SO HOW'D IT GO, UPPER VALLEY?
It's going to be a fine day out there. The skies will clear through the morning and it'll be like nothing ever happened last night: mostly sunny, with temperatures getting into the low 80s. Winds from the southwest today, fantastic sleeping weather tonight, with lows down into the 50s. Some areas still without power, but it's nothing like the millions farther south. At the moment, Eversource reports about 40,000 without power statewide, including 287 in Grantham and 156 in New London. Liberty Utilities reports just a handful of outages in Grafton and Sullivan counties. On the other side of the river, GMP's got about 2,400 customers without power, including 81 in Thetford and 52 in Hartland.And here are the rain totals reported last night. More dramatic over in New York State, around here more like a half-inch to, in a few spots, a couple of inches. Who'd ever have thought the Covid numbers would be a distraction?
NH added 33 new positive test results yesterday, bringing its official total to 6,693. It reported 1 new death, bringing that total to 418. There are now 5,915 official recoveries (88%), and 360 current cases. Grafton County remains at 103 cumulative cases, Sullivan at 40 and Merrimack at 458. Grafton County has 4 current cases (down 2), 4 in Sullivan (down 1), and 9 in Merrimack (down 10), with between 1 and 4 current cases reported in Lebanon, Grantham, Claremont, and Charlestown. Sunapee no longer has any active cases.
VT added 5 new cases yesterday, bringing its total to 1,431. There were no new deaths, which remain at 57, and one person is hospitalized. Windsor and Orange counties remain at 71 and 16 cumulative cases, respectively.
Why you really don't want to be an insect stuck in a web. Lebanon videographer Chris Johnson went out on the Rail Trail between the Leb pool and the Packard Hill covered bridge one night last week to see if he could photograph spiders. And sure enough, there they were. He's pretty sure these are bridge orb weavers. Hanover, Enfield mandate masks. Their selectboards voted Monday to require masks inside businesses and in heavily trafficked outdoor areas, including sidewalks and trails around downtown Hanover and “any outdoor area where business of any sort is conducted” in Enfield. Health officers can hand out fines for non-compliance, though town officials don't expect things to come to that. Enfield's ordinance went into effect yesterday, Hanover's will start Monday. The Leb City Council takes up its version tonight. (VN)Thayer prof lands $3.4 million NIH grant to develop AI for cancer insights. Eugene Santos and a team at Thayer, along with colleagues at Tufts, got the five-year grant to develop a system that analyzes patients’ clinical and genomic data and looks for insights into how they relate to biochemical pathways that drive health and disease. The results could let doctors treat a patient using historical data of other patients with similar symptoms and genomic profiles, or offer possible drug treatments to new diseases. "There’s so much we don’t know, so what we hope to do...is add to that knowledge,” Santos says.Leb tunnel construction annoys mall business owners. The barricades, the loss of parking spaces, the hammering... all have cut into business, the VN's Tim Camerato reports. But the $2.5 million project to to connect the Northern Rail Trail to the Mascoma River Greenway is expected mostly to wrap up by November, and the closed parts of the mall should mostly reopen by Labor Day. “In the long term, it’s going to be great,” says Omer & Bob's Breck Taber.NH Covid numbers just an uptick. At Gov. Chris Sununu's regular press conference yesterday, state epidemiologist Benjamin Chan said the state's slight rise in average daily cases over the last few weeks isn't worrisome: “We are going to see the numbers fluctuate up and down. I do not believe we are seeing a surge.” In addition, Sununu said he plans to keep emergency orders in place until most likely after there's a vaccine, arguing that "eliminating the 60 or more emergency orders would impact many of the rules in place to help reduce chances for a spike in the virus," InDepthNH's Nancy West writes.Sununu supports police panel recommendations. The accountability commission, which the governor convened in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis, has recommended use-of-force guidelines, an affirmative duty to intervene and report misconduct, banning chokeholds, improving diversity training, vetting police recruits "in the area of" bias, and creating a database that can track an officer's full career. Sununu yesterday gave the panel 30 more days to work on recommendations for investigating police misconduct.
