VPR News

How did you or your family first come to Vermont? Maybe your family traces its history beyond memory. Perhaps you’re a transplant who remembers the first footstep in the Green Mountain State. St. Michael's College professor emeritus Daniel Bean has researched the unique history of a small group of Vermonters: orphans and foundlings rounded up in major cities and brought here on what he calls "orphan trains."

One of the best parts of serving in public office is getting to hear from Vermonters from every part of the state, and all walks of life. Not only was it interesting to hear about their aspirations and struggles, but it was important for me, as a leader, to see how their lives could be impacted by decisions we were making in Montpelier. Sometimes, after one of these conversations, I would see an issue in an entirely new way, and it would lead me to change my mind about a policy I was considering

As The Hermitage resort in Wilmington struggles to emerge from its financial difficulties, others in the Deerfield Valley are worried about the ongoing effect of the resort’s closure.

Times change - but how they change is a mysterious process.

S.55, a bill that became the unexpected hot-button issue of the session so far, was signed into law Wednesday on the steps of the Vermont Statehouse.

In just a few months, young people — some who can’t yet vote – have led the U.S. and Vermont on a dizzying pace of change around gun control legislation. Far less visible are the students who favor gun rights.

Until recently passing gun control legislation in Vermont was a near impossible task and second amendment advocates are frustrated with the rapid change in the state's gun laws.

Opponents of a comprehensive gun control bill are making a last-minute effort to encourage Gov. Phil Scott to veto the legislation.

At a time when the U.S. is tending to look inward with proposed walls and tariffs, kids across the country have instead been looking beyond our borders.

For years, artist Georgia O’Keeffe has been a hero of mine. Fiercely independent and courageous, a setter of trends in art and lifestyle, O’Keeffe was a genuine maker.

Twitter user Ricky Vaughn has been called " Trump’s most influential white nationalist troll. " The account drew attention during the 2016 presidential election for political (and often white nationalist and anti-Semitic) posts. Huffington Post reporter Luke O'Brien found the man behind the handle is Waterbury native and Middlebury graduate Douglass Mackey.

Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency. These and other buzzwords make headlines in the world of finance, but underlying it all is a new piece of financial technology called blockchain. And state lawmakers are betting this new technology could be Vermont's next moneymaker, much like the state's captive insurance market.

Sen. Patrick Leahy says Congress should demand that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg give a full accounting about why the company allowed a political consulting firm to obtain profiles of more than 87 million of its users during the 2016 presidential campaign.

From the governor on down, just about every elected official in Montpelier says Vermont needs more money for water quality projects. And that’s where the agreement ends. The issue of how to pay for water funding has turned into one of the most intractable policy debates of the 2018 legislative session.

In April of 2017, a little less than four months after the inauguration of Republican Phil Scott, Vermont’s new governor got himself an internet “fan club.”