GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Heating up. A springtime thermometer climb today: from below freezing first thing to around 70 by mid or late afternoon. Sunny again—and unusually, winds from the northwest are bringing in warmer air from Ontario. We'll have clear nighttime skies, but that balmy Canadian air will keep us from needing to worry about frost: lows tonight in the mid or upper 40s. We do still need to worry about fire, though, with conditions still quite dry out there.Two water views. Or, more accurately, two views with water.
A perfect reflection from a pond along Union Village Road in Norwich, from Jay Davis.
And painted turtles on a log in West Fairlee, through a screen of reeds, from John Pietkiewicz.
Hanover voters choose Callaghan, Chamberlain for selectboard, adopt zoning amendments. In all-day balloting yesterday, Carey Callaghan, who is vice-chair of the finance committee and a former school board member, and Jennie Chamberlain, who chairs the town's Bike Walk Committee, unseated Selectboard Chair Peter Christie, who'd served in that role since 2011 and was running for his eighth term. Callaghan drew 596 votes, Chamberlain 545, and Christie 427. Voters also approved a series of zoning amendments, all recommended by the planning board, and in floor voting approved all articles, including transferring 5 acres on Greensboro Rd. to Twin Pines or another nonprofit housing developer for workforce housing.Leb officials want more time to study proposed Miracle Mile casino. The bid by Jonathan Gengras, a CT-based auto dealer who owns the former Honda dealership there, was to be the subject of a planning board meeting on Monday. But, reports Patrick Adrian in the Valley News, city officials said they need more time to review an initial traffic analysis that found the project would “not have a significant impact (or) increase on motorist delays”; a later peer review, Adrian writes, "questions whether the study analyzed enough traffic from other casinos to make accurate projections of estimated traffic in Lebanon."
SPONSORED: Whaleback Mountain Summer Day Camp has openings! Whaleback Mountain Summer Day Camp inspires kids to explore their passions and build confidence in an exciting and unique day camp that emphasizes independence, friendship, discovery, and fun. With 6 weeks to choose from, ranging from early to late summer, there is something for everyone: Register your child today! Financial aid is available. Sponsored by Whaleback Mountain.If you can find Fairlee's Broken Hearts Burger on an online map, thank Courtney Cook. Because, as she writes in this week's Enthusiasms, when she tried, Google Maps took her to an open field along a dirt road—not to the restaurant on Route 5. So she took to OpenStreetMap and placed BHB where it should be, as a Point of Interest. "In the highly skilled, highly complex world of mapmaking," she writes, "being able to edit a POI is a tiny baby step, but even so, it’s immensely satisfying." She details how the app works, why it matters in the world—not least, its humanitarian value—and why it's so cool."Why aren’t students being given the knowledge they need to handle situations like these?” That's Portsmouth NH's Loreley Godfrey, who one day found herself frantically searching her phone for information on how to handle a panic attack—which a friend was suffering through in the car seat next to her. The fact that she had no idea, she tells Amanda Gokee for the Globe's Morning Report newsletter, got her involved with a governor's advisory council that last November issued a call for mental health education in NH's schools. It's gone nowhere—but, writes Gokee, Godfrey's now looking for other approaches.SPONSORED: Help shape the future of public transportation! On Tuesday, May 16, learn about changes to Advance Transit’s bus service, including evening and Saturday service, at one of two information sessions (open to the public). Drop in anytime during the session to find out about service plans and offer feedback. Sessions will be at the Howe Library in Hanover from 11:30 am-1:30 pm (with presentation at 12:30 pm) and at Tracy Hall in Norwich at 4:00-6:00 pm (with presentation at 5:00 pm). Sponsored by Advance Transit.Ssshhh. Don't let the NH Exec Council find out. Though how could they possibly object to a manhole cover commemorating the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Especially since no tax dollars were involved in its creation? On Sunday, TMNT fan James Lane finished raising the $13K needed for a decorative manhole cover, eventually to be placed on the sidewalk by what used to be Mirage Studios in Dover, NH, where TMNT first saw the light of day. Northampton MA claims to be the birthplace, writes Boston.com's Melissa Ellin, but they're poseurs. Or, at least, the second home of Mirage.Now, a way to see how NH communities limit housing development. It's the New Hampshire Zoning Atlas, an online tool created by the Center for Ethics in Society at St. Anselm College, NH Housing, and the NH Department of Business and Economic Affairs. Among other things, writes Paul Briand in NH Business Review, it shows town by town how communities have limited or outright barred housing types other than single-family homes on large lots: only 16 percent of the state's buildable land can go to small single-family lots, and even less to two-family buildings. Here's the Atlas itself.When it comes to marijuana legalization in NH, it's déjà vu all over again. Seems like every session, legalization barrels through the state House—regardless of who's in charge—then fails in the Senate. In a 3-2 party-line vote yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee suggested the same will probably happen again this year; without comment, the committee's GOP members voted against a House bill that had garnered support from majorities of both caucuses. The measure is due to come to the Senate floor for a full vote tomorrow, and it's possible a last-minute amendment could change its course.How NH has kept Chronic