Vermont news

• How to keep seeing VTDigger on Facebook

  24-01-2018 10:45 via vtdigger.org
  In recent weeks, Facebook announced changes to its News Feed tool that will reduce the number of news articles readers see on the platform.
  In his latest post on the subject, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote that the company will not only favor posts from family and friends over posts from publishers and other organizations, but the News Feed algorithm will also prioritize “trusted sources” of news.
  The move follows more than a year of criticism about the platform’s role 
  
  Read more

• The river Vermont traded for a country

  01-07-2026 23:57 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Justin Neuman, who is a professor of literary studies at Eugene Lang College, The New School and a developer of philosophical software. Some mornings I put my wooden canoe in the Connecticut River north of Bellows Falls and paddle out onto water that isn’t Vermont’s. The line between Vermont and New Hampshire doesn’t run down the middle of the river, the way river borders traditionally do. It runs along the low-water mark on the Vermont side. New Ham
  
  Read more

• Vermont Conversation: ‘Strive for that more perfect union.’ Rep. Becca Balint on resurgent white nationalism, war in Iran and her mixed feelings about America’s 250th

  01-07-2026 23:55 via vtdigger.org
  
  
  The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman is a VTDigger podcast that features in-depth interviews on local and national issues. Listen and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vermont, at the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps farm in Richmond in Aug. 2025. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerThe Supreme Court ended its term with a series of blockbuster decisions on birthright citizenship, immigration,
  
  Read more

• The problem with e-bikes is e-motos

  01-07-2026 23:16 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Jack Evans, a complete streets specialist at Local Motion. Vermont communities are seeing a rapid increase in high-powered, high-speed, unregulated devices operating on streets, sidewalks and shared-use paths. The problem is not with electric bikes. It is a different category of device entirely: what Local Motion and our national partners call e-motos. E-motos have more powerful motors and are capable of significantly higher speeds than e-bikes and often don&rsqu
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Vermont has long treated air conditioning as optional. A warming climate could be changing that.

  01-07-2026 23:13 via vtdigger.org
  
  Noah Witt of Burlington pours water over his head while cooling off at the Andy A_Dog Williams skatepark in Burlington on Wednesday, July 1, 2026. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerFor generations, air conditioning in Vermont has been treated less as a necessity and more like a luxury.That might be changing.“They don’t even look at the forecast,” Tony Rowell, owner of Premier Heating and AC in Barre, said of new customers seeking air conditioning. “They just feel it, and th
  
  Read more

• Judge blocks attorney from raising police misconduct as a defense in chase that killed Rutland officer

  01-07-2026 21:22 via vtdigger.org
  
  Tate Rheaume appears in Rutland County Superior criminal court on Tuesday April 9, 2024. Rheaume is charged in the crash that killed Rutland City police officer Jessica Ebbighausen in 2023. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerA Rutland judge has blocked the attorney for the driver charged with murder in a chase that killed a Rutland City police officer from introducing at trial key parts of a damning internal affairs report that found officer misconduct in the pursuit.The decision last month by Judg
  
  Read more

• Vermont is heating up, potentially forcing the state’s 7 petroleum-based plants to start picking up the slack

  01-07-2026 13:32 via vtdigger.org
  
  The Green Mountain Power Berlin GT Substation #5 in Berlin on Friday, June 26, 2026. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerVermonters spend nearly $4 million a year to keep seven petroleum plants on standby, facilities that, on average, fire up for about 10 hours a year when summer heat and winter cold push the grid to their limit.These generators run at times “when the system is stressed, usually when demand is very high,” TJ Poor, director of planning at the Vermont Department of Public
  
  Read more

• Vermonters paid too much for eggs, officials say. Now they’re getting nearly 1 million of them.

