VPR News

Lawmakers are wrapping up the legislative session and we're talking with Republican leaders in the House and Senate about what they want to accomplish in their final days in Montpelier.

House lawmakers gave preliminary approval Wednesday to legislation that would boost the minimum wage in Vermont, but Senate Democrats say the increase isn’t sufficient to improve the economic standing of low-wage workers in the state.

Vermont's opioid epidemic has created a backlog of child abuse and neglect cases in Vermont's courts. The Vermont Judiciary formed a commission to look at how the state handles the most severe cases in the family court. Now the commission recommends diverting these cases to a separate program that concentrates on individuals who are considered high-risk and high-need.

In 2015, Vermont's Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets secured $25,000 from a federal grant to help fund a trade mission to Japan. Leaders of eight small food producers, along with a few government employees, headed to Tokyo for four days in October 2016. The goal was to drum up new business in an international market. So, a few years later, have those companies made sales to Japan?

A lone feral swine shot and killed near Lyndonville in March tested positive for the pseudorabies virus , or PRV. The virus is harmless to humans but can be lethal to domestic pigs, other livestock and pets. And once a pig is infected with PRV, it can continue to spread the virus for the rest of its life.

The " Dr. Dynasaur " program has been providing healthcare for children and pregnant women for thirty years, and it's gone through a number of expansions and iterations. We're talking about how Dr. Dynasaur works, who is covered, how the program has changed since its introduction and how it might evolve going forward.

For anyone living near the New Hampshire border, Presidential politics are in full swing. On almost a daily basis, one contender or another will be holding a public event. For example in one recent week, Presidential candidates appeared at 38 public events in New Hampshire including six in the Upper Valley.

The Vermont Legislature has taken aim at reducing youth smoking rates with a trio of bills. Rep. George Till of Jericho joined Vermont Edition to update us on the content, goals and current status of the legislation.

Less than a third of undergraduate economics majors and Ph.D. students are women, and less than 1 percent of Ph.D. economists identify as Black, Latino, or Native American. A new pilot program , involving several colleges, to get more women and people of color into the economics pipeline has had some promising results.

Two men have filed federal lawsuits against Burlington police, alleging they were subjected to unprovoked, excessive force and knocked unconscious during separate incidents in September 2018. Jeremie Meli and Mabior Jok were both arrested after the encounters on downtown sidewalks, but prosecutors later dropped all charges against the men.

Earlier this week on Vermont Edition , we heard what's happening in the Vermont House as this legislative session nears an end. Now, Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe joins us to provide an update on what movement we'll see in the Senate in the session's waning days.

Doctors, psychiatrists and other health professionals say marijuana can be very damaging to young and developing brains and that they're seeing young people with increasingly negative effects from consuming the drug.

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time in the basement bathroom of a Greensboro church - for the fast internet. And I’m thankful for Spark, the new co-working space close to my house, where I know I can participate in video conferences.

The state is investigating the Chittenden Solid Waste District for allegedly dumping glass it collects from northern Vermont instead of recycling the material as required.

In early February, a first-year student at the University of Vermont died after passing out in a snowbank. Connor Gage attended two frat parties the night of his death. He died of hypothermia and acute alcohol intoxication.