Listen for Outdoor Radio Thursday morning at 8:50 a.m.

This month on Outdoor Radio, we’ll venture out into a meadow of wild flowers that is literally singing with bumble bees. Biologists Kent McFarland and Sara Zahendra talk about the species we find in Vermont, the different ways they pollinate our flowers and crops, and the environmental factors that are threatening their population.

The Southwestern corner of Vermont is geographically closer to Albany, Concord, Hartford than it is to Montpelier, but many of the challenges facing Bennington are familiar to the rest of the state. We’ll talk with community leaders about Bennington's challenges and opportunities in front of a live audience at Madison Brewing Company on Main Street.

Tickets for the Vermont Brewers Festival in Burlington this weekend sold out in eleven minutes. Sally Pollak, who writes for the Savorvore Section of the Burlington Free Press, talks about the popularity of Vermont grown beer and the proliferation of Vermont breweries. We'll also learn why and how canned beer has made a comeback.

The VPR Cafe is produced in partnership with the Burlington Free Press.

People in southeastern Vermont are bracing for an economic fallout once the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant closes later this year.

But Entergy, the corporation that owns Yankee, will  provide a $10 million payment to the state of Vermont to help deal with the loss of hundreds of jobs when the plant shuts down.

The question is how will the state spend the money? Howard Weiss-Tisman has been following the story for the Brattleboro Reformer and he spoke with VPR's Mitch Wertlieb for our Friday Regional Report

Two-thousand unionized FairPoint employees across New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine will vote this weekend on whether they are willing to strike. The vote comes after two months of unsuccessful contract negotiations.

The electrical and communication workers’ contracts end August 2. Don Trementozzi, president of CWA local 1400, says FairPoint is demanding a lot of concessions, including the ability to outsource jobs that are currently union-only.

"The company wants to be able to contract any and all work and all job titles whenever they want," Trementozzi said.

The Department for Children and Families is charged with protecting the state’s most vulnerable population – abused and neglected children.

Yet the department has seen intense scrutiny in recent months because two toddlers that had been in state custody died after alleged physical abuse.

Chittenden County State's Attorney T.J. Donovan asked the Vermont state police to investigate the latest case: the death of 15-month old Peighton Geraw of Winooski who died hours after being seen by a DCF caseworker.

When you think of the Mafia and organized crime, your mind might drift to New York, Chicago or even Sicily. Montreal, not so much.
 

But the Mafia and organized crime presence in Quebec’s largest city has been leaving a mark since as far back as the 1950s. And the role of organized crime in the awarding of provincial transportation and construction contracts prompted a recent and ongoing government inquiry.

Paul Cherry is the crime reporter for the Montreal Gazette. He provided Vermont Edition with background on the Mafia presence in Quebec.
 

Vermont is on the hunt for a technology firm to help with a massive overhaul of the state’s human services system. And state officials are hoping to deliver better living through computer science.

The new request for proposal is for a “Medicaid Management Information System.” It’s part of a broader project called the Health and Human Services Enterprise, which is among the biggest, and most costly system overhauls in the history of the state.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has taken the first step to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow Congress to regulate the flow of money in political campaigns. Sen. Patrick Leahy is the chairman of the committee and he strongly supports the proposed amendment.  

It’s not easy to amend the U.S. Constitution in this way. First, a proposed amendment must be approved by a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate. Then it must be ratified by three-quarters, or 38 of the 50 states.

Baseball heads into the All-Star Break with the Red Sox fading, the Yankees staying afloat and World Series dreams very much alive in Los Angeles, Oakland and Milwaukee. Milwaukee?

State Representative Kurt Wright and VPR's Mitch Wertlieb assess the season so far, size up the second half and surmise what trades might be made. We also check in with the Vermont Mountaineers of the NECBL and the New York-Penn League's Vermont Lake Monsters.