The citizens of Vergennes have set the top three priorities for their city, in an effort to take a big picture approach to planning for the future. More than 100 people turned out to a community meeting last week. It was the second event in a three-month "Community Visit" facilitated by the Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD).

Vermont’s fifth season, mud season, is here in all of its rutted and sloppy glory.

But if you’re among those struggling to keep your car on the road and your muffler in one piece, we’ll let you in on a dirty little secret: For an increasing number of back road residents, mud season isn’t so bad anymore.

Legislative leaders are ramping up the pressure on Gov. Peter Shumlin to provide answers on how he plans to finance his single-payer health plan.

The pressure includes detailed questions about how the plan could affect the economy, and a proposed deadline for the financing plan to be delivered.

A tax bill in the statehouse has fraternities and sororities in Burlington on the defensive.

The bill would revoke a long-standing tax exemption for the owners of fraternity and sorority housing and require them all to pay taxes based on the appraised value of the property.

For the 10 fraternity and sorority houses in Burlington, those payments add up to $278,120 a year, and the students in those groups say the bill threatens their presence in the university community.

Vermont is poised to pass a GMO labeling bill before the end of the session. The labeling issue is framed as a right to know what's in our food. But that's not the only thing people talk about when they argue about GMOs. There's also a controversy about whether GMOs might be bad for our health, or whether enough research has even been done on the health effects. And there's an argument over whether GMOs lead to an overuse of herbicides, which in turn may create species of super-weeds. Or whether GMOs help farmers use fewer insecticides and till the soil less often.

When a group of scientists led by UVM’s Paul Bierman started studying a sample of ice taken from the very bottom of Greenland’s ice sheet, they expected to find a mix of ice and dirt or rock. But what they discovered surprised them. It revealed a landscape very unlike what everyone had envisioned, and changes our understanding of what’s been happening to Greenland’s ice over the last several million years.

A long, cold winter followed by a sudden spring is usually not a good dynamic for sugarmakers.

Ann Rose is co-owner of Green Mountain Sugar House in Ludlow. She spoke with Vermont Edition about how the 2014 sugaring season has been going for her and other sugarmakers.

When consumer products such as carpeting, jewelry or cosmetics contain toxic chemicals, who should decide how they should be labeled or if they should banned?

A bill passed by the Senate would give that authority to the state health department. But the House version limits that jurisdiction to just children’s products. And industry leaders would like to further limit its reach.

Bill-sponsor State Senator Kevin Mullin of Rutland and Associated Industries of Vermont Vice President William Driscoll discuss the pros and cons of the bill.

About 40 years ago a group of women in Brattleboro got together to create a safe haven for other women in their community who were suffering from abuse.

The Women’s Crisis Center changed its name a few years ago to the Women’s Freedom Center. VPR’s Mitch Wertlieb spoke with Shari May, community outreach advocate for the Women’s Freedom Center.

The late 1960s and early 1970s marked a time of great change around civil rights issues, including women’s rights.

A bill moving through the Legislature sets ambitious new broadband goals for Vermont. 

If the goals are met, it would mean high speed fiber optic service for every Vermont location  within the next 10 years. But it's not clear how that goal will be reached, or how the improvements will be paid for.

Until now the state has set incremental targets for broadband coverage – beginning with the goal of simply providing some kind of service to every Vermont address.