Vermont news

• The FCC has a new broadband map. Vermont officials say it vastly overstates reality.

  22-11-2022 23:29 via vtdigger.org
  
  A screenshot shows Vermont has 100% fixed broadband coverage, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Screenshot via FCC websiteAccording to the Federal Communications Commission, more than 95% of Vermont households have broadband internet access.That’s the main takeaway from a newly updated map created by the commission that tracks internet speeds and provider availability down to individual addresses. But officials at the Vermont Community Broadband Board told VTDigger that t
  
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• At the Irasburg Village School, a math teacher’s departure has administrators struggling

  22-11-2022 22:45 via vtdigger.org
  
  Irasburg Village School. Photo courtesy Irasburg Village SchoolAfter Thanksgiving, Irasburg Village School will lose its only middle school math teacher. The upcoming vacancy is not unexpected. Administrators at the roughly 130-student K-8 school have known for a month about the departure, Irasburg’s principal said. But administrators have been unable to find a replacement teacher — meaning that it’s unclear how the school’s 35 middle school students will learn
  
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• Northfield police chief’s public comments on school locker rooms draw rebuke

  22-11-2022 22:37 via vtdigger.org
  
  John Helfant. Photo courtesy of Northfield Police DepartmentThe leader of an organization supporting LGBTQ+ people in Vermont said recent online posts by Northfield Police Chief John Helfant about transgender kids’ use of locker rooms undercut his ability to serve the town.“(Helfant’s) actions cultivate a community culture of hate against trans youth and people. How can he hold such a substantial and essential role in the community?” said Dana Kaplan, executive director o
  
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• Vermont officials are ready to ban sale of new gasoline passenger cars by 2035

  22-11-2022 19:51 via vtdigger.org
  
  An electric vehicle plugged into a fast charger in Rutland in February. State regulators are on the cusp of adopting a rule that would push Vermont’s market for new passenger cars to all-electric in a little more than a decade. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerState regulators are on the cusp of adopting a rule that would push Vermont’s market for new passenger cars to all-electric in a little more than a decade. The rule, called Advanced Clean Cars II, is part of a set of re
  
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• Neighbors cry foul, but clearcutting and construction approved in Woodstock

  22-11-2022 18:26 via vtdigger.org
  
  An aerial view shows 0 Rabbit Hill Way this past summer. Photo courtesy of Mary Margaret SloanWOODSTOCK — The clearcutting of 4 acres near Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park has drawn the ire of neighbors. But despite acknowledging administrative hiccups in the initial permitting process, the town government says construction can go on.The clearcutting began on Rabbit Hill Way in May, neighbors said. Although a permit was issued in June by the town’s zoning administr
  
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• 400 members still needed in VTDigger food and news drive

  22-11-2022 18:14 via vtdigger.org
  
  Dear Reader,We are more than halfway to our goal of sending 10,000 meals to the Vermont Foodbank by Thanksgiving.Will you pitch in? Each contribution during our annual fund drive will send 10 meals to the Foodbank and sustain our reliable, fact-based news.Click here to make a donation and send 10 meals.
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  VTDigger is proud to provide a valuable public service for Vermont. Every day of the year, our reporters are pursuing the truth from Bennington to Swanton and everywhere in between.But whi
  
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• Norwich 13-year-old becomes youngest champ ever in Vermont chess tournament

  22-11-2022 13:24 via vtdigger.org
  
  Alexander Collins, 13, of Norwich, replays a game he won at the Vermont Open chess tournament. Collins is the youngest champion to win the competition. On Wednesday, Nov. 16, he was at his weekly chess club at the Howe Library in Hanover, New Hampshire. Photo by Jennifer Hauck/Valley NewsEditor’s note: This story by Liz Sauchelli first appeared in the Valley News on Nov. 20.NORWICH — When Walter Chesnut lost a chess match to Alexander Collins at the Vermont Open earlier this month, h
  
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• Haviland Smith: Will there be political violence in America’s future?

  22-11-2022 13:07 via vtdigger.org
  This commentary is by Haviland Smith, a retired CIA operations officer and station chief who now lives in Vermont. He worked primarily against the Soviet Union and East European countries and had a tour as CIA”s first chief of counterterrorism.The violent events of Jan. 6 of last year at the nation’s capital have persuaded more than a few writers and media outlets that there is a rising chance of further, perhaps more intense political violence on our horizon. If you look carefu
  
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• Lisa Jablow: In Fish & Wildlife survey, nearly two-thirds of Vermonters oppose trapping 

  22-11-2022 13:04 via vtdigger.org
  This commentary is by Lisa Jablow, a resident of Brattleboro.The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department fielded a survey recently on Vermonters’ attitudes towards trapping. Documents obtained via a public records request show that the department seemed more interested in advancing a pro-trapping agenda than in genuinely understanding the public’s attitudes. Despite this bias, with vaguely worded survey questions, the results still reveal that most Vermonters oppose trapping.&nbs
  
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• Jim Andrews: The myth of perpetual growth ignores that our planet is finite

  22-11-2022 13:01 via vtdigger.org
  This commentary is by Jim Andrews, a herpetologist, conservationist and educator who lives in Salisbury.I was reading the obituary of ecological economist Herman Daly last week. It reminded me of a short phone conversation I had with a candidate in the primary a few months ago. That conversation left me feeling that they did not fully comprehend the need to move toward an economic system that recognized the resource limits of our finite planet. It seems clear to me that if we are to su
  
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• As demand for home share program grows, more strangers move in together

  22-11-2022 12:17 via vtdigger.org
  
  Carol Blakely, left, hosts Katie Bailey, a UVM lecturer, at Blakey's home in St. George. Photo by Riley Robinson/VTDiggerHidden among the trees of Forest Road in St. George, two strangers, 40 years apart in age, began sharing a home.Carol Blakely, a retired teacher in her 70s and mother of four, once had a house full of people. But her children grew up and moved out, and her husband died, leaving only her 11-year-old French-Canadian cat named Poppy.That was until last August, when Katie Bailey,
  
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• Burlington to decide legal resident voting, ranked choice on Town Meeting Day

  22-11-2022 05:05 via vtdigger.org
  
  A voter looks through paperwork in a booth at the polling place at the Integrated Arts Academy on Town Meeting Day 2021 in Burlington. Burlington voters will decide on several charter changes on Town Meeting Day in March. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerBURLINGTON — Burlington voters will get a second look at whether all legal residents can vote in city elections, following the City Council’s unanimous approval to send the charter change to voters on Town Meeting Day.While non-ci
  
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• Opening of emergency housing ‘pods’ in Burlington delayed until January

  22-11-2022 03:32 via vtdigger.org
  
  A worker helps assemble a structure in Burlington last month at the Elmwood Emergency Shelter Community, a group of pods meant to temporarily house people who otherwise have no shelter. Two community buildings that are slated to include communal showers, bathrooms, laundry and areas for community resources have not yet been built, delaying the opening of the pod community. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerBURLINGTON — The opening of a community of emergency housing “pods” on
  
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• Over 70 previously nameless plows awarded creative nicknames by Vermont students

  22-11-2022 00:38 via vtdigger.org
  
  Berlin Elementary School students meet the plow they named, "Yo Bro No Snow." Photo courtesy Mary Peterson, Agency of EducationLord Snowdemort, Snowbe Bryant and many more newly named snow plows will join the 163 previously named plows on the roads in Vermont’s upcoming blizzards. Imaginative students once again came to the aid of the Agency of Transportation in the second year of its popular “Name a Plow Program” to help devise nicknames for plows before they ventured out
  
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