Good morning Colorado! And completely happy, merry all the things. The winter solstice got here and went yesterday, which implies brighter days forward. In fact, one of many seasonal headliners is that this weekend, adopted by that week between Christmas and New Yr’s when everybody type of pretends they don’t exist to the surface world.
That’s what I’ll be doing this weekend, anyway, as I pack up my automotive and disappear into the mountains for 3 cell-service-free (or a minimum of service-limited) days. It’s my direct response to final yr, after I spent your complete vacation weekend with a whole lot of 1000’s of vacationers at DIA begging Southwest to offer again my baggage.
Whether or not you’re heading right into a decadeslong custom, or making an attempt out one thing new this yr, we hope it’s joyful. Now onto one in every of our favourite morning rituals, the information.
HOUSING
Denver’s rank amongst cities with the biggest homeless populations within the nation
Yearly in January, Metro Denver Homeless Initiative conducts what’s referred to as a “cut-off date rely” to gather the variety of individuals sleeping on the road and in homeless shelters. Jennifer Brown and Kevin Jeffers put collectively a visible information of this yr’s numbers, which breaks down who these persons are, the place they got here from and who was not noted.
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
Highschool college students who might obtain free faculty tuition
A employees report introduced to the Joint Funds Committee this month discovered that for $12.4 million — lower than 1% of Colorado’s $1.4 billion normal fund price range for greater training — the state might grant free faculty tuition to any highschool scholar whose household makes lower than $60,000. And for an additional $5 million, the state might bump that earnings cap to $70,000. Brian Eason has extra on the numbers and their potential influence.
WATER
The quantity of water anticipated to circulation into Lake Powell between October and December
The quantity of water that flowed into Lake Powell final yr throughout the identical time interval
Water specialists all through the Colorado River Basin are nonetheless ready to see what this yr’s Rocky Mountain snowpack will present. Though the basin’s fundamental reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, have recovered from the damaging lows of a pair years in the past, they’re nonetheless in a fragile place. Thus far, this yr’s snowpack isn’t inspiring confidence. Shannon Mullane has the story.
OUTDOORS
This week, as Coloradans watched an unforgettable, slow-motion video of the Grand County wolf launch, rancher Don Gittleson mounted his consideration on one wolf-related phrase: “chronically depredating.” Gittleson wrote to Colorado Parks and Wildlife insisting that they supply readability round this phrase, which has seemingly stalled their dealing with of a wolf that killed or injured seven of Gittleson’s cattle. As Tracy Ross reviews, Gittleson isn’t the one rancher shedding persistence with the company.
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CARTOONS
Cartoonist Jim Morrissey observes that the wolves Colorado reintroduced this week might have been imported, however they wasted no time adapting to the native tradition.
In the meantime, Drew Litton provides a humorous vacation riff on the wolf reintroduction, with apologies to Bing Crosby and the Christmas tune he made well-known.
In “What’d I Miss?” Ossie’s nonetheless seething over the New Jersey man who subjected his neighbors to racism and harassment — after which cried for leniency.
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All is merry and getting brighter.
— Parker & the entire employees of The Solar
Corrections & Clarifications
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