  01-07-2026 00:12 via vtdigger.org
  
  Nearly 1 million eggs will go to the Vermont Foodbank after a 15-month investigation that found several large egg producers may have colluded to inflate egg prices. File photo by Terry Chea/APTheo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger.Vermont will receive 915,000 eggs and $56,000 in settlement payments after an investigation indicated several large egg producers may have colluded to inflate prices between 2022 and 2025, officials said Tuesday. The eggs wil
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Vermont is in trouble

  30-06-2026 23:28 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Kevin Chu, executive director of Vermont Futures Project; Tino Rutanhira, co-executive director of Vermont Professionals of Color Network; Seth Bowden, president of Vermont Business Roundtable; Amy Spear, president of Vermont Chamber of Commerce; Miro Weinberger, executive chair of Let’s Build Homes; and Cathy Davis, president of Lake Champlain Chamber.Vermont is in trouble. Not someday in some distant future. Now.We are aging, shrinking and pricing out our own child
  
  Read more

• Vermont has bigger fish to fry than housing aesthetics

  30-06-2026 23:18 via vtdigger.org
  
  Dear Editor,I am writing about the recent commentary in VTDigger by John Bossange and wondering if he meant to send it to the Onion but mistakenly addressed it to VTDigger. Bossange takes issue with the look of some new houses and the land upon which they sit. He says new housing “is often poorly located and is either an unsightly scar on the natural landscape or a depressing blight along a major road, in a commercial development or in a village center.” To paraphrase, it appea
  
  Read more

• Family of Putney man killed by police sues the state

  30-06-2026 22:54 via vtdigger.org
  
  A Vermont State Police crime scene truck is parked Tuesday at the site of a shooting at the Putney Landing apartment complex just off Interstate 91’s exit 4. Photo by Kevin O’Connor/VTDiggerThe family of an unarmed Putney man who was shot and killed by a Vermont state trooper last year is suing the state, alleging the incident violated the man’s civil rights. Scott Garvey, 55, was shot and killed in his home by Vermont State Police Trooper Peter Romeo while he was experie
  
  Read more

• Vermont set to celebrate nation’s 250th birthday with fireworks and festivities

  30-06-2026 22:05 via vtdigger.org
  
  An America250 semiquincentennial flag flies at the Four Columns Inn in Newfane. Photo by Kevin O’Connor/VTDiggerThe Green Mountain State is ready to go red, white and blue as at least 50 cities, towns and villages prepare to celebrate this Independence Day week with parades, programs and pyrotechnics.Even though this year marks the nation’s 250th anniversary, most communities are sticking to the same holiday events they traditionally hold, according to a VTDigger survey.Then again,
  
  Read more

• In latest attempt to charge March 11 ICE protesters, state police identify man accused of smashing police van window

  30-06-2026 18:06 via vtdigger.org
  
  Vermont State Police cruisers seen in Burlington in Jan. 2025. File Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerState police have identified and cited a suspect they accused of smashing a police van window and injuring a trooper during the chaotic March 11 immigration raid and protest in South Burlington. Police issued aggravated disorderly conduct and simple assault citations Friday against Colin Wesley Palmer, 24, of Burlington, according to a news release. Both charges are misdemeanors. Chitten
  
  Read more

• After 2 days on the run, woman accused of stabbing 2 relatives turns herself in

  30-06-2026 00:49 via vtdigger.org
  
  The Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland, pictured in March 2023. The correctional facility is where Tamara Stone is being held without bail after allegedly stabbing two of her relatives. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerThe woman who authorities said fled a double stabbing that left two of her relatives injured last week, setting off a large-scale search, returned to the scene in Brandon two days later and called 911 to turn herself in, according to Vermont State Police.&
  
  Read more

• BlueCross BlueShield of VT pulls its proposed lower-cost, higher-deductible health plans

  29-06-2026 23:59 via vtdigger.org
  
  BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont headquarters in Berlin, pictured in October 2025. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerBlueCross BlueShield of Vermont has withdrawn a proposal for cheaper insurance plans that it had intended to offer on Vermont Health Connect for 2027.Supporters saw the plans as expanding health insurance options for Vermonters, while critics worried it left people with little coverage and potentially high bills.
  Earlier this spring, the state’s largest commercial health i
  
  Read more

• Burlington’s Champlain Parkway, a project 60 years in the making, opens to the public

