Daybreak Tuesday 1/7/20

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

It'll be a nice start to the day, anyway. Some clouds, temps rising through the 20s and, eventually, into the 30s. But the weak ridge of high pressure we can thank for this is just passing through, and we'll see things cloud up ahead of an arctic front headed our way from the west and a low headed north off the coast. Winds from the west, lows tonight in the low 20s, with a chance of snow showers starting late in the evening.Leb moving to tear down Route 10 eyesore. City officials have ordered the absentee owner of a long-dilapidated multifamily home opposite Campion Rink to raze it, arguing that it's unsafe even to enter. "One heavy, wet snowfall" could bring it down, Fire Chief Chris Christopoulos tells the VN. The owner, Misha Rosoff, a 2000 Dartmouth graduate who lives on Bali, says he'll tear the house down "soon"; the city council will decide tomorrow night whether to give him 30 days or seek a court order to move more quickly. (VN)What's it like to be on Jeopardy? Well, among other things you have to try to remember everything you've crammed in your head "while going against two really, really smart people who also know mostly everything." That's Dartmouth med student Sathvik Namburar, who was on the show twice in November, in a Q&A with The Dartmouth's Eliza Gallant. How to apply, how he prepped, what he'd do differently... (hint: Don't choose a category in French when your opponent was a French major).Northern Stage development manager passes 100-marathon milestone. Sue Kessler, who took up her job at the theater company in 2018, notched her 100th in Memphis last month, shortly before turning 50. She's run marathons in all 50 states and each Canadian province, and though she aims for a four-hour race, she hasn't hit that mark in a couple of years. "When I sign up for a race and they say, ‘what’s your estimated finish time?’ I always write 3:59.59, even though at this point that’s really ambitious,” she tells the VN's Adam Boffey.Remember summer? Of course you do! "It seems like it’s been an unusually bleak winter so far," writes Rich Cohen. "After a few days of no sun I find myself going back to look at some of the flower pictures I took this summer...a reminder that everything is not always white, brown or gray." Here's his eye-popping shot of some gladioli in their full glory. Thanks, Rich!This week (so far) in presidential campaigning. Just in case you want to plan ahead:

You, too, can count turkeys. Every year since 2009, NH Fish and Game has asked residents to help keep track of the state's wild turkey population. From now until the end of March, if you see flocks of more than five, they'd be happy if you submitted the information, including numbers of birds, where and when you saw them, whether they were feeding, and some other information. Survey form at the link. Fun fact: In 2018, Ossipee, Groveton and Bristol each reported flocks with more than 100 turkeys.New Englanders join forces to look at whether seaweed can reduce methane from dairy cows. A $3 million grant will let researchers and scientists from UNH, UVM, Colby College, and the Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment in Freeport, ME, build on early findings that feeding dairy cows kelp meal reduces their greenhouse gas emissions. This is no small thing: cattle account for about 60 percent of GHG emissions from livestock globally.So yeah, if you happened to be near the outlet malls in Tilton on Sunday evening, that was an earthquake. A 2.1, in fact, which makes it a couple notches higher than the last NH quake, November's 1.9 in Salem. Tough sledding coming up for Gandalf in the NH House. If you have a really long Daybreak memory, you may recall Signum University, the online college based in Nashua that offers classes in fantasy literature, German philology, and medieval Scandinavian languages. Now it's pushing for degree-granting status, which would in turn let it get accredited. Standing in the way, though, is the NH House, which probably will take up the bill later this week, says David Brooks on his Granite State Geek blog.Two hospitals take NH up on new funding for psychiatric beds. The money was included in last year's budget to reduce the numbers of people in crisis who are forced to wait in emergency rooms for days or, sometimes, weeks. Portsmouth Regional Hospital and Parkland Medical Center in Derry are the first to use it, to add a combined eight new in-patient beds. Though as NHPR notes, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness there were at least 15 people in emergency rooms in late December waiting for admission to in-patient psychiatric care.US Army to expand Vermont mountain warfare school. The facility, at the VT National Guard's Camp Ethan Allen in Jericho, was originally designed to serve the Guard itself. But the Army has been sending growing numbers of soldiers for training over the years and now, says the Guard's Lt. Col. Jacob Roy, "this schoolhouse is basically home to mountaineering in the U.S. Army." The new facility will double the number who can be trained in mountaineering, rough terrain evacuation, mountain riflery, and the like.Strapped for VT workers, Census Bureau raises pay. As of late December, the Bureau had gotten about 2,500 job applications in Vermont, reports the Bennington Banner's Tiffany Tan; it's looking for 9,000 applicants in the state. So as of yesterday, census takers in the state will make $20 per hour, instead of the $17.50 they'd been making. In preparatory work this past summer, the Bureau had to import workers from Massachusetts to meet its needs.Why does Vermont have so many Dollar Generals? That's the question a listener asked VPR's Brave Little State. So Angela Evancie and Liam Elder-Connors go both deep and wide in exploring how the state's 37 Dollar Generals came to be, starting with the first "small box" fight in Chester back in 2011, diving into corporate strategy, visiting zoning law in Vermont, talking to Vermonters who pretty much make Dollar General their second home, and looking at how small retailers are adjusting. It's great explanatory reporting.

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SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TONIGHT?

You could go keep Jason Hill company at Trail Break.

It should be time for Suds & Science, the popular gatherings at the Norwich Inn run by Hill, a conservation biologist at the Vermont Center for Ecostudies. But scheduling problems got in the way, so Hill's setting up in the back room at WRJ's Trail Break. "Join me for drinks, outstanding nachos and/or casual conversation!," he writes. "Science optional." Let him know (Jhill at vtecostudies.org) if you think you'll show up.

Or you could go listen to how the world sings.

Well, not the

whole

world, but a nice slice of it. Sixteen veteran young singers with Village Harmony, the Vermont-based organization that, among other things, sends adventurous singers off to learn the world's music, will be at the Norwich Unitarian Church tonight. They're doing songs from Caucasus Georgia, Bulgaria, Corsica, and South Africa, American shape-note tunes and some Spanish renaissance tunes. 7 pm.

And just what does Corsican music sound like? Glad you asked. Here's

See you tomorrow. 

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