VPR News

For many Americans, where we came from is both a source of great pride and pain. My own family fled the city of Lahore in 1949 with just the clothes on their backs, leaving behind the land that my great great grandfather helped build. During the Partition of India, the border moved ten miles past Lahore, making it a part of the new Muslim nation of Pakistan.

How far should humans go to change the course of nature? That's one of the big questions behind a controversy about a lake in Rutland County.

This program originally aired on May 22, 2018.

She was just five years old when the revolutionaries known as the Khmer Rouge took control of her home country of Cambodia. Nearly a quarter of the population died in the ensuing genocide. But author Loung Ung survived, eventually making her way to Vermont, and going on to write memoirs and make movies of her time in Cambodia.

Vermonters in the area of Otter Creek in Cornwall, Leicester, and Salisbury have been noticing something remarkable lately: hundreds of thousands more frogs than usual. Northern leopard frogs to be exact, in lawns, in pools, and — unluckily for the frogs — on the roads.

I've been reading Robert Caro's latest book, Working, detailing how he researched and wrote his magisterial, vividly detailed biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson. Caro began his career as a newspaper reporter. Though his books are historical biographies, his methods are investigative journalism at its very best: deep research into important, often obscure documents, interviewing people who know - both the powerful and the powerless - anyone who can show readers what is actually going on. And finally, clear writing that opens readers'eyes.

Jarvis Green is a 38-year-old actor, artistic director, and founder of JAG Productions, an African American theater company based in the Upper Valley.

What role does storytelling play in addiction and recovery? 

While a number of contenders are considering running for governor in 2020, former Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe is the first to declare her candidacy. Holcombe served as secretary of education under Gov. Peter Shumlin and Gov. Phil Scott, before resigning in 2018. She now says that she left the position over policy differences with Scott. She will seek the Democratic nomination for the governorship. Scott has not declared his intentions.