Daybreak Wednesday 9/15/21

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Heads up: No Daybreak tomorrow. But back as usual on Friday.Well, you knew it couldn't last. The last few days' idyllic weather comes to an end with an exclamation point today as a warm front moves through, bringing with it a likelihood of rain and, this afternoon, some intense thunderstorms. High near 80, with strong winds, heavy rain, and possible hail accompanying any storms that come through. Rain will continue into tonight. Low in the upper 50s.What, there aren't enough acorns in New Hampshire? Monday evening, Jay and Heather Benson were out on the Connecticut when they saw what looked like a beaver in the water. "We crept closer," Jay writes, "and suddenly realized it was a squirrel crossing the river. We watched it from mid-river to the VT bank." Turns out, squirrels do swim. And as NHPR's Sam Evans-Brown noted back in 2018, they're especially likely to do it if they're crowded out and need to find a new source of food. Could this be an early squirrelmageddon warning?I-89 traffic alert... if you happen to be reading this very first thing. Around 5:30 this morning, the VT State Police warned of traffic delays at mile marker 3 northbound because of a disabled tractor trailer in the passing lane. No other information available as Daybreak went out.Covid keeping Upper Valley schoolkids home. The eighth grade at White River Valley Middle School in Bethel was sent home yesterday "due to COVID-19 positivity within the school community,” according to district Supt. Jamie Kinnarney. And over the past week, cases at Newbury Elementary, Oxbow Union High and Oxbow Elementary in Bradford, and Hartford Middle School have resulted in some 200 students being asked to quarantine or shift to remote learning, reports Nora Doyle-Burr in the Valley News.SPONSORED: Looking for the perfect antique to perk up your living room? Or maybe an oriental carpet? Early Christmas shopping to beat supply-chain woes? The Norwich Antiques Show has it all this Saturday on the lawn of Norwich Historical Society, 277 Main Street in Norwich, from 10am to 3pm. Quality antiques dealers from throughout New England will be there with furniture, rugs, art, and collectibles—each in their own socially distanced tent. Music, Antiques Roadshow (11-1). Admission is $5.00 (children 12 and under free), and masks are required. Sponsored by the Norwich Historical Society.And in case you were wondering what all those bicyclists were doing on both sides of the river Sunday... It was the Trails Alliance's Tour de Taste, and Lebanon photographer Travis Paige was out with his camera. This one's of a trio crossing the bridge between Fairlee and Orford, but you can scroll right or left to see the rest...“I just feel like people are looking at me funny." That was Keith Gokey the other day, talking about when he goes shopping. Gokey lives in a styrofoam cabin in the woods, and was part of a two-month "Telling My Story" workshop bringing together unhoused and housed participants who met at the Main St. Museum in WRJ. Once they were confident enough, reports VPR's Lexi Krupp, they came together to talk about it all in public. "We were able to develop the courage to say, 'OK, we are together going to go in front of the people and say our piece.'” says advocate Simon Dennis, who helped organize the event.There's a new Upper Valley app out there. The Upper Valley Business Alliance (you'll remember—it's the merged Hanover and Lebanon chambers of commerce) has created Local Upper Valley for tourists and locals alike. It brings together information on events, restaurants, merchants, services, and things to do (looking for corn mazes? curling? flea markets? trail info? you're covered). It's still a work in progress, but well worth exploring. Only available as an app—maroon link takes you to an About page.And if you're in Lebanon and need directions... The city's installed five solar-powered signs that will "point people to recreation trails, businesses and cultural amenities," reports Tim Camerato in the VN. They've gone up at each end of the Lebanon Mall, by the entrance to the rail tunnel, and outside City Hall and the Kilton. Lebanon will take 20 percent of the revenue from ads that also run on the screens, which cost $99 per 10,000 "views"—calculated, Camerato writes, by registering pings from passing cellphones. "A novel population of tumor-fighting T cells." Researchers at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, led by the NCCC's Mary Jo Turk, have zeroed in on a group of the infection-fighting white blood cells known as T cells that, unlike most of their compatriots, stay put in lymph nodes and "kill tumor cells for many months while never entering