Daybreak Wednesday 5/18/22

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Dry, sunny, a bit warmer. And grab it while you can. We'll see mostly clear skies for most of the day, with temps getting into the upper 60s. Clouds will start to build in late in the day ahead of a warm front (that, ironically, will keep temps cooler tomorrow). Mid-40s tonight, chance of rain toward daybreak.Photographers out and about.

But the you-were-there award definitely goes to... Wes Carter, who caught a dashcam video of what's now been confirmed as a tornado along Route 12 in N. Charlestown during Monday's storms. (Profanity alert, but hey, it was a tornado headed right for him). There was initially some uncertainty on whether the funnel was a full tornado, but yesterday, reports Claire Potter in the Valley News, Weather Service staff decided from the pattern of downed trees that it was an EF-1 (the lowest level) with estimated winds of 90 mph. NH averages 1.6 tornadoes a year. It's only May: One down, .6 to go.“I’m the kind of person who doesn’t love the spotlight, so it’s been an adjustment." That's Angela Zhang, who oversees LISTEN's food pantry, community dinners, and heating and housing services and has been named social worker of the year by the NH chapter of the Natl Assn of Social Workers. She came to the Upper Valley from Virginia as a Dartmouth undergrad and "completely fell in love" with it, she tells Molly Shimko in the VN. "She embodies what we think of as social work," says a NASW-NH board member. "She is so passionate and confident in what she does, it is contagious.”SPONSORED: It's time to Jumble! The St. Thomas Jumble Sale is back: Saturday, June 4th, 8am-2pm at 9 West Wheelock Street in Hanover. Don’t miss this giant tag sale with jazz music, FREE pony rides and ice cream! Proceeds benefit those in need, in the Upper Valley and around the world. Sponsored by St. Thomas Episcopal Church."Whenever I tell the story of the night I got stabbed, I always say that the person who did the most injury to me, who left the deepest wounds, was...the surgeon." That's essayist and UVM prof Emily Bernard, who'll be reading tomorrow at Dartmouth, writing about an attack in the mid-nineties in her collection, Black is the Body: Stories From My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine. In this week's Enthusiasms, Peter Orner writes that in essay after essay, Bernard "refuses the easy story with an obvious moral in favor of a far more complex, subtle examination." His full writeup is at the link.NH lawmakers try again on congressional district map. This one's a little less ungainly than the last one, but the version agreed to on Monday by GOP House and Senate negotiators still puts Concord and Manchester—not to mention US Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas—in the same redrawn 2nd District, writes Amanda Gokee in NH Bulletin. “It’s slightly better but still not what I and what I think the governor and most people who want to see competitive elections in New Hampshire want,” says an analyst at the Redistricting Data Hub. Gov. Chris Sununu has yet to weigh in."Parental Bill of Rights" deep-sixed in NH legislature. The move came late yesterday after opposition to the measure from the AG's office and Democrats, and concern by House Republicans about provisions that had been added by the Senate. The original House bill, writes Ethan DeWitt in NH Bulletin, essentially restated existing parental rights and added the ability to sue for violations; the Senate version, the AG's office contended, would have required schools to "out" students based on gender identity or expression to their parents. Conferees agreed they couldn't iron out the differences this year.NH AG, Concord police release sketch of "person of interest" in murders of Stephen and Djeswende Reid. In a press release from the AG's office, they describe him as "a white male in his late 20s or early 30s, approximately 5'10" tall, medium build, with short brown hair, and clean-shaven." He was seen near the site of the April 18 killings of the retired Concord couple, who'd gone out for a walk on a set of trails near their home. The award for information leading to an arrest has also been boosted to $33,500.Are NH wildfires a sign that such “unprecedented” events may become common? That’s what worries Granite Geek’s David Brooks, as he shudders to compare the recent White Mountain fires to a blaze last July that wiped out a town in British Columbia, where weather and tree cover aren’t unlike northern New England’s. Though NH’s Forest Action Plan accounts for the stress that climate change is putting on forests, there’s plenty of uncertainty about the kinds of scenarios we could be facing in the coming years. As wildfire risks grow, so too might home insurance premiums.So, you want to check out the wildfire or flooding risk for your own house or town? In the article just above, Brooks mentions a new report from the First Street