Episodes

When Michael Colburn was growing up in St. Albans, he dreamed of becoming a euphonium player in a band. He never imagined that the band would be “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band and that he would lead it for a decade, until 2014. As director of the nation’s top military ensemble, Colburn served as music adviser to the White House and regularly conducted the Marine Band and Chamber Orchestra at the Executive Mansion and at the presidential inaugurations of former Presidents George ...

Somewhere in America each week, two more newspapers call it quits. Some 2,500 dailies and weeklies have closed since 2005, and just 6,500 remain. In places where once there was vibrant local coverage, there are now news deserts. The Community News Service at The University of Vermont thinks it has an answer to this growing blight: student journalists. UVM’s Community News Service, or CNS, partners with nearly half of Vermont’s approximately 40 news outlets to provide them with reporting free of...

Somewhere in America each week, two more newspapers call it quits. Some 2,500 dailies and weeklies have closed since 2005, and just 6,500 remain. In places where once there was vibrant local coverage, there are now news deserts. The Community News Service at The University of Vermont thinks it has an answer to this growing blight: student journalists. UVM’s Community News Service, or CNS, partners with nearly half of Vermont’s approximately 40 news outlets to provide them with reporting free of...

Somewhere in America each week, two more newspapers call it quits. Some 2,500 dailies and weeklies have closed since 2005, and just 6,500 remain. In places where once there was vibrant local coverage, there are now news deserts. The Community News Service at The University of Vermont thinks it has an answer to this growing blight: student journalists. UVM’s Community News Service, or CNS, partners with nearly half of Vermont’s approximately 40 news outlets to provide them with reporting free of...

“Children of sect seized in Vermont,” blared the headline on the front page of the New York Times on June 23, 1984. The newspaper reported, “About 140 state police officers and social service workers raided 20 homes near (Island Pond, Vermont) early this morning and took into custody 112 children of the Northeast Kingdom Community Church because members had refused to answer complaints about child abuse and neglect.” The case sparked national outrage and was quickly thrown out by a judge. Dea...

“Children of sect seized in Vermont,” blared the headline on the front page of the New York Times on June 23, 1984. The newspaper reported, “About 140 state police officers and social service workers raided 20 homes near (Island Pond, Vermont) early this morning and took into custody 112 children of the Northeast Kingdom Community Church because members had refused to answer complaints about child abuse and neglect.” The case sparked national outrage and was quickly thrown out by a judge. Dea...

“Children of sect seized in Vermont,” blared the headline on the front page of the New York Times on June 23, 1984. The newspaper reported, “About 140 state police officers and social service workers raided 20 homes near (Island Pond, Vermont) early this morning and took into custody 112 children of the Northeast Kingdom Community Church because members had refused to answer complaints about child abuse and neglect.” The case sparked national outrage and was quickly thrown out by a judge. Dea...

“Support our troops” is a familiar slogan heard when American troops are deployed abroad. But are returning soldiers supported when they return home? Nearly half of troops returning from post-9/11 deployments report having reintegration problems, almost double the number reported by earlier veterans. Former President Donald Trump tapped into this vein of discontent and won 60% of the veterans’ vote in 2016. Political radicalization among veterans has been a growing problem, and a shocking numbe...

“Support our troops” is a familiar slogan heard when American troops are deployed abroad. But are returning soldiers supported when they return home? Nearly half of troops returning from post-9/11 deployments report having reintegration problems, almost double the number reported by earlier veterans. Former President Donald Trump tapped into this vein of discontent and won 60% of the veterans’ vote in 2016. Political radicalization among veterans has been a growing problem, and a shocking numbe...

“Support our troops” is a familiar slogan heard when American troops are deployed abroad. But are returning soldiers supported when they return home? Nearly half of troops returning from post-9/11 deployments report having reintegration problems, almost double the number reported by earlier veterans. Former President Donald Trump tapped into this vein of discontent and won 60% of the veterans’ vote in 2016. Political radicalization among veterans has been a growing problem, and a shocking numbe...

You never know where you will hear chamber music in Vermont. You could encounter a string quartet performing in a bookstore. In a café. At a bar. Or a retirement community. If it’s July, the musicians are likely to be participants in the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. Started in 2005, the festival attracts more than 200 young string musicians from high school to graduate school. The program is based at St. Michael’s College for a monthlong intensive of coaching, rehearsing and performin...

You never know where you will hear chamber music in Vermont. You could encounter a string quartet performing in a bookstore. In a café. At a bar. Or a retirement community. If it’s July, the musicians are likely to be participants in the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. Started in 2005, the festival attracts more than 200 young string musicians from high school to graduate school. The program is based at St. Michael’s College for a monthlong intensive of coaching, rehearsing and performin...

You never know where you will hear chamber music in Vermont. You could encounter a string quartet performing in a bookstore. In a café. At a bar. Or a retirement community. If it’s July, the musicians are likely to be participants in the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. Started in 2005, the festival attracts more than 200 young string musicians from high school to graduate school. The program is based at St. Michael’s College for a monthlong intensive of coaching, rehearsing and performin...

As countries around the world, including the U.S., confront rising authoritarianism, one country may offer insight into how democracy can triumph over minority rule. South Africa was supposed to go up in flames when Nelson Mandela became president in 1994. White people feared that the Black majority would take their revenge on those who long oppressed them. Instead, Mandela oversaw a peaceful transition to democracy. A quarter century after that negotiated transfer of power, a multiracial demo...

As countries around the world, including the U.S., confront rising authoritarianism, one country may offer insight into how democracy can triumph over minority rule. South Africa was supposed to go up in flames when Nelson Mandela became president in 1994. White people feared that the Black majority would take their revenge on those who long oppressed them. Instead, Mandela oversaw a peaceful transition to democracy. A quarter century after that negotiated transfer of power, a multiracial demo...

As countries around the world, including the U.S., confront rising authoritarianism, one country may offer insight into how democracy can triumph over minority rule. South Africa was supposed to go up in flames when Nelson Mandela became president in 1994. White people feared that the Black majority would take their revenge on those who long oppressed them. Instead, Mandela oversaw a peaceful transition to democracy. A quarter century after that negotiated transfer of power, a multiracial demo...

“If the public sees judges as politicians in robes, its confidence in the courts — and in the rule of law itself — can only diminish, diminishing the court’s power, including its power to act as a check on the other branches,” retired Justice Stephen Breyer warned last year. Many Supreme Court observers, and even its own dissenting justices, are wondering if what Breyer forewarned has now come to pass. The court has just issued a series of blockbuster decisions that mark it as the most conserva...

“If the public sees judges as politicians in robes, its confidence in the courts — and in the rule of law itself — can only diminish, diminishing the court’s power, including its power to act as a check on the other branches,” retired Justice Stephen Breyer warned last year. Many Supreme Court observers, and even its own dissenting justices, are wondering if what Breyer forewarned has now come to pass. The court has just issued a series of blockbuster decisions that mark it as the most conserva...

“If the public sees judges as politicians in robes, its confidence in the courts — and in the rule of law itself — can only diminish, diminishing the court’s power, including its power to act as a check on the other branches,” retired Justice Stephen Breyer warned last year. Many Supreme Court observers, and even its own dissenting justices, are wondering if what Breyer forewarned has now come to pass. The court has just issued a series of blockbuster decisions that mark it as the most conserva...

In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the constitutional right to an abortion, half of women in the U.S. live in states where they are at imminent risk of losing abortion access. