GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Cloudy, a bit warmer. That's because air started flowing into the region from the south yesterday; temps look like they'll hit the mid 30s this afternoon—and we'll only drop into the upper 20s overnight.Well, now, here's a classic winter scene. Taken yesterday morning between Woodstock and Taftsville by Woodstock photographer Monica Darling.David Briggs: Sale of WRJ's core buildings "inevitable." That's what the owner of downtown WRJ's two mainstay buildings—the Coolidge Block, with the Hotel Coolidge and a variety of stores; and the Gates-Briggs Building, home to everything from the Tuckerbox to JAM to Revolution—tells VTDigger's Ethan Weinstein. Last week, he floated a vision of a developer knocking down the current Coolidge Block and replacing it with five stories of commercial space and housing. Whatever happens will likely take years, Weinstein writes, given regulatory hurdles and the fact that no concrete plans for the buildings yet exist.With Chelsea turning to Windsor County sheriff for police coverage, Tunbridge considers it, too. As you may remember, Chelsea—the Orange County seat—has a new contract with Windsor County for policing. Now, WCAX's Adam Sullivan reports, Tunbridge officials are eyeing a similar deal. Windsor deputies have to drive through Tunbridge to get to Chelsea—“We are going to be there both daytime and nighttime,” says Windsor County Sheriff Ryan Palmer—and Tunbridge Selectboard chair Gary Mullen tells Sullivan, "We are not living in a sleepy little town... People complain about the things that are going on in the night." He plans a discussion at Town Meeting.
SPONSORED: Crossroad Farm's CSA is now open for the 2024 season. Sign up now to take advantage of the early 7 percent discount. Farm Shares are available through discounted, pre-purchased credit and can be redeemed at the Norwich farm stand and the farm in Post Mills. Shares don't expire and can be used to purchase everything Crossroad carries, including hanging baskets, vegetable starts, fresh fruits and vegetables, and a wide assortment of products from other local farms. Sponsored by Crossroad Farm.With Act 127 uncertainty, Sharon school board delays vote on bonds for school renovation. Like other towns in the region, Sharon faces a complicated school budgeting year, with the school portion of taxes due to rise as the budget grows and the town's Common Level of Appraisal drops, reflecting the fact that homes in town are selling for more than their assessed values. With the additional complication of Act 127, reports Liz Sauchelli in the Valley News, the school board didn't want a proposed $10 million bond for renovations at Sharon Elementary to get tangled in the budget discussion.Diving into a doorstop of a book. With pleasure. The Norman Williams Public Library's Liza Bernard resisted The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese's new novel, because, at over 700 pages, who wouldn't? She finally cracked it open and, she writes in this week's Enthusiasms, "couldn't put it down." It tells the "engaging and challenging" stories of three generations of a family on India's Malabar Coast, with plenty of twists and turns. Usually, Liza writes, novels benefit from "ruthless" editors. In this case, the length is okay: "I am not sure that it could have been cut much without comprising the story."At Stateline Sports, the passage of time on the walls. Not the stuff you can buy, but what you can see: the photography of Stateline employee Larry Vanier. It used to be confined to the tiny “Stateline Bathroom & Gallery" but now, writes Susan Apel in Artful, Vanier's got new exhibition space on the store's lower level—at least, until mid-February or so, when it'll have to make room for hockey equipment. Meanwhile, though, it's a visual treat: Vanier's photos of Grand Manan, a fishing village on the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, and his equally arresting photos of WRJ and other places around the Upper Valley.SPONSORED: Dartmouth Health adopts robotic-assisted technology to aid in joint replacement surgery. At DHMC and APD, we have some of the most experienced joint surgeons in the region. Our hip and knee specialists perform thousands of replacements every year and are now using robotic-assisted surgical tools and enabling technologies. These technologies can make joint replacement more customized to each patient, shorten recovery times, and make replacement joints feel more ‘natural’ to the patient. Hit the burgundy link or here to learn more. Sponsored by Dartmouth Health.Those NH primary robocalls that faked Joe Biden's voice? They've been traced to an AI startup. ElevenLabs, which lets users generate audio in pretty much any voice and in 29 languages, has specific policies barring abuse—which didn't keep a user from creating robocalls in Biden's voice ahead of NH's presidential primary urging Democrats to stay away from the polls. Officials there say they've suspended that user's account, reports Kevin Landrigan in the Union Leader (paywall). The company was ferreted out by Pindrop, a synthetic audio security company, Wired's Kate Knibbs reports.On NH seacoast, sea level rise "might be a now problem." This month's two big storms, writes Amanda Gokee in the Globe's Morning Report (no paywall) "caused severe damage, flooding homes and adding wear and tear to infrastructure that’s already been weakened by smaller, but more persistent, flooding events." Flooding from high tides along the East Coast has already increased 90 percent over the past two decades, and the two recent storms produced some of the highest tides on record. UNH engineering prof Jennifer Jacobs says residents should embrace dunes as protection from storm surges.This election year, VT Public will bag the horserace reporting and focus instead on what listeners want the candidates to be talking about. The so-called "citizens agenda" model of campaign coverage has its roots in the 2008 presidential campaign, when it was first proposed by NYU journalism prof Jay Rosen and The Guardian's Amanda Michel. The idea, VT Public says, is to ask Vermonters a simple question: What do you want the candidates to be discussing as they compete for your votes? They'll key their