GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
More sun than clouds, even warmer. Yesterday's winds have settled down, and today should be calm and quiet. Looks like we'll start the day mostly sunny, but the balance will keep going back and forth—and whatever, temps well be getting into the mid 50s. Those clouds later in the day will be thanks to a weak disturbance passing through to the north that could produce a few sprinkles in the northern parts of the region. Mid 30s tonight.It's still cold at night. So there's still a chance to get glimpses of something like this, which Carin Pratt calls "ephemeral Strafford rime."The culture, the community, the economy, and the joy of skiing. In the wrapup to her series on NH skiing in the age of climate change, Beatrice Burack quotes lifelong skier and NH native Torey Brooks, who skied VT’s 300-mile Catamount Trail last winter, on what's at stake in coming years. Bea takes a look at what's ahead—for ski areas, to be sure, but also for the people who live for the sport, however they choose to pursue it. There are a couple of scenarios, state climatologist Mary Stampone tells her, and both will demand adapting—in ways that will cut to the heart of what skiers love about winter.One lane of I-91 southbound is back open past Fairlee. Yesterday morning, VTrans reopened the passing lane between Bradford and Fairlee after weeks of work to stabilize the cliff face overlooking the highway. It is likely to be several more weeks, they say, before both lanes are open. In the meantime, some Fairlee businesses likely have mixed feelings about the re-opening: The detour along Route 5 ran right through town. “It’s been good for us. People who didn’t typically come in, they stopped by, had a little extra time," Meagan Zubkoff of Chapman's General tells WCAX's Adam Sullivan.Trooper injured in Bethel crash has "life-threatening traumatic injuries." That information, VTDigger's Alan J. Keays writes, comes not from state police officials or from DHMC, where Cpl. Eric Vitali is in the ICU, but from a post to the fundraising site Help a Hero created and shared with reporters by the director of the Vermont Troopers Association. Vitali's injuries "include a traumatic brain injury, spinal fractures, and pelvis fracture,” the post states. “His doctors are indicating that the coming 72 hours will be critical."Cliff tops in Vershire, Fairlee closed to protect peregrine nesting sites. The annual closure affects hiking and climbing and, really, any human presence at all at Eagle Ledge in Vershire and the Fairlee Palisades, VT Fish & Wildlife says in its online notice: "Peregrines are vulnerable to human disturbance on or above a nesting cliff and the cliffs are closed to improve the odds for successful nesting." The move affects 13 sites around Vermont (list at the link) and will last until Aug. 1 or until "the risk to nesting falcons has passed." If falcons choose new nesting sites, the department adds, more spots could be closed.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.A quick note in case you're waiting: No results posted yet on NH town elections. Towns throughout the New Hampshire side of the Upper Valley held ballot voting for town offices and certain warrant articles yesterday, but haven't yet posted results. Many will also hold floor meetings later this week. Towns should be reporting them on their websites, and the Valley News will be updating results here as its reporters gather them.“Nobody sniffs out wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands.” That's a line from Jesse Q. Sutanto's new mystery, Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. "I loved everything about this book," Emma Kaas writes in this week's Enthusiasms. It's about Vera Wong, an interfering-with-the-best-of-intentions widow who runs a failing tea shop in San Francisco named Vera Wang's World-Famous Teahouse (no, "Wang" isn't a typo). And the mystery she stumbles upon. And the suspects, who in Sutanto's hands "start to feel less like potential murderers and more like family."SPONSORED: Hold your corgis! THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG wreaks havoc at Northern Stage starting tonight! Picture this: A snow storm… A murder most foul… It’s opening night of The Murder at Haversham Manor…where a classic whodunit goes very wrong. With an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can’t play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines), chaos ensues and can’t seem to stop! Get tickets for this Olivier- and Tony Award-winning comedy, and laugh your hats off at Northern Stage, today through 4/14 in the Byrne Theater. Sponsored by Northern Stage.New data privacy laws take effect in NH next January. Here's what they do. In NH Bulletin, Ethan DeWitt offers a guide to the measure, which Gov. Chris Sununu signed last week. In a nutshell, it applies to businesses over certain thresholds that process or sell personal data, limits what they can collect, and requires them to get consumers' permission for "sensitive" data including race, health, sexual orientation, and citizenship status. The law also gives consumers the right to learn what businesses have collected, and to opt out of its sale. There are exemptions for nonprofits, government, and others.NH State Police announce arrest of deputy town clerk running for office yesterday. The arrest, writes Paul Hayes in the Caledonian Record, actually took place on Friday but wasn't announced until yesterday—while voters in Northumberland, NH were casting ballots in a town clerk contest in which Courtney McLain was one of two candidates. The announcement, which misspelled her name and gave the wrong age, said she's been charged with