Daybreak Wednesday, 9/9/26

Mostly cloudy, showers late. There’s a warm front coming through from west to east on the heels of yesterday’s cold front, though whatever rain it produces is unlikely to reach us until late afternoon or, more likely, sometime this evening. Whenever it does, it will last just a few hours before moving on. Highs today in the low 70s; lows, thanks to that front, only in the mid 60s.

Upstream: Sunrise. Downstream? Rainbow. That was what greeted Rowan Carroll at Kendall Riverfront Park in Hanover last week. “After two weeks of fog,” she writes, “it felt like a gift!”

Not much drama at the state level in NH primaries. As expected, Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte will face a challenge from Democrat Cinde Warmington for governor in November. Executive Councillor Karen Liot Hill was unopposed for the District 2 Democratic nomination, while Newport’s Tobin Menard defeated Kim Strathdee for the GOP line. In the three-way primary for two state House seats in the Claremont area, the AP declared Claremont’s Jon Stone, who is seeking to regain his seat, and Croydon’s Catherine Peschke the winners of the Republican contest. They’ll face incumbent Democrat Hope Damon and Washington’s Samuel Deering in November. The Valley News has the AP’s results; the Secretary of State’s office hasn’t posted yet.

Turnover besets Woodstock’s selectboard. In the VN, Sofia Langlois takes a look at four departures from the five-member board since town meeting in March; only one of the people serving at the time, Norm Frates Jr., remains. “The turnover,” she writes, “comes as the municipality defends a lawsuit by its former police chief, responds to a public records suit and faces a state police investigation into legal spending.” The four members who’ve left gave different reasons—one relocated, another cited time constraints, and two, Laura Powell and former chair Susan Ford, referred to what Ford has called “the negativity in this town.” Langlois details some of those issues.

Dartmouth’s Filippo Ciabatti: “We want these people to rule the future of our world. And I think music is a very important part of this.” If you pay attention to classical music in the larger region, you’ve seen Ciabatti at work: conducting the Handel Society, the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, Upper Valley Baroque, the Opera Company of Middlebury, Boston Baroque… In the Dartmouth Alumni Mag, Nancy Schoeffler profiles the 39-year-old, who grew up in Florence, Italy and decided at the age of 10 that he wanted to conduct after being awestruck at a concert by “the person governing all the sound and helping the music grow and come to life.”

SPONSORED: Immigrants and refugees need your generosity now more than ever. Hearts You Hold currently has over 300 requests from individuals and families trying to make a new start in this country, just waiting to be funded by caring people like you. Some are local to the Upper Valley or to VT and NH, others are in New York, Ohio, and elsewhere. You can sort the requests by state or category to find the folks you want to support. You’ll find them all—from basic household goods to basic clothing to swimming lessons to baby equipment to a single mom in VT in search of doorbell and dash cams—at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Hearts You Hold.

VT Center for Ecostudies’ executive director to step down. Susan Hindinger has spent 13 years at the Norwich-based non-profit, first as associate director to founding director Chris Rimmer, then as his replacement. Now, VCE said in a press release yesterday, she’ll be retiring at the end of this year “to tend to her family obligations,” including business development for her family’s engineering company. During her time at the top, Hindinger launched new conservation projects, expanded VCE’s collaborative efforts, and oversaw the growth of the organization from 10 to 22 staff members, board chair David Mears notes in the press release.

As primary voters go to the polls in NH, new ID law seems to have been a non-issue. NHPR sent its reporters out to polling places around the state, and in several communities—Durham (UNH), as well as Goffstown (Saint Anselm) and Bedford (several colleges are next door in Manchester)—they spoke with both voters and voting officials who said the law barring student IDs for registration that went into effect this summer (and is being challenged in federal court) didn’t appear to get in the way. "It was really easy,” said one UNH student who registered to vote yesterday. “I thought it was going to be a lot more complicated.” (Scroll down at the link).

SPONSORED: Bring your shine! Positive Tracks Sweat For Good Games | Saturday, Sept. 19, 6 – 10 PM at Storrs Pond Recreation Area. Don't miss this outrageously shiny night that gives back to the Upper Valley! Tickets on sale now for a lip sync competition, food, drinks, DJ, and dancing. Cheer from the crowd or sign up to hit the stage with your lip sync team for a shot at the Sweat For Good Games Cup. After the battle, stick around for the dance party because the DJ is on deck! All proceeds support Positive Tracks' free programming, helping young people change the world through the power of sport. Sponsored by Positive Tracks.

Tonight’s the first night of the Honor Summit. That’s the twin beams of light that will shoot into the sky from atop Mt. Washington in honor of the lives lost on 9/11, first responders, and veterans. It runs for four nights, through Sept. 12, and at the link you’ll find the map of potential viewing spots (clear skies would help) that organizers have pulled together. The consensus from Daybreak readers who sent in ideas is that height matters: the Mt. Cardigan summit, the summit of Mt. Kearsarge, hills in the Sunapee area that allow for a clear view to the northeast. No one suggested the Gile Mountain fire tower in Norwich, but it’s worth a shot.

