GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, warm. It's a little hard to get used to, isn't it? But this is our week. Cold to start, rising into the low or mid 70s, gentle breezes, clear skies tonight, down to the upper 30s or low 40s.Get ready for changes on the I-89 bridge. For nearly the last two years, writes Patrick Adrian in the Valley News, the project to repair the heavily traveled bridge over the Connecticut River hasn't inconvenienced drivers. “That is about to change," says NHDOT engineer Jeffrey Potter. Workers next week will start putting up steel for a bridge to carry traffic while the existing structures get repaired, which will lead to nighttime closures northbound, with traffic detoured at Exit 20 then through W. Leb to Hartford. Once the so-called "median bridge" is up, it will carry traffic as each existing span is repaired.Proposed zoning changes in spotlight at Hanover Town Meeting today. In particular, voters will consider a set of 10 proposals, four of them petitioned onto the ballot by Dartmouth students, reports The Dartmouth's Soleil Gaylord. Two change the definition of "family" to allow unrelated residents to live together; a third would remove student residences from review by the zoning board. The town's planning board has urged "No" votes on all three. A fourth article, supported by the board but opposed by some residents, would allow denser development along W. Wheelock. Darren Marcy's VN writeup is here.Springfield, state police investigate shooting. A 50-year-old man was shot in the leg yesterday afternoon, in a neighborhood that's seen three such incidents over the past year, reports WCAX. Local schools and Springfield Hospital were both locked down initially, and though police at first detained several people in the investigation, they released them. As of last night no one was in custody facing charges, and the victim had been sent home from the hospital. "Investigators believe the shooting was not random and involved individuals who are known to one another," the VSP says in its press release.$1,732. That's how much it cost to build Woodstock's Lincoln Covered Bridge in 1877, writes the Boston Globe's Thomas Farragher. The bridge was damaged by a truck towing an excavator in September and has just seen a $90,000 repair job—Douglas fir, rather than the original hemlock, Joe Poston, the senior project manager, tells Farragher. "It’s stronger. It’s more readily available." And, he adds, as the two tour the newly readied bridge, "As long as somebody doesn’t hit it again, it should last for 50 years.’’SPONSORED: Willing Hands Wants You! Yes, you! Are you interested in participating more deeply in the collaborative effort to build food equity in the Upper Valley? Consider applying to join the Willing Hands Board of Directors. We are looking for dedicated, creative, and compassionate people who want to help guide Willing Hands as we work to end hunger and reduce food waste in the Upper Valley. Previous board experience is not required. Sponsored by Willing Hands.With clock ticking, Dems file suit against new Exec Council, state Senate maps. No sooner had Gov. Chris Sununu signed them into law Friday than former House Speaker Terie Norelli, the president of the Dartmouth College Dems, and others asked Hillsborough County Superior Court to block them as "enacted with impermissible partisan intent." Meanwhile, reports NHPR's Josh Rogers, the state Supreme Court is considering the congressional map—and has given legislators until May 26 to resolve an impasse with Sununu or its own special master will release a map. Candidate filing opens June 1.“A playground for artists." That's JAG Productions' Jarvis Green describing JAGFest to Times Argus correspondent Janelle Faignant. The annual chance for playwrights to develop their work will show the staged-reading results this weekend at the Briggs, and this year hosts its first musical: Elizabeth Addison's highly personal Chasing Grace. In addition, travis tate's Your Maximum Potential explores the world of influencers and lifestyle coaches, and Kevin Renn's Padiddle follows the ups and downs of a 15-year friendship. Faignant talks to Addison about her musical and to Green about JAGFest's goals.The northern lights from on high. Or, at least, as high as the summit of Mt. Washington. Early yesterday morning, the staff at the observatory caught a wedge of the aurora on the horizon. If you hit the right arrow, you'll get a labeled version, with the silhouettes of Mts. Clay, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, plus Lancaster and Berlin/Gorham. Oh, and light pollution.Among NH's top 15 towns for bankruptcies per capita: Orford and Rumney. Near the bottom: Unity, Hanover, Wilmot, Springfield. Bob Sanders crunched the numbers on the 5,200 cases filed over the last four years for NH Business Review, and tries to decipher what they tell us. The towns with the highest number of bankruptcy filings per capita lie from the Capital Region to north of the Lakes Region (Franklin ranks first in the state). But why is a much harder question, though there's some correlation with median income. Filings are starting to rise again after