coverage to the issues voters identify. Here's Rosen on the thinking behind the approach, why it's better than what we usually get, and how to know if it's working.Veteran political reporter Jon Margolis dies at 83. Margolis first made his name covering the Attica uprising for Newsday, then as a national political correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, before retiring to the Northeast Kingdom in 1995—and becoming a VTDigger columnist and regular on public TV's "Vermont This Week". He was "a real shoe-leather reporter and columnist who dug deep and picked up the phone instead of settling for a quote from a press release,” longtime VT journalist Mark Johnson tells Digger's Paul Heintz. Margolis died on Monday.Veteran VT TV journalist Stewart Ledbetter to retire. Ledbetter, who is 62, joined NBC5 in 1984 and has been a fixture there ever since—as well as on VT Public, where he moderated the Friday reporter roundtable “Vermont This Week” from 2007 to last year. Though he got multiple job offers elsewhere, he tells Seven Days' Rachel Hellman, "I’ve always enjoyed the privilege of getting to know my home state really well and being able to sleep in my own bed at night.” As for his plans, he tells VTDigger's Paul Heintz, maybe a guide to the state's best and worst gas stations. "Because I think I’ve been to most of them.”“It's like we discovered a bunch of new weirdos who seem to be dancing to the beat of their own drum.” Nope, not people: quasi-moons! Latif Nasser, co-host of Radiolab, noticed a little moon named “Zoozve” near Venus on a poster in his toddler’s room. No, said NASA when he asked, Venus doesn’t have moons. No, said the poster illustrator, I didn’t make it up. So began a year-long dive into our solar system, asteroid hunting, and why 2002VE is not NOT a moon of Venus. Nasser tells the whole story in his inimitably engaging way. “How inspiring is it that we are alive at a time when we are just discovering this new class of paradoxical and promiscuous rock stars,” he writes.And while we're out there... The team digesting what the Webb Space Telescope sends in just put out a gallery of 19 spiral galaxies in their near-infrared glory. The pics, says Janice Lee, a project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, are "mind-blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades. Bubbles and filaments are resolved down to the smallest scales ever observed, and tell a story about the star formation cycle.” Me, I'll just gawk. Link goes to the collection and a press release (scroll up) that tells you what to look for.The Wednesday Vordle. If you're new to Daybreak, this is the Upper Valley version of Wordle, with a five-letter word chosen from an item in the previous day's Daybreak. A word game—but local!
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There's that Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, perfect for long nights by the fire. Plus, of course, fleece vests, hoodies, sweatshirts, even a throw blanket. And hats, mugs, and—once you work up a puzzle-piece sweat—tees. Check it all out at the link!
At 4:30 this afternoon, former Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga—the first woman to serve in that role—will give a talk and take part in a conversation on "A Tale of Feminist Leadership" at Dartmouth. Jahjaga is a Montgomery Fellow this year, and as the program writes, was "Kosovo's first non-partisan candidate, the first female head of state in the modern Balkans, and the youngest female world leader to be elected to the highest office." She'll be talking in part about her experiences trying to build the political strength of women throughout the region—and elsewhere in the world. In Filene Auditorium, overflow in Rockefeller 003.
At 6 pm, The Dartmouth Institute presents a talk by data and business development analyst Katy Axel and TruDataRX founder Gregg Fairbrothers, "Follow the Money: Hidden costs in profit-driven healthcare". Their Norwich-based firm works with companies to reduce their pharma spending; Axel will go into detail on how medications arrive on the market and will "highlight where the unregulated pricing exists that drives the cost endured by patients and families." Via Zoom, advance registration required here.
At 6:30 this evening, Hanover's Howe Library hosts "History and Mystery: A Genealogy Starter Guide" with NH writer, researcher, and genealogist Erin Moulton. She'll be talking about the art and craft of delving into ancestral lines and the resources available by using the case study of Elsie Gaskin (an eccentric librarian from New Hampshire). In-person in the Mayer Room or online via Zoom.
This evening at 7, the Vermont Historical Society hosts the championship round of its Vermont Trivia series. Teams have been through people, places, and the weather. Now it's time to answer questions about anything and everything. Unlike previous sessions, this one costs: $5 for member, $10 for non-members. Online.
And at 8 pm, the Hop presents klezmer legend (and filmmaker) Yale Strom and his band, Hot Pstromi, at the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College. The show's sold out, but the Hop says there's a decent chance of returned tix; show up at the door to see if you can grab some. Strom, who grew up in Detroit and San Diego, is renowned for his field research in central and eastern Europe into the music of Jewish and Roma communities there. The band, which plays both traditional and original tunes, was originally scheduled to appear at the Hop during the pandemic; it was rescheduled to coincide with a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the rescue of what are known as the Czech Memorial Torah Scrolls. More on all that in Aimee Minbiole's Dartmouth News story on the event.
And to pull us into the day...
Well, yes, of course: Hot Pstromi. They've got a new album out,
The Wolf and the Lamb
, which was recorded in the 17th century Shakh Synagogue in Holešov, Czech Republic and will no doubt feature in tonight's concert. There's plenty to choose from, but really,
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, writers, and librarians who think you should 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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