  29-06-2026 23:02 via vtdigger.org
  
  Burlington Mayor Emma-Mulvaney-Stanak waves from the passenger seat of a 1965 Ford Mustang driven by Dan Nolin of Georgia during the opening ceremony for the Champlain Parkway in Burlington on Monday, June 29, 2026. Nolin’s Mustang was built in the year the road was conceived of 61 years ago. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerBURLINGTON — After more than six decades of starts and stops, legal fights and revisions to plans already revised, the final segment of Burlington’s Champla
  
  Read more

• Finding our way back to the fireworks

  29-06-2026 22:11 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Rich LaMonica, a retired U.S. Army veteran, leadership advocate and founder of the podcast The MisFitNation.America turns 250 this Fourth of July. Across Vermont, families will unfold lawn chairs along parade routes. Community bands will tune their instruments on village greens. Volunteer firefighters, veterans groups and civic organizations will make their way down Main Streets. Children will chase candy tossed from floats while neighbors who may not have seen each other
  
  Read more

• Plastic in our water isn’t going away

  29-06-2026 20:18 via vtdigger.org
  
  Dear Editor:I read the recent commentary in VTDigger by Peggy Stevens, which barely scratches the surface of the issue. We are facing a problem with no solution. Plastics are already in our air, soil and water and will remain there for up to 1,000 years. They are being consumed by every living thing on Earth, from zooplankton in the Arctic to the food we eat. Plastics flow in the ground like ink in water. One only has to look at Bennington — where a former Teflon plant contaminated d
  
  Read more

• Imminent closure of Fair Haven manufactured home park leaves residents with few options

  29-06-2026 12:01 via vtdigger.org
  
  Hope Turi resides in the Green Mountain Mobile Manor in Fair Haven. Seen on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerThis story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.FAIR HAVEN — When Hope Turi moved her family into a manufactured home at the Green Mountain Mobile Manor one year ago, it felt like everything clicked right into place. Turi’s family of seven had been living in northe
  
  Read more

• Research at Middlebury College reveals nuanced story about artificial intelligence use

  28-06-2026 15:32 via vtdigger.org
  
  The Davis Family Library at Middlebury College in Middlebury in November 2025. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerThis story by Jing Williams was first published in the Addison Independent on June 25, 2026.MIDDLEBURY — Artificial intelligence is a powerful force in education today. It can accurately summarize novels, write essays, solve math problems and code — in seconds.And a popular narrative online now is that most college students use AI to automate their work and to cheat, Mi
  
  Read more

• Vermont lawmakers tried to curb license plate surveillance. Police found a way around it.

  28-06-2026 14:18 via vtdigger.org
  
  State lawmakers clamped down on the use of automatic cameras to track vehicles by their license plates years ago, and Vermont police have told the Legislature they no longer use such surveillance.   But behind the scenes it was a different story: They just reached across state lines to do it, according to a data analysis by VTDigger. Vermont police departments conducted over 100 license plate searches since 2023, surveilling people under investigation when they traveled out
  
  Read more

• As Beta Technologies expands employment — and investors — other technical businesses struggle to survive

  28-06-2026 13:36 via vtdigger.org
  
  Bill Hanf of Green Mountain Avionics shows a private aircraft at Middlebury Airport in Middleburyon Tuesday, June 23, 2026. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerFor six months, Nathan Merrill would come into work at Green Mountain Avionics, an aircraft maintenance company in Middlebury, at 3:00 a.m. and leave at 6:00 p.m. “There wasn’t very many of me,” he recounted. With a short staff of technicians and a pile of projects to be completed, Merill clocked in the long hours to ens
  
  Read more

• Dog attacks are a people problem, not a breed problem

  28-06-2026 13:19 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Alana Stevenson, an animal behaviorist with more than 20 years of experience. She provides humane dog and cat training.Earlier this month, a woman in Essex was charged with manslaughter after police said her dog attacked and killed her father. After the incident in March, online discussions and selectboards focused on breed bans — specifically targeting pit bulls, a broad, generic term applied to Staffordshire terriers, bull terriers and square-headed mixed breeds.Th
  
  Read more

• Can Vermont celebrate a big national birthday amid turbulent times? We did in 1976.

