VPR News

From Africa to Vermont: That journey is the inspiration behind the name of the Burlington-based Afropop band A2VT , whose music is a mix of genres, including dancehall, hip-hop and Bollywood. The group recently dropped a new single, and their second album is due out in the fall.

It's a startling fact. Each year, more people 65 or older in Vermont die from falls than in motor vehicle crashes. So learning how to prevent or survive falls is an important skill to learn, especially for our senior citizens.

In recent election cycles, super PACs have sought to influence electoral contests from the governor on down in Vermont — and 2018 is proving to be no exception.

I’ve been wondering if we may be promoting a stereotype that no longer reflects the reality of a contemporary, inclusive Vermont – even perhaps contributing to some of the racism we’ve seen lately, like the public attacks on Bennington Representative Kiah Morris and her family, or the incident at a Stowe youth camp where racist remarks left children shaken and afraid.

Every dollar that Vermont spends on conservation land generates a $9 return — that's the finding of a study out Wednesday from a group of conservation-related nonprofits in the state.

Our politics and ideology are shaped by our upbringing and life experience, but a UVM political scientist says there may be another key component to what we believe and who we vote for: the fictional stories we're exposed to in books, movies, and television. We're talking about how entertainment can shape our politics - from Game of Thrones to House of Cards and The Hunger Games .

Legal and cultural norms regard sharing nude or indecent photos of someone without their consent as a violation of privacy. But when it's done to shame or humiliate that person, Vermont law says nonconsensual pornography—so-called "revenge porn"—is a crime. Now a Vermont Supreme Court ruling has overturned a lower court's decision, bolstering the state's law and deeming it constitutional.

I met John McCain several times. In fact, in 2008 I spent January in New Hampshire campaigning for him - hard.

I love working in the woods and I’ve come to know all the great trees on our land. They’re like friends – the surviving American elm that looks like a frozen geyser as it towers above the other trees, the dying butternuts in disarray, the wolf pines, the sturdy black cherries, and, of course, the centenarian sugar maples.

As companies like Uber and Airbnb continue growing across Vermont, two new state laws to better regulate the "gig economy" are now in effect.

Ambulance departments in rural areas of Vermont face growing costs and increasing demands of time and training. Some volunteer-run departments have been forced to close when those demands become too much to manage. We're looking at how Vermont's rural ambulance departments are meeting those challenges to make sure someone answers when Vermonters dial 911.

Health officials in Vermont say that when someone dies of a drug overdose in the state, they fully expect it to involve the synthetic drug fentanyl. Fentanyl-related overdoses continue to rise, both in Vermont and nationwide. And reports about the potency and danger of fentanyl also continue to proliferate.

About five years ago my daughter called from New Mexico, where she’d been serving as an AmeriCorps Volunteer running a gardening program in an elementary school to say she’d been asked to apply to become a fifth grade teacher. The region had more than 200 open teaching positions, and the school was desperate.

Small electric utilities around Vermont are concerned their customers will face higher bills to pay for a boom in solar projects. Last month, the utilities complained to regulators about the subsidies they have to pay for certain solar projects.

My mother, Mary Broderick, served on my Connecticut hometown’s Board of Education for years, eventually serving at the state and national level. It was inspiring, but I still sometimes wondered if the cause was worth the cost - because it’s hard to do a job that doesn’t pay well and requires time away from your family even when you love it.