Vermont news

• Public impeachment hearings to begin Wednesday

  12-11-2019 21:10 via vtdigger.org
  
  Rep. Peter Welch questions former special counsel Robert Mueller in a House Intelligence Committee hearing earlier this year.
  The House is set to begin its open impeachment process Wednesday with testimony centered on a key phone call that Rep. Peter Welch has called the “smoking gun” showing President Donald Trump acted improperly.
  Testimony from William Taylor, the top U.S. envoy to Ukraine, will focus on the July phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, a
  
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• Becca Balint votes to block ouster of House Speaker Mike Johnson

  09-05-2024 16:31 via vtdigger.org
  
  U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vermont, speaks after touring and visiting with a resident at Zephyr Place in Williston on Wednesday, January 18, 2023.Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerVermont’s Democratic delegate to the U.S. House joined a bipartisan coalition on Wednesday to block the ouster of the chamber’s Republican speaker. 
  U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., voted to table a measure that would have declared the speaker’s office vacant. Had it passed, House Speaker Mike Johnson
  
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• Jason Van Driesche: Pass the VT Kids Code to promote responsible tech and protect kids

  09-05-2024 13:01 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Jason Van Driesche, chief of staff of Front Porch Forum. 
  I recently testified before both the Senate and the House to advocate for the Vermont Kids Code. This legislation resonates deeply with Front Porch Forum’s mission to help neighbors connect and build community. It stands in stark contrast with big tech’s reckless and harmful prioritization of profits over privacy, safety and genuine community building.During my testimony, I focused on how the major
  
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• Brenna Galdenzi: Our Voices Matter

  09-05-2024 12:00 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Brenna Galdenzi of Stowe, president and co-founder of Protect Our Wildlife.
  The values that the public holds toward wildlife are broken out in four different categories: traditionalists, mutualists, pluralists and distanced. Traditionalists tend to view wildlife as resources for the taking, while mutualists seek coexistence and place greater value on protecting wildlife. Pluralists prioritize these two values differently depending on the specific context. Those that are di
  
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• Vermont Conversation: Dartmouth Professor Annelise Orleck was arrested but not silenced

  09-05-2024 02:58 via vtdigger.org
  
  
  Dartmouth College Professor of History Annelise Orleck is held to the ground while being arrested during a protest of the Israel-Hamas War on the Green in Hanover, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Photo by James M. Patterson/Valley News
  The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman is a VTDigger podcast that features in-depth interviews on local and national issues with politicians, activists, artists, changemakers and citizens who are making a difference. Listen below, and subscrib
  
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• Final Reading: Another side of Dick McCormack

  09-05-2024 02:14 via vtdigger.org
  
  A reporter inserts “The Best of Dillon Simmerman” tape into a cassette player in Montpelier on March 27, 2024. Photo by Natalie Williams/VTDigger
  A select collection of tapes have transformed American political history. The Watergate tapes led to former President Richard Nixon’s resignation. The Access Hollywood tape led to former President Donald Trump’s … election. I’m here to tell you I’m in possession of one such tape, a tape few knew existed
  
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• Vermont lawmakers advance bill to increase supervision of people accused of crimes

  09-05-2024 01:19 via vtdigger.org
  
  Rep. Martin Lalonde, D-South Burlington, left, chats with Rep. Larry Satkowitz, D-Randolph, during a break on the floor of the House at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
  Both chambers of the Vermont Legislature have passed a bill that would create a new supervision program for people released from state custody while awaiting criminal trials. It’s one of a slate of bills lawmakers are weighing in the final days of the session that they
  
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• Vermont opioid deaths decline for the first time since 2019, according to preliminary data

  09-05-2024 00:50 via vtdigger.org
  
  Opioid deaths among Vermonters appear to have dipped in 2023, according to new data from the state Department of Health, following three consecutive years of record-breaking fatalities. According to the report, which was released Wednesday, 231 state residents are confirmed to have died from an opioid-related overdose last year, down from 244 in 2022. The projected 5% decrease “is not statistically large,” Health Commissioner Mark Levine said in a press release, but the progres
  
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• Legislative panel finalizes $8.6B state budget; Gov. Phil Scott signals willingness to sign

  08-05-2024 23:56 via vtdigger.org
  
  Head House budget bill negotiator Rep. Diane Lanpher, D-Vergennes, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, reads a final copy of the bill before signing it with other conference committee members at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
  Vermont’s annual state budget is one step closer to the finish line — and in it, lawmakers are making a go at whittling down this year’s double-digit property tax hike.On Tuesday afterno
  
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• Colchester man convicted for role in deadly armed robbery of alleged rival drug dealer in Swanton

  08-05-2024 23:16 via vtdigger.org
  
  The U.S. District Court and post office building on West Street in Rutland. Photo by Andrew Kutches/VTDigger
  A Colchester man has been convicted of drug, gun and robbery offenses stemming from the death of an alleged rival drug dealer in Swanton more than two years ago.A jury returned its guilty verdicts Monday against Dominique Troupe, 37, following a six-day trial in U.S. District Court in Rutland.Troupe was convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, using a firearm while committing a dru
  
