State

Staffing shortages in Waterbury are among post office problems across Vermont that have disrupted deliveries and inconvenienced residents.

The bill seeks to ensure better legal protections for donors.

Part of the bill aimed to ban hunters from using dogs and bait — without a trappers’ license — to hunt coyotes in the state.

In recent years, libraries across the country have come under fire for housing books that focus on gender, sexual and racial identity, especially those for children.

Though psychedelics are illegal in the state, that isn’t stopping Vermonters from using them. 

The storytimes give parents a chance to do a chore while their kids learn. Organizers hope people will turn out for the next event May 30.

The hope is to train volunteers in planting and caring for the 50-plus trees set to occupy the green space over the next two years.

It’s a conundrum with many variables and few easy answers. As Murdoch put it, “What other tools do we have in our toolkit?”

Legislators added the original bill’s language to H.878, which deals with “miscellaneous judiciary procedures.”

The honor caps his time as the youngest son in the state’s most-storied basketball family — and it comes in a year that marks the 25th anniversary of his father’s death. 

The bill would target shoplifters who steal multiple things in one county within a two-week period. If the combined value of the goods exceeds $900, an offender would face the same fines and imprisonment as the current felony.

The institute, its partners and others in the sustainability industry see the practice — dubbed “peecycling” — as a cheap, easy and less-destructive method than synthetic fertilizer.

If cameras catch you driving more than 10 mph over the limit, the rig takes a photo of your license plate and you’ll get a ticket in the mail. 

The bill says companies that distribute PCBs must pay for the testing and removal of the chemicals in Vermont’s schools.

Under the bill, companies would be barred from the sale, lease, or disclosure of people’s biometric identification unless it is necessary for the service or the person gives consent. 

Researchers have concerns about the relation between the bald eagles’ rise and a receding blue heron population in the state.

Lawmakers made the changes after hearing testimony from state officials that called the bill’s language vague and lacking in precedent.

Scheer is an actor, puppeteer, clown, acrobat — and one of the first openly trans women and nonbinary people to puppeteer in American television.

The bill would fill what supporters say is a gap in the law. 

The bill says if people agree to use protection before or during sex, neither party can remove or tamper with the condom without the other’s consent. The bill would allow survivors to seek damages in court.

Reapportionment occurs every 10 years and is based on census data.

The bill would hold drug sellers responsible for deaths caused by their distribution of laced drugs, even if doing so was down to mere carelessness.

In response to the challenges faced by asylum-seekers and others with special immigration statuses as vulnerable people, volunteer-based organizations in Vermont have a solution: raising money through the arts. 

He can’t fly or shoot lasers out his eyes, but he can do what many dread and few understand: taxes.

The bill would limit Vermont police interrogators from lying to detainees. But lawmakers doubled down on details that got last year’s version of the plan shot down.

In a survey by the state after last summer’s flooding, 70% of farmers said they didn’t have crop or livestock insurance. Another 10% said the insurance didn’t apply to their industry — meaning only around one in five had coverage for those losses.

With this winter’s relatively weak snowfall, more people may have turned to birding as an outdoor activity for the season.

Expungement entirely wipes someone’s conviction from the official record — the goal being to see them treated as if they had never been convicted.

By meeting a slew of conditions, producers wouldn’t need inspections to sell raw chicken products from the farm, at farmers markets or to restaurants in Vermont.

‘It was a constant battle’ to keep JetBlue in the Green Mountain State — a conflict that started long before the airline pulled out in 2023.

Washington district constituents approached their senator after they were turned away from a business because they only carried cash.

The bill would rebrand the board that sets rules for implementing Act 250.

So far the bill has been well received and the University of Vermont is expected to present a new draft for legislators to chew on next week. 

The changes address problems prompted by education officials.

One drone operator understands the lawmakers’ concern, but said he thinks details in the bill are too arbitrary.

But companies like Meta and TikTok would be responsible for assessing their data protection policies under the bill — and for determining whether they are in compliance with the law.

Management last year rolled out parking fees, carpooling incentives and bus service improvements — but it may not be doing enough. 

The lead sponsor of the bill says the legislation is important for residents in areas likely to suffer flooding in the future.

The garden metaphor has brought seven artists from different backgrounds to share and indulge in interpretations of paradise, privilege, boundaries and cultivation.

The Burlington lounge’s latest endeavor, the Emerging Songwriters Contest, has drawn musicians from across the state. The last semifinals show is Feb. 20.

That money would make up what lawmakers are calling a climate superfund to help pay for natural disaster recovery in Vermont. 

The bill aims to prevent Vermont from becoming a place for puppy farms or mills — commercial dog breeding operations that raise animals in poor conditions.

The bill would dramatically limit the use of electronic devices, digital platforms and more in all Vermont schools.

About 75 cows died after a fire broke Jan. 20 and turned a 400-foot-long barn into a pile of rubble and ash. 

The crowd included families with young children, experienced anglers, locals and visitors, all there for a day out on the ice.

Under current law, first responders employed by the state don’t have to prove PTSD is related to work when seeking workers’ compensation. The new bill would give that presumption to more state workers.

Ghost guns are firearms built at home using kits that come with all the parts needed for a gun. The unassembled parts aren’t considered guns by federal law and have no serial number.

Eleven judges reported supplemental rental income over the past four years, totaling $341,953 from 2019 to 2022. While some judges only reported a couple thousand in rental income annually, other judges reported over $20,000 in some years.