accessing DMV records to process vehicle-related transactions "without proper credentials." Her lawyer is accusing the NHSP of election interference. Unofficial town results show McLain trailing in the clerk's race.NH's warmest-ever winter, in numbers. The average temperature in the state for December through February, reports NHPR's Mara Hoplamazian, was 28 degrees, nearly 9 degrees warmer than the average winter between 1896 and 2000. And for only the third winter since record-keeping began in 1868, the National Weather Service office in Concord recorded no sub-zero days. State climatologist Mary Stampone tells Hoplamazian, "Mild winters like this are on the high end because of the added influence of El Niño. But this is still much higher than what El Niño winters did in the 70s and the 80s.”There was no problem with snow in Alaska for an NH team in this year's Iron Dog snowmobile race. Moose, on the other hand... JP Bernier of Hancock and Kim Bergeron of Dublin made it some 2,300 miles through the Alaskan backcountry—at least, until Bergeron's machine sank not too far from the finish line as he was trying to get over open water. Bernier continued—and made it past a moose that, as he tells NHPR's Rick Ganley, "didn't play any games. It just turned and charged." Ganley talks to the pair about the warm welcome they got from Alaskan villagers and the adventure itself.VT's Medicaid billing system down following cyberattack. It's been two weeks since the attack on Change Healthcare, the giant claims processing company to which VT contracts out its Medicaid prescription claims system. And it could be weeks before it's back online, reports VTDigger's Habib Sabet. The system serves some 200,000 Vermonters who get Medicaid benefits and, Sabet writes, "pharmacies and primary care providers have been left scrambling to circumvent the downed software." There has been no indication that the hack compromised Vermonters' sensitive data, the state says.VT Senate panel advances bill changing makeup of state Fish & Wildlife board. Historically, the board's been made up of people who hunt, trap, or fish; the legislation, which the Senate's Committee on Natural Resources and Energy voted yesterday to advance, would require that half the board include people who don't hunt, trap, or fish. It would take away the board's authority to write regs, but expand the range of issues on which it could advise the agency; it would also ban hunting coyotes with dogs. VT Public's Abagael Giles reports on yesterday's move and some of the arguments surrounding it."The smells and sounds of the city are definitely different than Newport, Vermont." You probably remember Isaac McDonald, the Newport high school senior to whom Rumble Strip's Erica Heilman spoke for her series on class in Vermont. After that episode aired, two things happened: Isaac, who's got a scholarship to Columbia U in the fall, visited New York for the first time. And Heilman was inundated by people wondering how they could help him, even if just by buying him dinner at some ethnic restaurant. So she went back to Newport to talk to him about it all: the trip, Columbia, and more on class.Learning random digits so that you can brag to your friends. Well, actually, not so random. Just in time for tomorrow, AsapSCIENCE is out with "200 Digits of Pi" to help us memorize... well, π to 200 digits. They thoughtfully start with their original Pi Song, released five years ago and set to Grieg’s "In the Hall of the Mountain King", to remind us of the first 100. Absurd lyrics—"8 blue flying bats over 2 gold cats”—and amusing animation add up to a brilliant way to memorize your next party trick or chalk up extra credit points. Plus, who doesn’t love the Blue Danube Waltz? Okay [checks watch]. You've got 24 hours.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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This evening at 6:30, the Lebanon School Board and SAU 88 are giving a presentation on "306 Things You Never Knew about Public Education in NH". It's an introduction to the new proposed minimum education standards for the state. In-person at Lebanon Middle School as well as livestreamed via Zoom.
At 7 this evening, the Center at Eastman hosts Chris Fors, a former Forest Service and Park Service law enforcement officer, talking maple sugaring with his 6th-grade daughter, Sophie. They'll highlight what it takes to turn sap into syrup, both historically and now.
And as you saw above, at 7:30 this evening, Northern Stage launches its run (with three nights of previews) of The Play That Goes Wrong. The farce, written in a few weeks by three failing improv comedians in London (Henry Lewis, Henry Shields, and Jonathan Sayer) became a long-running hit there before moving on to Broadway. It's about an amateur theater company's disastrous effort to stage a mystery—and, the NYT's Ben Brantley wrote of its NY production, "is as close to a demolition derby as we are likely to see on Broadway." Or, fingers crossed, in downtown White River Junction.
Thanks for Writing!
Well, yes, but also, that's the title of Scottish singer and guitarist Anna Massie's sweet and jaunty new song. Massie's renowned in those parts for her work with Blazin’ Fiddles, RANT and Mairearad Green, as well as for hosting BBC Radio Scotland’s weekly traditional music program,
Travelling Folk
. She's also a fine solo performer. During the pandemic, she spent lockdown at her parents' place on the Black Isle (which is actually a peninsula) posting a daily video diary. Which drew followers. Which in turn drew correspondence of the old-fashioned kind.
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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