circulation," in Turk's words. Now the team wants to understand how these memory T cells are generated and activated, with an eventual goal of being able "to position them throughout tissues to efficiently block cancer from spreading," according to a DHMC press release.Monarchs are migrating... and they've got to rest somewhere. "Just before dark these solitary diurnal migrants gather in clusters called roosts. A roost can consist of just a few butterflies up to thousands clinging to leaves and branches on a single tree," writes Mary Holland on her Naturally Curious blog. They tend to be in cool, moist areas, sheltered from the wind but near sources of nectar. Mary provides a very cool link to a map of known roosting sites thus far this year, put together by Journey North.Lanternfly and Tree of Heaven light a path to destruction—but maybe there's a small glimmer of hope. Invasive species abound in David Brooks’ latest at Granite Geek, as he focuses on a beautiful little bug from Asia that threatens havoc on our plant life. He connects the spotted lanternfly’s rise to another wickedly prolific import: the Tree of Heaven. The tree plays host to the insect—"a classic case of invasive species compounding each other.” Despite local efforts to curb the lanternfly’s spread, one predator crouching in the shadows may be our best hope. Praying mantises eat lanternflies for breakfast."We’re out here to try to help you, and now you’re attacking us." That was NH's GOP House speaker, Sherm Packard, trying to calm a statehouse crowd rallying against the federal vaccine mandate yesterday. The crowd of some 400 turned against NH's Republican legislators for not doing enough to fight the mandate, reports NHPR's Josh Rogers. The rally—organized by the House leadership—led GOP Rep. William Marsh to switch parties. “I can’t stand idly by while extremists reject the reasonable precautions of vaccines and mask wearing,” he said in a statement."Put a label on the product and let Vermonters decide.” That's VT Attorney General TJ Donovan yesterday. The product? Fossil fuels. The state yesterday sued ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, Sunoco, CITGO, and other companies for "deceptive" marketing practices and to force them to tell consumers that their products harm the environment. An ExxonMobil spokesman responded that the suit is a waste of "millions of dollars of taxpayer money," reports the AP's Wilson Ring. Now that's a conversation starter... Newly retired Phil and Debbie Gianelli are putting the finishing touches on their dream home, writes Ken Picard in Seven Days, near the Hinesburg VT site where, 42 years ago, a small aircraft carrying Phil crashed—and should’ve killed him. He had gone up with a friend to capture aerial photos of Debbie’s family farm when the plane hit a downdraft and ended up in trees. The wreckage is still there. What draws them back to so fateful a place to spend their golden years? The same reason Phil went flying that day. Says Debbie, “It’s a million-dollar view.”"Will you please just try to spare/a little of our earth to share?" John Stadler is a children's book author and illustrator (Big and Little, The Ballad of Wilbur and the Moose and many others) who lives in Lyme. Moved by "the precipitous loss of so much wonder and beauty in our world" and by a question posed by David Attenborough—"Are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?"—he's just created a short new animated video, Elephant, to dramatize the issue.You think the Presidentials are tough? There's always the foot-wide planks—some missing—that are the only thing keeping you from a "1,000m drop into oblivion" off Huashan, in China's Shaanxi province. Or the bamboo and rusty metal ladders up and down 800m of cliff face that schoolkids from one village traversed every day—and are now a hiking destination. Or the amazing pillars in Zhangjiajie National Park (you saw them in Avatar). Or the deteriorated 14th century Jiankou section of the Great Wall, which features steep dropoffs on both sides as it follows mountain crests. They're all in Kristine De Abreu's "China's Craziest Hikes and Climbs," on ExplorersWeb. Don't look down.

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When she was 15 and still living in Curitiba, Brazil, Indiara Sfair got a harmonica as a birthday gift from a friend. She tried to learn it herself, but eventually started taking classes, and not long after formed a blues duo. In 2017 she moved to Nashville to start playing blues clubs—and though she quickly drew attention there for her skill and inventiveness, it's been YouTube that's brought her wide renown and a dedicated following.

, on "Baião em Blues."

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