Vermont Public Docs

A downtown apartment building stitched Plainfield together. On July 10, floods washed it away. The Heartbreak Hotel was the kind of place where neighbors saw each other every day, where generations of people, from all walks of life, found belonging and someone to wave to in the morning. Twelve people were living there at the time, and they all survived. Most of their beloved cats did not. In the d...

"Uncomfortable conversations need to happen." Raneen Salha and Sarah White discuss their thoughts, feelings and personal connections to the war between Israel and Hamas.

More than four years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, the state judiciary is still struggling with an enormous backlog of criminal cases and competing public pressures around how justice should be pursued. To better understand how the system is working, Seven Days and Vermont Public embedded two reporters at the Burlington criminal courthouse for one week. Read the accompanying print story on Ve...

Two Abenaki First Nations are continuing to call for Vermont institutions not to work with state-recognized tribes, and to reconsider the process that led to the state recognizing those groups as Abenaki tribes. Those nations — Odanak and Wôlinak — are receiving a mixed response.

John Harrison traveled Vermont as a preacher in the 1880s. A racist name in town records preserved his memory. Note: This story contains sensitive material, including racial slurs. Please listen with care.

Ashley Messier is the co-chair of the Corrections Monitoring Committee in the Vermont Legislature, and she’s the reentry services program manager for Vermont Works for Women. She grew up in Essex with an abusive father and with little money, and she found herself repeating the cycle in early adulthood. This is a story about multigenerational poverty and abuse, and the temporary relief of opiates.
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Many people don’t want to talk about class, because class differences are the source of cultural division and tension. In this story, Erica talks with old friend Susan Randall, a private investigator based in Vergennes, about the luxuries of growing up upper middle class.
"What class are you?" is an occasional series from Vermont Public reporter Erica Heilman. In it, she talks with people from all...

In 2023, around 70% of the total wealth in this country was owned by the top 10% of earners. The lowest 50% of earners only owned 2.5% of the total wealth. In this story, Vermont writer and poet Garrett Keizer, who has written extensively on the history of labor unions, talks about what happens when we address gender and race equity, but we ignore income inequality. Here's Garret Keizer.
"What cla...

Stephanie Robtoy works as an account manager at Working Fields, a staffing agency that helps people with barriers gain and maintain a job. She grew up in St. Albans in a huge family of Robtoys, some of whom are pretty notorious in town for criminal activity. In this story, Stephanie talks about what it was like to grow up poor, with a last name that was hard to escape. "What class are you?" is an...

Irfan Sehic and his family fled the war in Bosnia and arrived in Barre when Irfan was 17. He worked a number of jobs, went to college and started his own insurance agency, which he still runs out of his house. And for the last few years, he's been a club soccer coach. Irfan lives with his wife and son in Milton, and in this story, he describes the American class system as he sees it, starting with...

Who gets to decide who is Abenaki? Vermont’s four state-recognized tribes — and the state recognition law — have different definitions and criteria for what it means to be Indigenous than many Indigenous Nations. In Chapter Three of this special series, we look at this disconnect, and lay out what’s at stake, including power, money and authority.

After the original group of self-proclaimed Vermont Abenaki failed to gain federal recognition, Vermont lawmakers created a state recognition process of their own. One theory in particular informed the state’s consideration: that Abenaki peoples hid in Vermont to avoid persecution, including statewide eugenics policies. In Chapter Two of this special series, we look at recent evidence, as well as...

Two Abenaki First Nations in Canada contest the legitimacy of the four groups recognized by the state of Vermont as Abenaki tribes. This is a dispute that goes back at least two decades, and has gained more prominence in recent years. In Chapter One of this special series, we trace Abenaki history up to 2003, when Odanak First Nation first denounced Vermont groups claiming to be Abenaki.

University of Virginia researchers say the complaint line run by the grassroots workers’ rights program Milk With Dignity improves conditions for both farmworkers and farm owners. But the program currently only covers one-fifth of Vermont’s dairy industry.

Giuliano Cecchinelli is part of a long legacy of Italian stone carvers in Barre, craftsmen whose skill transformed an industry and made the small central Vermont town the “Granite Capital of the World.” In the early 20th century, Barre was a booming industry town. Thousands of workers spent their days making monuments. The railroad chugged into town to take them around the country, and stone dust...

How the events of last year changed Vermont schools and law enforcement. Also - where's Jack?

How do you know if a young person is plotting a school massacre? And what do you do then?

How a Republican governor who had been rated "A" by the NRA decided that Vermont, one of the most gun-friendly states in the nation, needed gun control laws.

When does planning a school shooting become attempted murder? The question went all the way to the Vermont Supreme Court.

Jack Sawyer’s journal contained a startling confession. It landed him in jail, and sent shockwaves through the state of Vermont.

Who is Jack Sawyer, and why did he want to kill his former classmates?

Coming September 6 from Vermont Public Radio.