Foundation, a Brooklyn-based group that drew widespread attention last year for its granular assessment of flood risk. They've now done the same for wildfire risk, and on their Risk Factor site, they make it possible to drill down to individual properties, as well as towns and states. You'll need to toggle between flooding and wildfire. Their article explaining the whole thing is here.VT's second-largest hospital reopens Covid unit. Rutland Regional Medical Center took the step late last week, reports VTDigger's Liora Engel-Smith, and eight of the unit's 10 beds (all that can be staffed) are now full. At a press conference yesterday, Health Commissioner Mark Levine told reporters that Rutland is the only hospital in the state seeing a rise in Covid hospitalizations.Meanwhile, VT is also winding down its state-run testing sites. That announcement also came from Levine at yesterday's press conference. After June, reports VTDigger's Erin Petenko, PCR tests—which need to be administered by a health-care professional—and take-home antigen and LAMP tests will only be available through health care providers and some pharmacies. At the height of the pandemic in January, Petenko writes, state-run sites were doing 10,000 tests a day; lately it's been closer to 3,000.Scott throws hat in the ring for a fourth term. VT's GOP governor, who has cruised to election each time he's run for the office, said in a campaign email yesterday that "there is still much more work to do" and that he didn't expect to pay much attention to campaigning. At his press conference yesterday, reports Seven Days' Sasha Goldstein, Scott said one of his priorities for a next term would be overseeing the millions of dollars in federal funds that Vermont has been given to spend. The only declared Democrat in the race so far is Newfane political activist Brenda Siegel.Toughest corn maze in the US? Maybe you've gotten lost there, too. It's the Great Vermont Corn Maze up in Danville, according to AJ Jacobs, whose chapter on the NYT Spelling Bee from his new book, The Puzzler, was in Daybreak a few weeks back. Jacobs tried the Danville maze in 2020. "While we do have a shorter maze that typically only takes about 40 minutes, AJ insisted on challenging our Big Maze. He tried a variety of strategies before having to take several clues from me, and was finally able to solve the maze in about four hours," owner Mike Boudreau tells the Free Press (via Yahoo!, no paywall).It's not official yet, but a VT teen just set a new world record for longest tightrope walk in high heels. True, she's not just any teen. Ariana Wunderle, a senior at Bellows Falls Union High School, has been performing with Circus Smirkus pretty much since she could hold her head up. (Okay, that's an exaggeration, but not by much.) On Monday, wearing 4-inch heels, she climbed onto a tightwire rig in the school gym and walked its length 52 times, or nearly 640 feet, reports UPI's Ben Hooper. The current Guinness record is 49.2 feet, set by Russian performer Oxana Seroshtan in 2014.Vogue magazine threatens to sue…a small English pub? The pub owner thought he was being pranked by his mates when he got a cease-and-desist letter from Vogue publisher Condé Nast, reports a paper in Cornwall, England. Nor is this a Monty Python sketch. The global fashion brand expressed grave concern that a 200-year-old pub, named Star Inn at Vogue, located in a tiny hamlet called (wait for it) Vogue, would cause its readers confusion. While the pub owner’s sardonic response is worth a read, ultimately it was all a misunderstanding—by corporate lawyers who don’t know how to Google.The Wednesday Vordle. Yep, it wasn't totally fixed yesterday. Today, they're sure they've got it—if you have problems, let me know. The issue was caused by the release of a new version over the weekend. Among its features: Once you're done, you can hit the "Share" button to generate an image of your game without the actual letters you used, so you can boast freely about that got-it-in-one triumph without giving away the answer (lookin' at you, DM... Though seriously, the odds are about 1 in 13,000, so big props!)

Quick numbers catchup...

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Every so often you just need to strut into the day, right? At moments like this, one place to turn is Galactic, the New Orleans-based funk band that makes Tipitina's its (unofficial) home and is known for its wide-ranging collaborations with other NOLA musical standouts.

Oh, and if you feel like an evening over at the Seacoast, they'll be in Portsmouth at the end of June.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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt         Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter    Poetry editor: Michael Lipson  About Rob                                                    About Tom                                 About Michael

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