  28-06-2026 12:42 via vtdigger.org
  
  A “George Washington Slept Here” float marks the U.S. bicentennial in Brattleboro on July 4, 1976. Family photo courtesy of Kevin O’ConnorOn July 4, 1976, a gaggle of Brattleboro grade-schoolers celebrated the nation’s 200th anniversary by tying a pair of bedposts to a Jeep, blanketing the hood with a sheet and turning a beach ball into the head of the first president.“George Washington Slept Here,” read the sign my friends and I crafted for our attempt at a
  
  Read more

• Rockwell was ‘At Home in Vermont’

  27-06-2026 13:22 via vtdigger.org
  
  Shelburne Museum Curator Carolyn Bauer stands in front of the three Norman Rockwell paintings the museum owns. Photo by Sophia Balunek/Shelburne NewsThis story by Liberty Darr was first published in the Shelburne News on June 25, 2026.“In New York, the models I’ve had to depend on are all washed-out and unhealthy. Up here, I not only encounter practically every type of American I’ll ever have to use, but they look healthy!”The quote by iconic illustrator Norman Rockwell
  
  Read more

• West Rutland man killed in hit-and-run, state police say

  27-06-2026 01:26 via vtdigger.org
  
  A Vermont State Police cruiser seen in Burlington on Thursday, January 23, 2025. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerA West Rutland man was killed there early Friday morning in a hit-and-run crash on Main Street, and investigators are searching for the driver who fled, according to Vermont State Police.Devin Pierro, 30, of West Rutland, was walking west on Main Street near Whipple Hollow Road around 5:25 a.m. when a passing vehicle struck him, according to state police. He was pronounced dead at the
  
  Read more

• Beta Technologies plans to expand campus to 100 acres

  27-06-2026 00:32 via vtdigger.org
  
  Flyers for Beta Technologies’ Shunpike Road June 10 meeting to discuss growth plans with neighbors were still visible last week. Photo by Sophia Balunek/The Other PaperThis story by Liberty Darr was first published in The Other Paper on June 25, 2026.It’s no surprise that Beta Technologies, the electric aviation tech giant, has plans to build an empire in the Green Mountain State.But the company has now publicly showcased some preliminary plans to build out its campus off Williston
  
  Read more

• Driver faces charge of DUI with death resulting in Orleans County crash that killed passenger

  27-06-2026 00:24 via vtdigger.org
  
  A Vermont State Police cruiser seen in Burlington on Thursday, January 23, 2025. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerA Lowell man faces a charge of drunken driving with death resulting after a crash that killed a woman riding in the side-by-side vehicle he was driving Thursday night, according to Vermont State Police.Charging documents state that police were notified of the crash at around 10:30 p.m. on Newton Road in Lowell when Randy Lemieux II, 27, was driving a Polaris RZR. The vehicle rolled ov
  
  Read more

• James D. Carr

  26-06-2026 23:43 via vtdigger.org
  
  Born: 02/01/1926Halifax, Vt.Died: 06/23/2026Bellows Falls, Vt.Details of service:July 18, 2026, 11:00 a.m., Oak Hill Cemetery, Bellows Falls, VTJames D. Carr was born on February 1,1926 in W. Halifax, Vermont the son of Donald and Lu (Brown) Carr. He attended schools in W. Halifax and Putney. At age 14, he dropped out of school and went to work on a farm in Putney for room and board for 50 cents a week. He moved to Bellows Falls with his family at age 15 and worked at Hubbard, Parker
  
  Read more

• In post-pandemic Vermont, the high-end destination wedding industry has ‘exploded’

  26-06-2026 22:33 via vtdigger.org
  
  Wedding cocktails are held at the formal gardens of Hildene, the Lincoln Family Home in Manchester. Photo courtesy of Jesse SchloffTheo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger.When Emily Pierson decided to get married in Vermont, she knew she had to act fast before venues and vendors booked up.Having often visited her mother’s childhood stomping grounds in the Green Mountain State when she was younger, the Las Vegas-based educational consultant sa
  
  Read more

Follow @NewsVermont_ on Twitter!