a pandemic dip."It's really a neurologic disease." The Monitor's David Brooks sat down with DHMC's Jeffrey Parsonnet, who runs the hospital's "long Covid" clinic, to talk about what's known about the disease. And comes away alarmed. It's hard to diagnose and takes a real toll on both sufferers and their families. In essence, Parsonnet tells him, the organs feeling its effects—often the heart or the lungs—show up fine on tests. "It's the brain telling [the body] to do funny things." And it's tough to treat. "There is no anti-long-COVID drug, because we don’t even know what causes long COVID,” Parsonnet says.CDC study: Fewer than a third of Vermonters have gotten Covid. That's compared to nearly 60 percent of the US population as a whole, and it's one theory for why Vermont is at or near the top of current case rates, writes VTDigger's Erin Petenko—as state health commissioner Mark Levine put it last week, "we continue to be a state with perhaps still the lowest rate of immunity from having had Covid." The CDC study, which used infection-specific antibodies to estimate cases, did find almost double the number of infections as the state had reported during the study timeframe.VT health insurers request double-digit premium increases. BlueCross BlueShield is going for a 12.5 percent increase in 2023, reports VTDigger's Liora Engel-Smith, while MVP has filed for a 16.6 percent increase with the Green Mountain Care Board. "Insurers said the increases would cover what is expected to be a costly year for hospital spending," Engel-Smith writes. The board has yet to consider the requests, but its chair tells her that consumers should expect premium increases."It is a spare-no-expense dream house." Christopher Benfey is a literary scholar at Mt. Holyoke, and he's not talking about his own place; he's talking about Naulakha, the Dummerston VT house Rudyard Kipling built and lived in while he wrote The Jungle Book, Captains Courageous, and other works. In a new episode of Wisconsin Public Radio's To the Best of Our Knowledge, Steve Paulson tours Naulakha with Benfey—and he and co-producer Anne Strainchamps talk to Salman Rushdie about reading Kipling today, which Rushdie recommends precisely because he was an unvarnished imperialist.Not just sap with a bunch of water removed. Boiling sap, explains jack-of-all-trades science explainer George Zaidan, drives caramelization and Maillard reactions—in fact, an entire container ship "stuffed to the brim with chemical reactions"—that produce maple syrup's color and taste. Though in this fantastic little video, in which Zaidan dives deep into the chemistry and technology of syrup-making, he fesses up that we still don't actually understand it all. Thanks to Granite Geek's David Brooks for finding it. Oh, and as for the title? Grade B exists, they just don't call it that anymore. And yes, dang it, it's better.3.3 pounds. That's how much greenhouse gas is produced to create a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, the company estimates. And it wants to cut that number dramatically. So this year, reports Anne Wallace Allen, it's launching "Project Mootopia" to work with 15 of the dairy farms that supply it—seven of them in VT—to study the impact of everything from seaweed-based feed to manure separators and digesters to regenerative practices, then report the results. "We don’t think sustainability should be proprietary," says global sustainability manager Jenna Evans.Ordering fish & chips? You probably won't be getting cod. Cod's the "fish of choice" for the dish, writes the AP's Michael Casey, but state regulators in Maine—one of the chief sources—say fishermen brought just 50,000 pounds to the docks last year, down from 20 million pounds a few decades ago, thanks to overfishing and tight quotas. “We can’t catch cod. The quota is so low that nobody could target cod. Nobody,” one Harpswell fisherman tells Casey.The testimony Yellowstone rangers really don't want to see. Remember the whole Forrest Fenn thing? Wealthy art dealer hides treasure chest somewhere in the West, publishes poem with clues, sets off massive decade-long hunt in which five people die... Yeah, that one. There's a new twist. The guy who found it, Jack Stuef, may be compelled in an upcoming court case to disclose exactly where he found it, writes Peter Frick-Wright in Outside, and Yellowstone's chief ranger has submitted an affidavit saying the location is not "set up to handle the increased foot traffic that revealing [it] might bring."Sometimes there's a reason clickbait works. Puppy. In front of a mirror. Checking out that other pup also waving its paw around...The Tuesday Vordle. Right here. Hot off the presses. And no, unlike Wordle, we didn't have to make a last-minute change to avoid stepping in a political minefield.
And the numbers...
On Friday, Dartmouth reported there had been 208 active cases during the previous 7 days, a drop from the 294 reported a week ago. For the first time, there are as many faculty/staff cases as all students combined: The college said 66 undergrads (-79), 38 grad and professional students (-14), and 104 faculty/staff (+9) had active cases over the previous week.