There's less than a week to the VT primary, so just in case you're a late-focuser... The maroon link takes you to VTDigger's series of profiles of the candidates for governor and lieutenant governor. And here's VPR's set of interviews with and profiles of the major candidates. High approval in VT for Scott's pandemic response, face-mask mandate, BLM, not so much for out-of-staters. VPR and Vermont PBS yesterday released the results of their latest survey, which asked 603 respondents their opinions and experiences on issues facing the state. Gov. Phil Scott gets 83 percent approval for his handling of the pandemic, the statewide mask mandate a whopping 76 percent backing, and 66 percent support Black Lives Matter. On the other hand, 77 percent say they're at least somewhat concerned about out-of-staters bringing the virus to the state. Lots more at the link.State "should have pressed harder" on inmate testing in Mississippi, Scott admits. Vermont's contract with the for-profit prison corporation that runs the facility housing 217 inmates from Vermont requires it to use the same testing protocol as the state's own prisons, Seven Days' Kevin McCallum writes, but the company failed to do so and Vermont did not hold it to that standard. So far, 85 VT prisoners have tested positive, with more results due soon.VT school leaders express major concerns about staffing. Health concerns and childcare issues have teachers and staff worried about returning to the classroom, reports Seven Days' Alison Novak, and the result is that a month out from school reopening, districts really don't know what staffing will look like. Many teachers are "simply terrified” to return, one Montpelier teacher tells her, and the shifting science is making it hard to decide whether or not to return. Substitute teachers and school bus drivers will probably be in short supply, too.Pandemic refugees moving to VT, enrolling kids in schools, taking advantage of tuition vouchers. VTDigger's Lola Duffort reports that some school districts in the southern part of the state—especially those around ski resorts—are reporting enrollment spikes; these are mostly districts that, "instead of operating schools, provide vouchers to families to send their children to the public or private school of their choice." Because school budgets are already set and vouchers are fixed costs that must be paid, the new enrollees may put these districts in a financial bind, Duffort notes.I'll have what he's having. A fired-up crested penguin at the Edinburgh Zoo—originally filmed a couple of years ago, but someone just folded in the Sex Pistols as a soundtrack and the whole thing now seems complete. Don't turn up the volume too loud over breakfast.
News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
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Interesting collaboration between DHMC and WRJ's Trail Break (which reopens tomorrow, but more on that then). The hospital's blood donor program needs volunteers, and this month, everyone who donates blood, platelets, or plasma gets a free taco from Trail Break (mention the promotion), plus D-H will donate a meal for someone in need.
A reader writes: "A friend with substance abuse issues died from suicide last week. I want to get the word out about what is available to help people." Here's a set of resources to turn to if you think you have a problem with alcohol or drugs, or want to stop drinking or taking drugs but find you can't quit or have little control over the amount you take: UV chapters of both Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous can help even amid the pandemic—via Zoom and, to some extent, with in-person meetings. In addition, a variety of in-person recovery meetings are being held outdoors at Turning Point, 200 Olcott Drive in WRJ.
Health care and human services organizations that remained open during the two months after VT declared a Covid state of emergency—from March 13 to May 15—can now apply for hazard pay grants for their frontline workers. The $28 million program allows employers to apply for funding to provide $1,200 or $2,000 in hazard pay to each employee who meets certain eligibility criteria. Applications opened yesterday, details at the link.
As for stuff to do... Tonight at 8, Dartmouth Dance Ensemble director and Broadway choreographer John Heginbotham will be talking to James Nicola, who's artistic director of the New York Theater Workshop. That's the theatrical incubator that gave rise to Rent, Hadestown, What the Constitution Means to Me, and other shows that have reshaped the national theater scene. It'll be on YouTube.
Meanwhile, the Dorset Theater Festival, over on the other side of Vermont, is streaming a digital reading of novelist Chris Bohjalian's new play, Wingspan, about a young flight attendant who's afraid of flying, about to work her first trans-Atlantic trip. You can get access for a donation of any size. (Thanks to TheaterEngine for the pointer!)
Or if you want to go even more high-level, at 2 pm today The Washington Post is hosting a conversation with Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland; Christiana Figueres, the former secretary for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; and Eric Garcetti, the mayor of LA. They'll be talking about the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations around the world, and how local governments are learning to deal.
Long before the pandemic hit, Los Angeles-based composer and conductor Eric Whitacre began a series of "virtual choirs," in which singers record and upload videos from all over the world; they're then blended into a single choral piece. The sixth and most recent of these premiered a couple of weeks ago:
using 17,572 singers from 129 countries. "There's something about joining voices, both metaphorically and literally, that makes us better people, better citizens, more empathetic, more compassionate," Whitacre told NPR. Also, more epic.
(Thanks, RW!)
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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