There’s still some summer weather left, but we have a creemee issue. A sudden freeze in the supply chain is hitting stands hard. E. Hardwick’s Kingdon Creamery, a key supplier of creemee mix in VT, lost three workers to ICE deportations, which also “precipitated further debilitating workforce losses when additional employees left ‘out of fear,’” writes Melissa Pasanen in Seven Days. Creemee stands are struggling to find other suppliers, which in some cases means paying substantially more. Leslie Michaud, co-owner of Kingdom Creamery, says she hasn’t been able to hire replacements and, with 700 cows to care for, creemee mix production has had to take a back burner. 

SPONSORED: Come Along for the Inside Scoop! Join comedian and host Vicki Ferentinos for Inside Scoop, a video series exploring the people, places, food and stories that make Vermont and New Hampshire special. Check out our latest adventure aboard the Mt. Washington Cog Railway, and watch for new episodes coming soon! Follow Inside Scoop with Vicki Ferentinos on Instagram. For Vicki’s upcoming comedy shows, visit her website. Sponsored by Vicki Ferentinos.

St. J seeks to quell “bad behavior” downtown. The issues are especially intense in a park next to the town offices and Welcome Center, with alcohol consumption, violence, overdoses, and more, reports VTDigger’s K. Fiegenbaum. “I’m at the point where I’m just going to put paper up over our windows,” says St. J’s town clerk. The problems are concentrated among a relative handful of people, and town and criminal justice officials, as well as mental health workers, are frustrated “with what they feel are limited tools for changing unwanted behavior,” Fiegenbaum writes. She looks at their efforts to balance compassion and accountability, as the town manager puts it.

GMP customers will see 5.5 percent rate increase starting next month. That’s actually less than the 7.5 percent hike the utility had asked VT’s Public Utility Commission to approve, reports VT Public’s Abagael Giles; GMP is trying to fund a $340 million effort to bury or otherwise “harden” power lines as storms grow more frequent and more intense. State ratepayer advocates had argued that customers can’t afford to underwrite such a large investment all at once. Giles notes that customers of the state’s smaller utilities are contending with even steeper increase requests.

Non-agonistic interactions involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts… Yep, that would be kissing. And the scientists who came up with that definition have just won an Ig Nobel prize—handed out each year by The Annals of Improbable Research—for their work. So did the authors of a series of studies they reported in 2012 showing that upper-class drivers were more likely to cut other drivers off, and upper-class participants were more likely to take candy intended for children. And the authors of a study demonstrating that cockroach milk holds more energy than cow milk. And…

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from today’s Daybreak.

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HEADS UP
Route 5 Jive at Artistree. It’s down to the last two Music on the Hill concerts in Artistree’s summer concert series, with the roots bop hot jazz revival trio of Jakob Breitbach, Christopher Billiau, and Kit Creeger. 6 pm in S. Pomfret.

Ford von Reyn reads from and talks about Love from Afar: Finland at the Norwich Bookstore. The professor of medicine at Geisel is out with his debut novel, about a married New Hampshire ski salesman whose Cold War peace mission to Finland “unexpectedly transforms his life. A chance encounter begins a decades-long exchange of letters—and a love story—that challenges duty, desire, and identity.” 7 pm.

The Grace Wallace Trio at the Center at Eastman. The accomplished jazz vocalist, along with guitarist Billy Rosen and bass/organ player Norm Yanovsky, brings jazz standards—along with Latin and Brazilian grooves—to the Draper Room. 7 pm.

Valley Improv with “Bedtime Stories” at Sawtooth Kitchen. “Join us for a few improvised stories before bedtime, inspired by fairy tales and folklore,” they write. “Each story is created from scratch before your eyes!” 8 pm.

And for today...

Daybreak’s not the place for world news, but music about world news, now, that’s different. If you watch ABC’s World News Now on Friday nights, you know that for years they’ve used the “World News Polka” before weather segments; it dates to 1993, when an on-air complaint about a polka “bridge” from an announcer led, eventually, to musician and comedian Barry Mitchell writing one just for the show. Over the years, ABC has invited guest musicians to do their own versions, and last year, they turned to Ponpon Chen, a rising-star jazz guitarist and singer (and whistler, and scat-singer). Just 24, she moved a few years ago from Taipei, Taiwan to LA, where she’s been building a following in jazz clubs, online, and now in the wider world. Gibson guitars just focused its Artist Spotlight on her—she talks here about how, in 2021, when she was stuck at home during the pandemic, a George Benson video lit a fire under her. Meanwhile, here’s her version of “The World News Polka” with the rest of her quintet (Aaron Provisor on keys, Jim Jedeikin on sax, Lakshmi Ramirez on bass, Mark San Filippo on drums).

See you tomorrow.

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