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• Lawmakers pass bill that would crack down on timber theft

  08-05-2024 22:07 via vtdigger.org
  
  A crew from Emerson and Sons Logging works a landing in Newbury on Wednesday, October 19, 2022. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
  A bill that would address the long-standing problem of timber theft in Vermont is headed to the desk of Gov. Phil Scott, now that it has cleared both chambers of the legislature. Senators on Tuesday unanimously passed the legislation, which was given the final stamp of approval in the House on Wednesday.Sen. Richard Westman, R-Lamoille, who presented H.614 on the floor
  
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• Bill that would crack down on timber theft passes out of Senate

  08-05-2024 22:07 via vtdigger.org
  
  A crew from Emerson and Sons Logging works a landing in Newbury on Wednesday, October 19, 2022. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
  Senators on Wednesday unanimously passed a bill that would address the long-standing problem of timber theft in Vermont. Sen. Richard Westman, R-Lamoille, who presented H.614 on the floor last week, said he encountered timber theft during his first term in the Legislature. While carpooling home with another lawmaker in 1983, he said, the passenger pointed to a hil
  
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• Students take down pro-Palestinian encampment at UVM

  08-05-2024 20:04 via vtdigger.org
  
  An encampment set up by pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Vermont was mostly dismantled by the afternoon of Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Photo by Corey McDonald/VTDigger
  A tent encampment at the University of Vermont is coming down, organizers announced Wednesday, after pro-Palestinian student protesters spent 10 nights occupying a campus quad. Protest organizers said that students had made the “strategic decision” to pack up the camp in an Instagram post Wednesday, af
  
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• High-achieving Bradford student weighs past, present and future in choosing next steps

  08-05-2024 19:34 via vtdigger.org
  
  Emily Qiu, a senior at Oxbow High School, is a standout student. She’s in the top five of her graduating class, she’s taken many honors classes and college-level dual enrollment courses, and she’s been inducted into both the National Honor Society and the National Technical Honor Society. But Emily’s academic record didn’t automatically translate into confidence heading into college applications. “I applied to 17 schools, but I had a fear I wouldn’
  
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• High-achieving Bradford student weighs past, present and future in choosing her college

  08-05-2024 19:34 via vtdigger.org
  
  Emily Qiu, a senior at Oxbow High School, is a standout student. She’s in the top five of her graduating class, she’s taken many honors classes and college-level dual enrollment courses, and she’s been inducted into both the National Honor Society and the National Technical Honor Society. But Emily’s academic record didn’t automatically translate into confidence heading into college applications. “I applied to 17 schools, but I had a fear I wouldn’
  
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• Mayoral race centers on flood response in Barre, Vermont’s worst-hit city

  08-05-2024 19:30 via vtdigger.org
  
  Barre mayoral candidates Thom Lauzon, left, and Samn Stockwell. Photos by Natalie Williams/VTDigger
  Samn Stockwell is a Barre city councilor for Ward 3, one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods in the floods of July 2023. Walking around her neighborhood as the waters receded, she remembers seeing yards and front porches filled with mud. “They were staring in that state of shock that you sometimes see in people who survived a great tragedy,” she said. Stockwell is running for m
  
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• Dartmouth administration faces fierce criticism over protest arrests

  08-05-2024 17:23 via vtdigger.org
  
  New Hampshire State Police wearing riot gear gather before crossing Dartmouth College Green to remove protesters who set up tents to protest of the Israel-Hamas War on May 1. Photo by James M. Patterson/Valley NewsThis story by Frances Mize was first published by the Valley News on May 7.HANOVER, New Hampshire — Dartmouth President Sian Beilock and college administrators faced pointed criticism at a meeting with faculty on Monday regarding the arrest of 89 students, staff, faculty and com
  
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• Wild divide: Can wildlife management policy reflect Vermonters’ complex views?

  08-05-2024 14:28 via vtdigger.org
  
  People look water fowl in Wilder in 2019, left, and a hunter looks for deer in Jericho in 2019. Photos by James M. Patterson/Valley News and Glenn Russell/VTDiggerThis is the second story in a two-part series that examines the increasingly inflamed debate about wildlife management in Vermont. Part I of the series looked at the voices that are most often heard in the Legislature and in Vermont media. This story analyzes the opinions of the broader public and asks whether it’s possible to f
  
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• Allen Gilbert: A right is never permanently won

  08-05-2024 13:01 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Allen Gilbert, a former journalist, teacher and ACLU-VT executive director. He chaired his school board in Worcester when it joined the education funding lawsuit that resulted in the Brigham v. State decision by the Vermont Supreme Court in 1997. Gilbert is the author of “Equal Is Equal, Fair Is Fair,” a book about equity issues in Vermont.A commentary by Tom Evslin published May 3 by VTDigger tried to unwind the education funding conundrum that the state lande
  
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• David Gartenstein: Vermont law at the intersection of the criminal justice and mental health care systems needs to be fixed

  08-05-2024 12:01 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by David Gartenstein, who works as a deputy state’s attorney in Windham County.
  Vermont’s laws at the intersection of the criminal justice and mental health systems are broken.  The government needs to be able to act when people cause harm to others, but Vermont law does not provide a consistently effective response when people with mental illness and cognitive disabilities commit crimes.Criminal justice is about responsibility and consequences, but there are
  