Wasting Disease from its deer population. The illness, which affects deer, elk, and moose, causes severe neurologic symptoms, is invariably fatal, has no cure—and showed up in New York State in 2005. But it hasn't appeared in New England yet. The reason, writes David Brooks on his Granite Geek blog, isn't because of any magic bullet, but because NH and other states have taken low-tech, practical steps: they don't put deer in preserves, they bar importing deer, and they crack down on feeding wild deer. Here's NH Fish & Game with more.With end of national Covid emergency, changes at the state level are coming. The emergency ends tomorrow, and in VTDigger, Erin Petenko provides a guide to what it means in practical terms. Insurers, for instance, are changing coverage—BCBS of VT and Medicare will end coverage of over-the-counter antigen tests, and treatment for Covid will be handled just like other health conditions. Access to vaccines and anti-virals, on the other hand, will probably remain in place. Meanwhile, hospitals are losing flexibility they were given under the emergency, including screening patients off-site.With VT Senate, House clashing over financing, bill to provide "historic infusion of cash" for childcare may collapse. The legislature is due to adjourn on Friday, but after weeks of negotiations, reports Lola Duffort in VTDigger, Senate Pres. Phil Baruth last night said the two chambers have "hit an impasse" on funding the $120 million per year measure. Senators want to use a payroll tax and eliminate a child tax credit the legislature created last year. The House wants to raise income taxes and preserve the credit. House Speaker Jill Krowinski last night said she still sees a chance for compromise.Many hands make life’s work. On July 1, after 14 years traveling the world, The Red Dress will have its US debut at the Southern Vermont Arts Center. In Artful, Susan Apel runs through the global artisans whose needlework brought the dress to life, stitch by stitch. British artist Kirstie Macleod conceived of the art project, then sent the dress around the world to be created by (mostly) women, many of them refugees. A companion project, the Calico Dress, will be created by local embroiderers in each exhibition location. If you’re interested in participating, contact SVAC’s Alison Crites by email at [email protected]."That's not water. That's just an incredible amount of snow coming down." So there was this photographer from Victoria BC (who's opted to remain nameless) who was out flying his drone around Vancouver Island’s Strathcona Park the other day. He had finished and was packing up when he heard a rumble. Looking up, he saw the start of a breathtaking avalanche, a raging torrent of snow. So he sent up the drone. "The timing," he says, "was just pure. dumb. luck."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.
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At 4:30 today, Dartmouth's Institute of Arctic Studies will host a panel discussion on "What does Community-Led Arctic Research and Scholarship Really Look Like?" Focused on "explaining and sharing Inuit research processes... and provid[ing] examples of programs that are derived from Inuit pathways to wellbeing" in Nunavut, Canada. Panelists include Gwen Healey Akearok, who directs the Qaujigiartiit Health Research Centre in Iqaluit, Nunavut's capital (and only city); Ceporah Mearns, director of the Nunavut Network Environment for Indigenous Health Research; and Nunavut community health researcher Nancy Mike. In Haldeman 41.
Today at 5:30 pm, Left Bank Books in Hanover settles in for an evening of poetry and poetic prose. John West, who as lead technologist, R&D at the Wall Street Journal—he "reports the news with code" by creating computational solutions for hard journalistic problems—is part of a team that just won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. He will read from and talk about Lessons and Carols, his just-published memoir on recovery from alcoholism through the powers of poetry, ritual, and community. And northern VT poet Sarah Audsley will read from her new collection, Landlock X.
Also at 5:30, Afghan journalist Fahim Abed gives a talk hosted by Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center, "How I Became a Journalist and What I Need to Survive." Abed, who initially worked for a Turkish news service and then the BBC World Service, was a local reporter for the NYT in Afghanistan from 2016 until the 2021 Taliban takeover, when he was evacuated and relocated to the US. He now studies migration and American history with a focus on Asian migrants to the U.S. and the integration challenges they face. In Hinman Forum and via livestream.
At 7 this evening, poet, anthropology post-doc and Dartmouth grad Nomi Stone will read at Still North Books & Bar in Hanover. Both in a book of poems and, more recently, in her 2022 Pinelandia: An Anthropology and Field Poetics of War and Empire, Stone explores mock Middle Eastern villages set up as military training sites across the US—both the training exercises in cultural literacy and special operations, and the Iraqi role-players who've been hired to bring the villages to life.
This evening at 8, the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra performs an open dress rehearsal (concert's tomorrow at the same time) in Rollins Chapel. The program includes William Grant Still's "Mother and Child," arranged for string orchestra, followed by two symphonies, Mozart's 40th and Schubert's 5th.
And to get us going for the day...
If you were a Daybreak reader last summer, you might remember MB14—Mohamed Belkhir—who got into rap and then beatboxing as a teen, came to national attention in his home country of France in 2016, then moved on to opera and film. But he's still beatboxing,
It would be fair to say the audience and the judges were impressed. If Bruno Tonioli's dropped jaw and Simon Cowell's raised eyebrows are any sign.
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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