VPR News

Vermont is often thought as one of the first state's to abolish slavery. The state's constitution, drafted in 1777, outlawed slavery, but it existed in the state's early years. There's an effort in the Vermont legislature this session to eliminate all references to slavery in the constitution.

Can the Holocaust be funny? That's the premise of The Last Laugh, a documentary film that features Holocaust survivors, as well as Jewish comedians, trying to answer that question. It's being screened this weekend at the University of Vermont, followed by a panel discussion with some of the filmmakers.

It's often repeated that Vermont's was the first state constitution to outlaw slavery, but the language of the document may actually have some caveats. Sponsors of a constitutional amendment want to change the language to make the ban absolute. We're talking about the history and the proposal.

Nothing says Valentine's Day like a wonderful love story. And Vermont Edition got to hear one from Burlington's Anne Bemis about how she met her late husband, Ed. It was a chance meeting that resulted in 51 mostly happy years of marriage.

A lot of Vermont’s emergency medical services are on life support thanks to declining volunteers and increasing costs. For some, time has run out.

Statistics surrounding Vermont's dairy industry over the last decade have been bleak: falling milk prices have shuttered many small dairy farms, which have dwindled from 27,000 farms a century ago to about 700 dairies today.

But there is some celebrating going on in 2019, as both the Cabot Creamery Cooperative and the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery mark their 100th anniversaries. Which made us wonder, what was going on in Vermont dairy back in 1919?

The mother of a University of Vermont student who died of hypothermia earlier this month wants to make sure other parents don't have to go through the same grieving experience. Dorothy Connor has created the "Connor Gage Never Walk Alone Fund" in her son's memory.

When you think about renewable energy, does a nuclear power plant come to mind? Probably not. But in a roundabout way,  Vermont utilities are using nuclear energy to meet the state’s renewable energy standards.

When invited to offer a devotional at the Vermont State Legislature this year, I thought about how lately most every headline I read seems to carry a potentially lethal dose of venom. So I decided to present a love poem to devotion to even up the score a bit.