Vermont news

• McKibben pens a revolutionary debut novel

  26-11-2017 23:46 via vtdigger.org
  Ripton author and environmental activist Bill McKibben is set to tour the state for a series of public readings of his new book. Photo by Nancie BattagliaRipton author and environmental activist Bill McKibben is known for nonfiction books prophesizing such calamities as “The End of Nature.” So why does his debut novel, “Radio Free Vermont,” bear a playful cover and the subtitle “A Fable of Resistance”?
  Credit President Donald Trump.
  McKibben isn’t a fan
  
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• Lake Champlain’s creatures feed on diet of plastic ‘microtrash’

  26-11-2017 22:29 via vtdigger.org
  A ruler marked in millimeter increments shows the size of these “nurdles,” tiny and relatively uniform but unidentified pieces of gray rubber found throughout Lake Champlain.
  Plastic fibers, apparently from people’s clothing, are accumulating in Lake Champlain fish, plankton and birds, according to a SUNY Plattsburgh professor who’s researching tiny trash ingested by the lake’s aquatic organisms.
  The fibers are suspected of introducing harmful substances like heavy
  
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• Professor measures effectiveness of Facebook ‘fake news’ tools

  26-11-2017 22:08 via vtdigger.org
  Editor’s note: This story by Rob Wolfe was published by the Valley News on Nov. 22, 2017.HANOVER, N.H. — With more than half of American adults relying on social media for some of their news in 2017, according to the Pew Research Center, it’s fair, but also a bit troubling, to say that the nation’s democratic health derives, in part, from that Facebook post you just liked.
  The public got a taste of Facebook’s importance during the 2016 elections, where intentionally
  
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• Then Again: Ira Allen’s big dreams and big promises for UVM

  26-11-2017 16:50 via vtdigger.org
  Thomas Easterly captured the earliest known photo of the University of Vermont, this daguerreotype of the Old Mill building as it appeared in 1845. Photo courtesy of Vermont Historical Society
  Ira Allen’s life ended badly. The man who gave Vermont its state university and placed it in Burlington was almost relegated to the dustbin of history. Reports of his death in January 1814 merited only a couple of lines in Burlington’s Northern Sentinel newspaper.Worse yet, trustees of the Univ
  
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• Vermont personal income tax receipts fall by $5.7M in October

  26-11-2017 16:06 via vtdigger.org
  State officials reported last week that personal income tax revenues were down $5.69 million in October.The total was dramatically lower than anticipated, and the Scott administration says year-to-date personal income taxes are $6.41 million below economic forecasts for fiscal year 2018.Susanne Young, the secretary of the Agency of Administration. File photo by Erin Mansfield/VTDiggerSusanne Young, the secretary of the Agency of Administration, says the decline in anticipated personal tax receip
  
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