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• Final Reading: Lawmakers send safe injection site pilot legislation to Gov. Phil Scott

  08-05-2024 01:43 via vtdigger.org
  
  Elissa Johnk, the lead minister at Burlington’s First Congregational Church, describes her experience witnessing Vermont’s opioid crisis.
  Over the past five years, Elissa Johnk, the lead minister at the First Congregational Church of Burlington, has borne witness to Vermont’s overdose crisis. Johnk hosts services as ambulances drive by multiple times an hour. She has found people passed out on church property. She has held burials of overdose victims in front of their chi
  
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• 3 of the session’s largest climate bills face opposition from Phil Scott administration

  08-05-2024 00:15 via vtdigger.org
  
  Rep. Lauren Sibilia, I-Dover, speaks on the floor of the House at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
  In the last week, three of the legislative session’s biggest climate bills passed out of their second chamber, and are likely to head to the governor’s desk soon. Those bills include S.213, which would establish a new state permitting system for building in river corridors, S.259, which would require big oil companies to pay for
  
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• A coffee product’s ‘active ingredient’ leads to guilty plea in fraud case

  07-05-2024 23:18 via vtdigger.org
  
  Photo by Brigitte Tohm via Pexels
  An Arizona man has pleaded guilty in federal court in Vermont to a fraud charge for trying to sell a coffee product marketed as a “natural” way to treat erectile dysfunction. Lab tests revealed that the product marketed as “Hard Coffee” contained tadalafil, which is the active ingredient in the erectile medication Cialis.William Jack Powell, 60, of Kingman, Arizona, pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Burlington to a charge o
  
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• In compromise, budget panel agrees to new limits on motel housing program

  07-05-2024 23:05 via vtdigger.org
  
  House and Senate conferees shake hands after agreeing on a budget bill during a conference committee meeting at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
  This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.State budget writers have decided against a contentious cap on the number of households that can access Vermont’s motel voucher program for unhoused people during
  
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• Art exhibit documents the Covid-19 vaccine experiences of Black Vermonters

  07-05-2024 21:45 via vtdigger.org
  
  Yanna Marie Orcel accesses a recording available at the “Beneath Our Skin” exhibit at the Clemmons Family Farm in Charlotte on Thursday, May 2, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerCHARLOTTE — Samirah Evans hates needles. So she wasn’t thrilled when she saw on TV the first folks receiving the Covid-19 vaccine in December 2020. “That needle looks long and it made me nervous,” she outlines in an audio account that is now a part of a storytelling project by
  
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• Wild divide: A debate over wildlife management in Vermont runs deep

  07-05-2024 16:14 via vtdigger.org
  
  A sporting goods store display, left, and a posted sign. Photos by Kevin O’Connor and Natalie Williams/VTDiggerThis is the first story in a two-part series that examines the increasingly inflamed debate about wildlife management in Vermont. Part I of the series looks at the voices that are most often heard in the Legislature and in Vermont media. Part II analyzes the opinions of the broader public and asks whether it’s possible to find common ground. 
  MONTPELIER — In earl
  
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• Tom Dalton: Stripping standard protections from sober house tenants is unnecessary and dangerous

  07-05-2024 12:01 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Tom Dalton of Essex Junction, executive director of Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform. He is a lawyer and a licensed alcohol and drug counselor.
  Housing security has been a big topic in the Legislature thanks to sharp increases in homelessness. But even as lawmakers work to enhance housing protections for most Vermonters, they are considering a bill that would strip away standard tenant protections from those who pay rent to live in a sober house. It’s a da
  
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• Increased reporting on state contracts is back in play in the House

  07-05-2024 02:02 via vtdigger.org
  
  Rep. Mike McCarthy, D-St. Albans City, center, chair of the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee, speaks as committee considers a bill pertaining to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Tuesday, January 9, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
  About a month ago, the Senate voted to water down a bill aimed at making state contracts more transparent, opting instead to study what lawmakers had initially proposed. Now, though, some parts o
  
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• Final Reading: Increased reporting on state contracts is back in play in the House

  07-05-2024 02:02 via vtdigger.org
  
  Rep. Mike McCarthy, D-St. Albans City, center, chair of the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee, speaks as committee considers a bill pertaining to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Tuesday, January 9, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
  About a month ago, the Senate voted to water down a bill aimed at making state contracts more transparent, opting instead to study what lawmakers had initially proposed. Now, though, some parts o
  
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• As UVM starts disciplinary process for protesters, some lawmakers call for amnesty

  07-05-2024 01:43 via vtdigger.org
  
  Students gathered at the Andrew Harris Commons at the University of Vermont campus during a rally on Monday calling for amnesty to be granted to all student protestors. Photo by Corey McDonald/VTDiggerBURLINGTON — University of Vermont is facing pushback from state lawmakers and city councilors as it initiates disciplinary proceedings against pro-Palestinian student protesters. Late last week, university police began ID’ing students at an encampment that was erected on campus e
  
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