people get to go hunt exotic game (or hike the two tallest peaks in Sullivan County: Croydon and Grantham mountains). Now a legislator has introduced a bill requiring a special license to hunt "exotic game including wild boar or elk from a hunting preserve.” It comes up today.Mike Pomeroy, owner of Thetford, W. Fairlee stores, died yesterday. Pomeroy, 52, had been battling leukemia for a decade, and seems to have suffered a heart attack. Active in Thetford community life, he and his wife Mary Dan bought three stores along Route 113 in 2004: the Village Store in Thetford Center, Baker's General Store in Post Mills, and the B&B Cash Market in W. Fairlee. “Mike had dedicated himself to our town for a long time,” says Rep. Jim Masland. “It’s difficult to think of the town without him.” (VN)Norris Cotton researchers find that blocking cell receptor can prevent, even reverse obesity. Researchers in Craig Tomlinson's lab at the cancer center report that when a drug known to block a receptor called AHR, which is found in most cells, was added to a high-fat diet, mice became no fatter than mice fed a low-fat control diet. They then found that the drug also produced weight loss in obese mice with no observable ill effects. Blocking AHR appears to keep genes required for fat storage and synthesis from activating.SPONSORED: DBR in VT: Multimedia musician/activist Daniel Bernard Roumain—AKA DBR—has been visiting Burlington since October, when he played with local artists for 24 hours on Church Street to protest Trump administration immigration policies. It was the first of five residencies in association with the Flynn Center and other arts orgs. Now he introduces himself to the Upper Valley via The Just and the Blind, at the Hop on Thursday. The show examines today's realities for young black men in America through an immersive performance of DBR's music, spoken word, flex dance, and more. Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts.Remember last weekend's temps? Get used to it. Winter warm spells are in our future as the climate changes, NHPR reports. "New England's a warming hotspot,” says UNH research assistant professor Elizabeth Burakowski. “We're seeing warmer winters, we're seeing less snow, and having these events doesn't necessarily bode well for the future."Not to be cynical or anything. Because our legislators in VT and NH would never just propose legislation taken wholesale from some national interest group that's been lobbying them. But what with the legislative season now under way, the Center for Public Integrity (working with USA Today and the Arizona Republic) has put together a handy tool that lets you check in on bills and whether their language is similar to bills introduced in other states. It's still in beta, but it sure does make reporters' lives easier. Play at the link.US Supreme Court decides not to hear Laconia "Free the Nipple" case. The legal maneuvering began back in 2016, when Ginger Pierro was busted for violating Laconia's ordinance banning public nudity for doing yoga topless by the beach. Two other women were arrested a few days later for protesting the arrest—topless. They challenged their convictions, arguing the ban was discriminatory. The state supreme court disagreed, and yesterday, the US court effectively sided with it by refusing to hear the women's appeal.We didn't feel it, but there was an earthquake up north yesterday morning. The 3.3 magnitude quake, at 5:37 am, was centered in Ormstown, Quebec, a bit north of the border with New York State around Chateaugay. Dem race starts taking shape with Zuckerman announcement, Holcombe endorsements. Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman finally made it official yesterday, announcing he's running for governor. Not to be outdone, Rebecca Holcombe released a list of 15 state legislators and former party officials who are backing her candidacy, including Tim Briglin, Jim Masland, Kevin “Coach” Christie, and former party chair Dottie Deans.“I’ll never master this craft. Every trail I build, I look back on and say ‘I already don’t like that,’ or ‘I learned something from that.’” So says mountain-bike trail-builder extraordinaire Tom Lepesqueur, in a singletracks.com profile. Known for trails that flow through the woods as though they were always part of it, Lepesqueur's built trails up and down the Route 100 corridor, including in Stowe, Blueberry Lake, Middlebury, Waterbury, Killington, and his home town of Rochester.Cow video of the week. Or, well, actually, this happened just after the turn of the year, but do cows on the lam ever get old? This was caught by a driver behind a truck pulling a trailer-full of cows in downtown Middlebury just after its doors opened and about a dozen cows lit out for the territory.
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SO, TONIGHT?
Rimmer, who runs the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, has been studying the rare, highly vulnerable songbird for years, documenting the loss of its breeding habitat atop mountains in these parts and following it to its winter grounds on Hispaniola and in Cuba. Tonight, he'll focus on an expedition last March to survey the bird's Cuban mountain habitat and talk about the Bicknell's odds in a fragile environment. 7 pm at the Howe.
Led by Here in the Valley's Jakob Breitbach and Jes Raymond, it's a no-stress chance to go hear (or play) fine music among people who like it rootsy. Starts at 7.
One of the creators of the upcoming
The Just and the Blind
is Drew Dollaz, who pioneered the Brooklyn-born street-dancing form known as flex dancing. Think of it as contortion meets mime meets ballet. It's mesmerizing and a little unsettling (one form of it is called bone-breaking). Dollaz is teaching the basics at 5:30 in the Straus Dance Studio. You'll want sneakers or dance shoes, and clothes you can move around in. RSVP at 603-646-2422.
Don't believe me on the mesmerizing? Here's Drew Dollaz in a
on "My Heart Will Go On."
See you tomorrow.
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