Daybreak Wednesday 6/10/20

A PLEASURE TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!

Partly sunny to start, chance of rain in the afternoon. Yesterday's front cleared out of the way last night, making room for the next one, with a low headed our way later in the day. However, we're blessed with a mass of maritime air overhead, which should moderate the impact. So there's a chance of rain in the afternoon and overnight, highs in the mid-70s, winds from the northwest. Lows in the 60s with a slight chance of thunder overnight."Given our current predicament, it's easy to see the following image as a Corona virus..." That's how Gary Engler introduced the pic he sent last night, and he's right: It sure does look like the image we're all tired of seeing. But what it is, actually? The anthers and stamens within the floret of an African daisy, and it's like a beautiful little pop-art forest in there. Hmm, let's see...

Driver dies in Royalton crash.

At around 5:40 yesterday evening, a white Subaru driven by 24-year-old Jenna Townsend of Bethel was involved in a crash on Route 12 near the Bethel Drive-In, then continued along Route 12 into the construction zone for a new bridge over Gilead Brook. Townsend hit "several items," according to the state police news release, "then collided with the southern abutment of the new bridge. Townsend was killed as a result of the crash. Speed appears to be a factor."

Heads up: I-91 will be closed in both directions tonight.

Starting at 8 pm, VTrans will be demolishing the Depot Road Bridge over the interstate in Hartland, between exits 10 and 9. Traffic will be detoured onto Route 5. The schedule calls for everything to be reopened by tomorrow morning.

