VPR News

After considering a variety of new taxes to fund water quality efforts in Vermont, lawmakers now say they can clean up the state’s waterways without raising a dime.

Even a generic, blank form is considered confidential by Vermont’s Agency of Human Services. When VPR requested a blank “Critical Incident Review Form” from the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living, or DAIL earlier this month, we received the blank form — redacted.

This month three Vermont colleges held their final graduation ceremonies and now those schools are closed. While there are still 19 colleges in the state, the loss of Green Mountain College, College of St. Joseph and Southern Vermont College will be felt by students, staff and their surrounding communities. Vermont Edition discusses these closings during a live broadcast from the Rutland Free Library .

An estimated 1,089 people experienced homelessness in Vermont, nearly a third of them in Chittenden County, during a one-day count in January. That's a nearly 16% decrease in the estimate of people experiencing homelessness over last year. But the estimate also found a troubling reversal in what had been a yearslong decline in chronic homelessness.

Growing up on a Vermont farm gave Eben Bayer a healthy appreciation for the incredible technological achievements of the natural world. Now, he and a co-founder have created a company called Ecovative . They're using mycelium — the long, thread-like roots of mushrooms that lie hidden under the ground — to create simple, biodegradable, affordable packaging and more.

This spring I watched the Vermont Legislature through the eyes of twenty-five college students. Each week students traveled to the state’s capitol to watch and write about how bills become law – or not.

An attack on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia in early May left one hiker dead and another injured. The violence ignited conversations among hikers across the country, sharing stories of times they felt unsafe and reconciling the relative safety of the wilderness with fears such incidents could happen again. We're talking with experienced hikers about staying safe on the trail.

With an estimated one million species facing the threat of extinction driven by human activity, is now the time to think seriously about getting a handle on skyrocketing global population? We're talking about human population, its impact on the planet and what can be done.

I'd been dreaming of taking a break from early spring in northern New England and spending two weeks in Spain as a family sounded like just the ticket.

Vermont lawmakers have been putting in long hours at the Statehouse this week, trying to wrap up work on a number of complex policy bills. While the Legislature had been hoping to adjourn this weekend, House Speaker Mitzi Johnson said they're going to have to come back for at least a couple days next week.

Will it matter if a major pipeline company has a larger stake in the parent companies of Green Mountain Power and Vermont Gas? Climate activists and opponents of gas pipelines think so.

Costs for generic medications have skyrocketed in recent years, with some increasing by as much as 8,000% . The explosion in drug costs is the leading factor behind the nearly 16% rate hike Blue Cross Blue Shield Vermont requested this month for participants in Vermont Health Connect. Now Congressman Peter Welch is co-sponsoring several bills to reign in prescription drug costs at the federal level.

Two years ago, the state offered Vermonters money to buy a new wood or pellet stove if they got rid of an old, polluting stove. The program was so popular, they decided to do it again this year (with a few changes). So how many people have taken advantage of these different iterations of the wood stove change-out program?

This week on All Things Considered , VPR host and reporter Henry Epp has been exploring a singular question about publicly-funded programs in Vermont, both big and small: "Did it work?" The weeklong series follows up on a handful of initiatives over the past few years and looks how much bang — if any — Vermonters got for their buck.

In 2015, then-Gov. Peter Shumlin announced a plan to invest millions of dollars in Vermont's child-protection system. One of the main goals was to reduce caseloads for social workers in the Department for Children and Families. Now, nearly three years later, are caseloads any lower?