Asked to bring newly elected U.S. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) up to date on the issues facing Vermont farmers on Wednesday, a group of dairy industry leaders had a panoply of public policy concerns at the ready. The labor shortage. Workforce housing. Milk pricing. Farm subsidy programs. Foreign trade. Climate change regulation. Even the topic…
Gov. Phil Scott exhorted lawmakers to focus their energies and “once in a lifetime” resources this session toward bridging the opportunity gap he fears is widening between the urban and rural parts of the state. In his annual inaugural address on Thursday afternoon, the Republican governor said he traveled to all 14 Vermont counties in…
Former Burlington High School principal Amy Mellencamp will come out of retirement to reprise the role she held from 1999 to 2016 following principal Lauren McBride’s announcement last month that she is resigning to take a leadership role at a local company. McBride’s last day will be January 9. Mellencamp will begin serving as acting principal on January…
Mother gave unconditional love and delighted in every aspect of parenting
The spell of warm weather that started in late December got the maple sap running, and some of the state’s largest syrup producers are boiling it already. While sugar making is more commonly associated with the end of winter, the earlier activity has become typical, said producers who were hard at work. “Mother Nature is…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. My wife and I were walking our dog in downtown Burlington in July when we passed a young man standing on a sidewalk, gesticulating oddly.…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. In week four of my first professional reporting gig, I was eager to prove myself. I had landed my dream job through Report for America,…
Dear Reverend, My sister-in-law never wants to take part in my family’s get-togethers, and my brother just does what she says. My other brother, who passed away, used to speak up about it and get everyone together, but now nobody does. I don’t really care, but I feel like if I don’t do something, our…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. My beat is education, not politics, so covering the state Senate race in Orange County was already a bit of a stretch. Plus, the race…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. I had no expectation of getting a comment from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) when I set out to cover one of his stump speeches…
2022 was a banner year for Vermont musicians and their recorded output. Seven Days received so many new submissions that some records were in danger of falling through the cracks. Not on my watch, dammit! Here are six releases rescued from the void. Adam Henry Garcia, Letters to Leopold (Self-released, digital) Burlington singer-songwriter Adam Henry…
Journalists tell two kinds of stories. There’s the formal, published account, with sources cited, observations rendered, facts confirmed. And there’s the other type — a kind of director’s cut, rife with wrong turns, evasive subjects, self-doubts, near misses and doors finally opened — that they tend to share only with colleagues, close friends and partners.…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. Almost every week I share a “backstory” in Seven Days. My “From the Publisher” column, created to detail the struggles of this newspaper during the…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. Late last year, we learned from a jailhouse letter that a Vermonter had been arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Our reporting…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. My first taste of journalism was a postcollege summer internship at Vermont Magazine, a bimonthly publication then based in a converted chicken barn just over…
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “I’m homesick all the time,” writes author Sarah Addison Allen. “I just don’t know where home is. There’s this promise of happiness out there. I know it. I even feel it sometimes. But it’s like chasing the moon. Just when I think I have it, it disappears into the horizon.” If…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. As a child, I had persistent nightmares about death. They weren’t gory or violent, but that didn’t make them any less scary. The dreams consisted…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. There are two ways to get copies of court documents in Vermont. One is to fill out a form with the docket number and records…
Regular readers of Seven Days have likely noticed our fondness for lists of seven, because duh. But sometimes reducing a compilation to single digits is really, really hard. So this time we’re going with 10! The top 10 visual art exhibitions of 2022, that is. And still some difficult pruning had to be done. As…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. When I started working at Seven Days 20 years ago, I noticed the Burlington rail yard right behind the office was busy with locomotives, tankers,…
What’s a melting popsicle doing in an art exhibit? And is that a piece of moldy bread? What’s that freaky growth in the corner? To Judith Klausner, it’s all art. In an exhibit titled “(de)composed” at Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, the Massachusetts artist presents a collection of items that make you look twice —…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. I’ve been detained and threatened with arrest twice in my 20-year career as a photographer: first, by regime thugs while I was shooting revolutionary protests…
