VPR News

It wasn't a typical first week at work: meet your colleagues, get settled in, confirm the existence of a new planet about 900 trillion miles from earth. But for physics and astronomy professor Elisabeth Newton, that's exactly how she started her new job at Dartmouth College earlier this year.

The nights are getting cooler and our Vermont summer is quickly coming to an end. So as you’re reaping the rich harvest of a plentiful vegetable garden right now, and preparing and canning for the long winter, it's also a great time to think about saving seeds. We'll learn how the home gardener can harvest seeds from their current crop of veggies.

In the new episode of Brave Little State , author Paul Gillies said Vermont Place-Names by Esther Munroe Swift is a "go-to" resource for his research. And when Mitch Wertlieb hosted a series on Morning Edition a few years ago searching for the origins of Vermont town names, he and producer Melody Bodette relied heavily on Swift's well-loved and respected tome.

In fall 2015, Green Mountain Power announced its plan to build a biodigester facility in St. Albans Town. It was supposed to take in manure from three area farms, as well as food waste from the region, and convert it into energy. It was also going to help reduce manure runoff into Lake Champlain. So what happened?

Regulators say Vermont's largest solid waste district needed approval for disposing of crushed glass that was supposed to be recycled.

Art is a vital part of human culture. But when was the last time you actually engaged with art? What role does art play in our culture, our public discourse and in tackling the important issues affecting our communities, nations and planet? If your answers are fuzzy, you're not alone. We're talking about our rough relationship with contemporary art and how we engage with art today.

A decade ago, Vermont lawmakers found themselves scrambling to respond to dropping milk prices. They wanted a more proactive way to strengthen Vermont's food and farm economy, and settled on a law they called the Farm-to-Plate Investment Program. The initial goal was to double the percentage of dollars spent on local food. Now 10 years later, we ask: did it work?

In its new episode, Brave Little State takes on more of your questions about mysterious Green Mountain byways in its Second Annual Brief History of Vermont Road Names. Vermont Edition hears what VPR's intrepid reporters found as they sought the origins of some of the state's spiciest-sounding road names.

Brattleboro lost a longtime pillar of the community earlier this month: Martha O’Connor died at the age of 82. But O'Connor's legacy stretches far from southeast Vermont.

A campaign to produce more housing in Chittenden County has again fallen short on its affordable housing goal, but the effort’s overall numbers are on track.

It's hard to define Katie Runde as anything other than a Renaissance woman. The 34-year-old describes herself as a realist painter, saxophonist and spiritual thinker who sometimes preaches at her local church.

It started with a senator's vision for passenger rail. Now $100 million and 23 years later, what happened to plans to bring Amtrak service from Rutland to Burlington?

Katie Sullivan, who lives in Albany, Vt., is curious about a road name in a town just south of her, in Marshfield. “How did Star Pudding Farm Road get its name?" she asks. "Is there a Star Pudding farm?”

The opioid crisis claims thousands of lives every year in the United States. Distinctions between oxycontin, heroin and synthetic opioids like fentanyl are sadly all too common to Vermonters. We're talking with the authors of a new book, Opium: How An Ancient Flower Shaped And Poisoned Our World , about what the history of the drug can tell us about today's addiction and overdose crisis.

With the recent approval of double-digit rate hikes for the state's two major health care insurers — Blue Cross/Blue Shield and MVP Health Care — by the Green Mountain Care Board, many in Vermont are concerned. We'll hear about what's driving these cost increases and some possible solutions for reigning in the rising cost of health care.