NH cases are rising,with a 7-day average now of 516 new cases per day versus 451 Thursday. The state reported 603 new cases Friday, 523 Saturday, 497 Sunday, and 267 yesterday, bringing it to 314,533 in all. There was 1 death reported during that time; the total stands at 2,488. Under the state's rubric of counting only people actively being treated for Covid in hospitals, it reports 20 hospitalizations (-5 since Thursday). The NH State Hospital Association reports 107 inpatients with confirmed or suspected cases (-7 since Thursday) and another 37 Covid-recovering patients. Meanwhile, the state reports 283 active cases in Grafton County (-82 since Thursday), 121 in Sullivan (+3), and 364 (+60) in Merrimack. In town-by-town numbers, it says Hanover has 70 (-62); Lebanon 67 (-19); Claremont 36 (-3); Charlestown 31 (+12); Newport 17 (+5); Haverhill 15 (+4); Enfield 14 (-3); Canaan 9 (-5); Grantham 7 (-3); New London 7 (-1); Newbury 6 (+1); Plainfield 5 (-7); Sunapee 5 (-4); and Warren, Orford, Wentworth, Rumney, Lyme, Orange, Grafton, Springfield, Wilmot, Cornish, and Croydon 1-4 each.
VT's case numbers are rising a bit. The state reported 393 cases Friday, 382 Saturday, 273 Sunday, and 174 yesterday, bringing it to 126,937 total and a 7-day daily average of 343, compared to 330 on Thursday. There were 2 deaths during that time; they stand at 644 all told. Hospitalizations are rising again: As of yesterday, 74 people with confirmed cases were hospitalized (+18 since Thursday), with 11 in the ICU (-5). Windsor County added 89 cases since Thursday and 348 over the past two weeks, for 9,531 overall, while Orange County gained 46 since Thursday and 161 in the past two weeks and stands at 4,370 overall.
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This evening at 6, JAG Productions previews what's ahead at this year's JAGfest in a panel conversation at the Top of the Hop. Founder Jarvis Green will sit down with playwrights Elizabeth Addison, Kevin Renn, and travis tate to talk over their sources of inspiration, creative processes—and the plays themselves.
Also at 6 pm, Dartmouth's English and Creative Writing department kicks off a two-day conference celebrating Camille Dungy's 2009 anthology, Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry. It features poetry readings and discussions, starting today with poet and MacArthur Fellow Terrance Hayes and culminating tomorrow at 6 with Dungy herself. In-person at Sanborn Library and livestreamed throughout.
Also at 6 and also online, Northshire Books hosts writer Derek Baxter talking about his new part-history/part-travel-memoir In Pursuit of Jefferson: Traveling through Europe with the Most Perplexing Founding Father. Baxter headed off to Europe to follow in the founder's footsteps after he sought to rebuild from the loss of his wife in 1782 and various other setbacks. Using Jefferson's 1788 book, Hints to Americans Traveling in Europe, Baxter and his family traveled through much of England and western Europe, trying to make sense both of what they saw and of the man whose itinerary they were following.
"Fear and curiosity. Those, to me, became the essentials of being alive.” That's restless traveler, travel influencer, and kayaker/climber/canyoneer Brianna Madia, who grew up in CT, eventually moved to Salt Lake City, and in 2016 lit out for the canyonlands of southern Utah with her boyfriend (now husband) in a rusty old van. At 7 this evening, the Norwich Bookstore hosts Madia in an online conversation with memoirist Steph Jagger to talk about Madia's own new memoir, Nowhere for Very Long.
Finally, also at 7 and also online (unless you feel like driving to Portsmouth), the Music Hall brings bestselling novelist Amor Towles on stage. Towles, who drew praise and attention for his first novel, Rules of Civility, and burst to literary stardom with his second, A Gentleman in Moscow, will read from and talk over his third, The Lincoln Highway, a sprawling and engaging work about a pair of Nebraska brothers—and assorted highly colorful characters—who head off for California to find their mother but wind up, somehow, making their way to New York City. $10 for the livestream.
Why even mention the shabby old days?
This morning I roll free, my thoughts boundless.
Spring wind is joy below my fast horse's hooves
as I race to see all Changan's flowers in just one day.
—
, "After Passing the Highest Imperial Examinations"
See you tomorrow.
The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers and writers who want you to read. this. book. now!
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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