Cat Above the Rest Saturday 7 & Sunday 8 Kitties compete for the coveted title at Vermont Fancy Felines’ Cat Show, presented at DoubleTree by Hilton in Burlington. Over 30 breeds enter the judging ring in a nail-biting (or couch-scratching) tournament, and audiences of all ages enjoy a cat parade and vendors’ market. Smack-Dab in…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. Editors are a needy breed, always hungry for copy that’s never filed early enough. So when one tells you to slow down, it’s a good…
Movie theaters are open again, but is anyone buying tickets? Or rather, is anyone buying tickets this year to films that aren’t part of the Marvel, DC Comics or Avatar franchises? Movies aimed at adult audiences — which include most of the likely award contenders — have had a lackluster performance in theaters in 2022.…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. I dread outdoor winter video shoots. I don’t perform well in the cold, and neither does my electronic gear. Despite this, I made a date…
In this world, there are glass-half-full people and glass-half-empty people. If we were the latter, we would focus on what the Vermont food scene lost this year: Chittenden County Asian restaurant pioneer Silver Palace in South Burlington; the OG wood-fired Pizza on Earth in Charlotte; the Bearded Frog in Shelburne; and Burlington favorites such as…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. Throughout the pandemic, I regularly queried Tim Lahey, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Vermont Medical Center. “Whaddya think of dining in a…
One of my work email folders is labeled “Lives.” It’s a bit of a misnomer, since the folder pertains solely to people who have died. “Lives” is internal Seven Days shorthand for “Life Stories,” our annual collection of profiles of Vermonters who died that year. We’ve been running the year-end package since we began publishing…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. Every responsible journalist understands the importance of protecting confidential sources, but I have no reservations about revealing the wellspring of not one, but two stories…
At the end of October, Seven Days published the extraordinary obituary of Florence Miles, a Huntington dairy farmer who spent most of her 100 years toiling on the side of a hill across from Camel’s Hump. Informed and intimate, the tribute chronicled the long, colorful life of a woman who labored like a workhorse, married…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. I’ve always been an observer, the kind of person who likes to sit in the corner and watch drama unfold rather than take part in…
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In accordance with your astrological omens in 2023, I’ve chosen a quote from Capricorn storyteller Michael Meade. I hope you will make it one of your core meditations in the coming months. He writes, “All meaningful change requires a genuine surrender. Yet, to surrender does not simply mean to give up;…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. Last winter I covered the Vermont House’s passage of Article 22, aka the abortion amendment. The floor vote was hybrid, and I was watching it…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. Reviewing plays isn’t exactly hard duty, but it does require getting to a Vermont theater, come rain, shine or ice storm. My beat includes playhouses…
Housing Solutions Thank you for your “Locked Out” series on Vermont’s housing mess [From the Publisher: “Series Finale,” December 7]. There are solutions, solutions that aren’t just more and more gigantic houses and huge apartment buildings, using limited resources that are becoming increasingly scarce. We need a three-pronged approach: 1) There has to be a…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. Last fall, I was reading a New Yorker exposé about Teen Challenge — a Christian organization that runs a network of residential programs for troubled…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. Among the pantheon of best journalism movies is All the President’s Men, the riveting backstory of how the Washington Post broke open the Watergate scandal…
Well, we did it, homies. 2022 is all but in the rearview mirror. And what a weird-ass year it was, eh? We found out that Ticketmaster is an evil empire, Donald Trump said he wanted to get rid of the Constitution, Argentina won a controversial World Cup and everybody thinks Elon Musk is a prick.…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. “You know that they’re listening, right?” I took a deep breath, reminding myself to be patient with the man on the other end of the…
This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2022. I spent most of the summer chasing the two front-runners in the most aerobic electoral contest of the campaign cycle, the Democratic primary for Vermont’s…
Many Seven Days staffers are fans of the NPR show “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” What better way to review the week’s national news than by answering panel questions, completing silly limericks and bluffing the listener? The show’s final segment is always panelists’ predictions for the week ahead, but, honestly, they’re often a bit cryptic.…