There's a new mural in town. On Friday, Tim Sargent finished putting the final touches on an eye-catching decoration for the skate park by the basketball court at Thetford Elementary School. He grew up in Norwich but had been practicing his art out in California before returning here for a stint, and when he found out about the skate park, volunteered to "inspire the kids and give people something beautiful to look at as they drive by." It's all local wildlife, including a large green darner dragonfly. Photos by Leb photographer Will Freihofer.No mask jokes, please. And cut everyone some slack. Now that restaurants are back and running, Andrea Pitera, a former restaurant owner who's a member of the Upper Valley Foodie group on Facebook, posted a set of suggestions the other day for helping servers in particular through these less-than-normal times. If you're outside, remember that it's a long walk—don't pepper your server with requests. Remember that they're wearing their mask to protect you. Tip well: "They are going to be hot and sweating and it’s hard to breathe wearing masks all to make a buck." Other restaurant people have chimed in.Upper Valley-ites are tossing stimulus "checks" in recycling. That's because it's easy to do, reports the VN's Liz Sauchelli. The money is coming in the form of debit cards, and “Unfortunately the cards almost look like junk mail," says Enfield Police Chief Roy Holland. "The one I’ve seen was just a white envelope with the address on it and the return address was for the private company” that's issuing the cards. Holland's department has been getting calls from people suspicious that the letters are a scam.NH, VT top country's beer-swilling list. Well, to be precise, Montana comes between them. Altogether, Northeasterners drink the least, but in a ranking put together by the website Vinepair using data through 2018 from a study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, New Hampshire residents had the highest per capita consumption of ethanol from beer (that seems to be how the feds do it), followed by Montana, Vermont, and the Dakotas. Yeah, I always think of those states together, too.  "It’s what I imagine that heaven would look like." That's Martin Toe, a young organizer for the American Friends Service Committee, responding to the multi-racial scene he found at the Black Lives Matter rally at the NH State House last weekend. Concord Monitor columnist Ray Duckler was there, too, and sees in the size, energy, and youthfulness of the crowd a sign that the movement is going to last. "If you were there, maybe you felt something different this time," he writes. Adds a Concord High grad, “I think it’s the amount of people that have finally and collectively said, ‘Enough is enough.’”Nearly 90 percent of NH economy "open and working." That's according to deputy Employment Security Commissioner Richard Lavers, who told the state's reopening task force on Monday that on May 30, 11.7 percent of the state's workforce was collecting unemployment, meaning that 88.3 percent were working. Several sectors—accommodations, retail, and restaurants especially—remain hard-hit, though retail stores and restaurants both saw sizable jumps in employment in May. NH adult day care centers push to reopen as families see "rapid decline" in dementia patients. There are 17 centers around the state that, before the pandemic shutdown, cared for about 1,000 older clients a day, giving them structure and social interaction and allowing caregiving family members a respite. Social distancing, the nursing coordinator for one of them says, has allowed their conditions to worsen and been exhausting for at-home caregivers. The governor's reopening task force has recommended that day centers be allowed to reopen. There's a new drive-in show venue, though it's a bit of a drive. Higher Ground, the live music venue in S. Burlington, yesterday unveiled plans for the Higher Ground Drive-In Experience at the Champlain Valley Expo in Essex Junction. It'll have room for 250 cars and tickets will be sold per carload. Attendees will be able to sit in front of their vehicles to watch. There's a large stage going up, and there'll be all sorts of Experiences, per Seven Days, including "religious worship, charity bingo nights, live streaming of concert events, chamber orchestras, live plays, weddings, political rallies, etc."VT food distribution efforts at risk, anti-hunger groups warn. The National Guard, which has been central to the distribution sites that have been inundated by struggling families, is planning to pull out of that effort by the end of this month. And anti-hunger groups have asked lawmakers for $18 million just to get them through the summer, two-thirds of it for delivering meals to local school districts. “We either are going to have the most comprehensive summer meals program that we’ve ever had in Vermont this summer,” says head of Hunger Free Vermont. “Or the entire program is going to collapse."VT lawmakers "scrambling" on police bills. The legislative session winds down later this month, Seven Days' Derek Brouwer writes, and there's great interest in Montpelier in bills changing when police can use lethal force, how they comply with race data reporting, how police misconduct gets reported, and other issues. House Speaker Mitzi Johnson says some may have to wait until a special budget session in August. "I want to make sure that this isn’t us as white leaders, white figures of authority, grabbing some ideas in the air and throwing them on the table and saying, 'Let’s do this now,'" she says.VT candidates benefit from cryptocurrency trades, investments. Seven Days' Paul Heintz dug into the tax returns of the leading candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, which are required by a 2018 law to be made public. GOP lt. gov. candidate Scott Milne made $1.7 million from the sale of cryptocurrency in 2018. Gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Holcombe and her husband, reporter James Bandler, earned some $262,000 in dividends and capital gains in 2019 from an inheritance, most of which they gave away in charitable contributions. Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, also running governor, made $195,000 in dividends and capital gains, also from an inheritance.Is Vermont really so expensive? The short answer is, yeah, pretty much. The long answer comes thanks to VPR's Brave Little State, which dug into it after a listener wanted to know. Vermonters spent more on groceries than in any other state in 2018, gas is in the middle of the pack, internet access is more expensive than in most of the rest of the country, and according to a Joint Fiscal Office report, it costs more for a family of four to meet basic needs than the state's median household income. That doesn't count all the ways the state helps out, though. Lots more at the link.Okay, but where's the pic??!! Over the last 10 years, some 350,000 people have spent time in the Rockies searching for a treasure chest hidden by an antiquities dealer named Forrest Fenn. He gave clues in his 2010 memoir, The Thrill of the Chase, aiming to get people out into nature. They did, though five died while searching and a few years ago the NM state police chief askef Fenn to call off the search. Last weekend, in a blog post, he said it's been found. Now a lawyer wants a federal injunction, claiming she's been cheated, and others are crying foul. Fenn hasn't yet released the photo the finder sent him as proof.

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Let's ease into this day with Joey Alexander, the remarkable, soon-to-be-17-year-old Indonesian jazz piano phenom, who grew up on Bali.

, with plenty of footage included. It'll take you very far away. 

(Thanks, BW!)

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