WELL HEY, UPPER VALLEY!
It might look the same, but it's not. There's a new system pushing through today that will probably bring snow and a chance of rain in the afternoon. And just because you deserve to hear it from the source itself, "The poorly saturated dendritic growth zone will keep most showers limited to light flurries or small dendrites, keeping amounts down." There. Highs in the mid-30s. Wind shifting from north to south.A bad day on the roads, part 1: I-91 southbound was closed between WRJ and Hartland for almost 11 hours yesterday, after crashes involving tractor-trailers, a car, and an ambulance completely blocked the highway. Cars in the hours-long backup that resulted eventually turned around and headed north to exit. The truck driver in the second crash was taken to DHMC with a head injury. The highway was finally reopened around 10:30 pm.A bad day on the roads, part 2: Connecticut man killed in Stockbridge accident. The two-vehicle crash shut down both lanes of Route 107 yesterday morning. Around 10:30 Philip Russell of Niantic, CT, lost control of his Mercury Sable, crossed the centerline, and collided with a box truck. Russell was trapped in the car and had to be freed, and was pronounced dead at Gifford Medical Center. The truck's driver was unharmed. Tenney tree to get second opinion. VTrans is delaying its plans to cut down the remaining maple tree from the old Tenney Farm that now looms over the Exit 8 park and ride in Ascutney. The state has agreed to pay for Weathersfield to hire an arborist to examine the tree again. Even so, reports the VN's Patrick O'Grady, at least one selectboard member who'd adamantly opposed cutting now says that “eventually it will have to come down.”Kearsarge Regional Middle School shuts down drinking water after toxics found. Testing of one faucet at the school found a PFOA level of 153 parts per trillion, more than double the federal limit and over a dozen times the new state limit of 12 parts per trillion. The school is relying on bottled water as the district performs tests on all its faucets.VW subsidiary seeks to put EV charging stations behind Leb City Hall. The company, Electrify America, wants a 10-year lease to install four charging stations in the large downtown municipal lot. If that bid is rejected, it would look along 12A or in WRJ. And elsewhere, Norwich is set to unveil its second Huntley Meadow charging station on Saturday. (VN)WCAX tower fire still causing transmission problems. A fire at Channel 3's transmission tower atop Mt. Mansfield yesterday took out WCAX and WPTZ's broadcast to customers of the DISH Network, DIRECTV, Spectrum, Burlington Telecom and VTel. WCAX owns the tower, but the fire affected an antenna co-owned with WPTZ. The station says service will be hampered today, as well.Dartmouth volunteers log 264,000 hours of service so far this year. As part of its 250th anniversary celebration, the college called on alumni, students, parents, faculty, and staff to volunteer wherever they live, and nonprofits in 37 countries and all 50 states have now benefited. (Service to the college itself doesn't count.) Students account for half of the total hours.Feel like doing 10 NH covered bridges in one day? Only In Your State has laid out a route from the bridge spanning the Ashuelot in Winchester to the Cornish-Windsor Bridge, with some striking stops in Henniker, Northumberland, Lancaster and other spots along the way. The bridges date from 1833 (the Bath Covered Bridge) to 1972 (Henniker), and some are only walkable. It's about 340 miles, a long day, but you'll most definitely see some scenery. This is cool: Did you know that the NH Astronomical Society has given telescopes to libraries throughout the state, free for the borrowing? The program began with two scopes in 2008, followed by 10 the next year, and now has telescopes in libraries pretty much wherever you turn. Locally, the Howe, the Kilton, the Meriden Public Library, the Dunbar in Grantham and the Fiske in Claremont all have them. "Could you please write a story about me and tell people that I don’t have AIDS?" That was a prostitute up in Barton, VT, pleading with news editor Tena Starr of the Barton Chronicle, the small weekly that covers Orleans County (and a little of Essex) in the Northeast Kingdom, just ahead of hunting season. "A community is made up of all kinds of people with all kinds of concerns," Starr tells VPR's Erica Heilman in this lovely profile of a newspaper doing its best to keep its finger on the pulse of the community around it. Oh, and yes: Starr checked with the woman's doctor, verified her claim, and made it that week's lead story.$30 million project aims to revitalize downtown Brattleboro. It's a partnership between the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center and architect and developer Bob Stevens, and would place a new 55,000-square foot building at the foot of Main Street, by the Whetstone Brook falls. The building would house the museum, 24 apartments, a café, a rooftop sculpture garden, and be adjoined by a footbridge and kayak launch. The hope is to attract tourists.Bread Loaf axes "wait scholars" program. For years, the prestigious writing program at Middlebury's Bread Loaf campus has waived tuition for about 20 attendees who serve as waiters and kitchen staff. Now, however, after charges of sexual harassment and racism — and the out-and-out dismal optics of having young writers of color serving older white writers — the program's coming to an end, the NYT reports. Writers aren't sorry. “It was very apparent to me that the whole Bread Loaf waiter system was this outdated, classist dinosaur in need of a meteor,” one says. (Thanks for the tip, TG!)Zero Gravity to launch alcohol-free beer. The project's a collaboration with Citizen Cider co-founder Kris Nelson, using new technology that yields non-alcoholic beer that's better than swill. "The idea is to give people something that's a craft beverage, that has flavor, that's low in calories, and that's beyond hanging out with seltzer or juice," Nelson tells Seven Days. "You're able to mix it up with a local craft product that happens to not have alcohol."
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SO WHAT'S ON TONIGHT?
. I'm guessing you don't need a plotline, but I like this from the press release: "[Y]oung Austrian postulant Maria Rainer...is a free spirit who has trouble abiding by the regulations of Nonnberg Abbey. Commissioned by the Mother Abbess to serve as governess for the seven motherless children of Captain Georg von Trapp, Maria transforms the home from a place of stern rules into one filled with joy, laughter, and music." B'way actors in the leads, a bunch of local adults, and a dozen local kids alternating roles as six of the Von Trapp children. 7:30 tonight, runs through Jan. 5.
. They've got a long rap sheet: They choke out forest canopies, invade forests and roadsides, take over river banks, run amok in fields, backyards, and farms... and they affect everything from water quality to property values. Tonight, the Springfield library and Black River Action Team host Mike Bald, who runs Got Weeds?, a Royalton-based invasives removal company, talking strategy and tactics. 6 pm at the Springfield Town Library.
It'll be both a reading and a presentation centered on his novel
Finn's Clock
, which focuses on the conflict between Irish immigrants and recalcitrant locals in Boston in the era of the potato famine. A story, plus the maps, paintings, lithographs, newspaper clippings, and census data that underlie it. Starts at 6 in the CATV studio in WRJ's Tip Top Building.
That and more as Jeff Graham, who runs the organization now, gives "A History of How a Film House Supported Green Space and Ice Space in the town of Hanover, New Hampshire." That film house, of course, is the Nugget, and the spaces are Storrs Pond and Campion. 7 pm at the Black Center.
Small dendrites or not, drive safely today, eh? See you tomorrow.
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