In Burlington today, Muslims celebrated the end of Ramadan with communal prayers and celebrations. This year’s celebration shows the growth and diversity of the Islamic community in Vermont.

Two thousand worshipers gathered at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in Burlington to celebrate the end of Ramadan.

This marks the end of month-long period during which Muslims abstain from food and drink from dawn to sunset.

And it begins the Eid ul-Fitr or “feast of fast breaking” holiday, where Muslims exchange social visits and celebrate.

Vermont Law School professor Cheryl Hanna, a longtime VPR commentator, died Sunday.

The announcement was made in a news release from the law school. No cause of death was given. 

Hanna was remembered as an engaging professor with a passion for gender equity. 

She said she knew at a young age that she wanted to teach, and eventually she settled on law school, where she would study to become a professor. 

As colleagues, students, family and friends mourn the death of Vermont Law School professor and VPR commentator Cheryl Hanna, we present a collection of the commentaries — both legal and personal — that Hanna contributed to VPR over the years.

Vermont Law School has announced that Professor Cheryl Hanna, a prominent professor and expert in constitutional law, has died.

From the VLS announcement:

It is with the most profound sorrow that we announce the untimely death of our dear colleague Professor Cheryl Hanna.

Vermont sends nearly 500 prisoners to privately run out-of-state facilities in Kentucky and Arizona. The contract with the company that operates these jails, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), comes up for renewal next year.

Now, a group of concerned Vermonters is proposing that room be made here to return these prisoners to the state.

The Vermont Public Service Board ordered Vermont Gas Systems to stop digging for its pipeline near power lines owned by the Vermont Electric Cooperative, citing environmental and health concerns.

Vermont Gas approached the Public Service Board after the state Agency of Natural Resources alerted the company to the possibility that soil contaminated with Pentachlorophenol (PCP) could be disturbed by pipeline construction.

The 1960s and '70s saw a lot of people arrive in Vermont with the back-to-the-land movement. Their idealism followed the legacies of people like Helen and Scott Nearing, and even Henry David Thoreau well before them. On the next Vermont Edition, we discuss the impulse to find meaning in a life close to nature. Our guest is Rebecca Kneale Gould, a writer and senior lecturer at Middlebury College.

Sen. Patrick Leahy joined an unlikely group in Burlington today to show off his new legislation that will make it easier for used cell phones to work on a variety of cellular networks.

At the Women Helping Battered Women offices in Burlington, Leahy introduced women’s advocates and a telecom official to speak about the new bill, which he said will help shelters like the one in Burlington.

Leahy said the new law will help shelters use donated phones to pass out to women in need.

The state of Vermont is working to reduce phosphorus pollution in the Lake Champlain watershed.

A lot of the focus has been on farms, and now the state is turning attention to smaller scale agriculture, and that means owners of much smaller parcels of land will also have to react to the regulations already on the books.

For many of us, summer is a time to kick back with a good book.  And in some neighborhoods, finding something new to read is as easy as strolling down the street. Little free libraries have been sprouting all over the world—including Vermont. Some are no bigger than a bird house. Others are as large as a phone booth. You leave a book, and take one—no card necessary.