The bill seeks to update the state endangered species list more frequently, establish critical habitat spaces, prohibit the sale of species and curtail rules that allow endangered animals to be taken from the land. 

If a business is culpable, H.614 allows police to seize any equipment it used for illegal activity. Furthermore, the bill increases fines and limits the logging activities of businesses with two or more outstanding fines or judgements.

‘It’s not necessarily doing anything to reinvent restorative justice or restorative approaches; it is making it so it is more streamlined access across the state,’ Dolan said. ‘This is trying to get some consistency and also respect the uniqueness of each county.’

The bill aims to expand the legal definition of mobile home parks to include communities of mobile home owners who own their own lots. Currently, state law defines mobile home parks as land with at least two mobile homes or mobile home lots, or adjacent land owned by the same person.

“What does it hurt to do this? What if you’re a student who, for the first time, is getting a period, and you forgot something?” said the bill sponsor.

Vermont State Police announced last week that troopers had finished an investigation into the incident and that no criminal charges would be filed. 

Vermont Huts is reaching out to groups and “saying, ‘Look, we have accommodation out there, and we have funding, and we can help you achieve whatever your goals are to access the space that is out there.’”

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Green Mountain Transit rides have been free.

Meanwhile, a state police investigation lingers and the boy’s family is in touch with an attorney.

Parkour offers an out-of-the-ordinary outlet that costs nothing. The sport builds on intuitive human movement — running, climbing, rolling, swinging — to move between two points in the most creative and efficient way possible.

Support from migrant rights activists is competing with concerns about the legality of the proposed policy change and, from law enforcement, wariness about restrictions on their jobs.  

The group’s numbers have expanded to 150 women. “I was all by myself for 30 years, fly fishing,” one co-founder said. No longer.

The Spartans bested previously unbeaten and no. 1 seed Twin Valley 1-0 at Applejack Stadium in Manchester on Nov. 4. 

Now the Vermont Department for Children and Families is perhaps two months away from setting up temporary quarters in Middlesex in a state complex most recently used for inpatient mental health.

Committee members are confused on what their vote meant — and now need to revote, a Criminal Justice Council admin told CNS.

The building now has sections for woodworking, pottery, a variety of glasswork, textiles, metal machining, welding, printing and metal engraving.

People in the industry believe the problems caused by the floods will worsen with winter weather soon setting in and, within the next few months, artists could be left wondering what they’ll do without accessible indoor spaces.

“We rely on that water for training, and if those beaches are closed because of the quality of the water, that really impacts us,” said the Burlington diving center’s co-owner.

Our journalists interviewed 16 lawmakers about their environmental priorities ahead of the session.

Maya Porter reported this story on assignment from the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus. The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost. The capital of an often self-styled progressive state might be one of the last places you’d […]

Adjusting after a natural disaster takes many forms, and for Vermonters in the wake of this summer’s flooding, that includes changes to used car purchases. 

Earlier this month, In a backyard overlooking Spear Street, dozens of Vermont Republicans watched a four-part performed history of patriotic songs and munched on barbecue beneath an American flag the width of a two-car garage in the leadup to Independence Day. 

The Vermont Journalism Exchange Conference last Thursday kicked off with news from University of Vermont Provost Patricia Prelock.

As the state pushes toward its solar goals, what environmental questions must be examined?

The Vermont Agency of Digital Services banned use of the popular app TikTok on all state-owned devices, joining more than half the states and the federal government as concerns about the app’s Chinese ownership continue to swirl.

South Burlington officials want to eliminate 60 percent of the city’s carbon footprint by 2030, and with transportation accounting for two-thirds of that figure, the city’s climate action plan finalized last October is pushing for more electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.

When scientists detected a small, bug-eyed gray fish two years ago at the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers in New York, it set off alarms everywhere along the waters of Lake Champlain.

Vermont lawmakers are seeking to give workers increased protections when it comes to collective bargaining and union organizing through a bill that has passed in the Senate with a number of changes since it was introduced. 

Vermont is the only state in the country where farmers cannot readily access a program meant to pay them back for restoring habitats around their farms.

Vermont’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, formed by legislators last year to document and examine state-sanctioned discrimination against historically oppressed groups, is in the process of hiring an executive director, legal counsel, an administrative assistant and research staff.

The bill, H.483, looks to implement a nondiscriminatory admissions process for prospective students on public tuition.

Vermont continues to see spikes in housing prices with the median home price rising 15% in 2022, according to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. Communities and state officials alike have spent a lot of time discussing how the growth of short-term rentals in Vermont has contributed to the state’s housing crisis.

House legislators passed a bill that would legalize mobile sports betting last week, putting Vermont on the road to joining other states in legalizing the practice.

Mandating and strengthening Holocaust education in schools has been brought up by lawmakers for the past few years, but the proposed bills are typically left untouched. This year, many representatives and senators are hoping that will change. 

Officials hope a new state fund can sway landlords to rent to people who might otherwise lack housing.

With the rise of politicized medical procedures in recent years, some liberal-majority legislatures like Vermont’s are trying to protect patients who receive reproductive and gender-affirming care — and their providers.

MONTPELIER — The Montpelier Roxbury Public School district is partnering with Talkspace, an online therapy platform, to deal with the growing need for mental health services in Vermont, particularly among youth. Superintendent Libby Bonesteel said the partnership came about after community members expressed concerns that there weren’t enough mental health providers in the area, especially […]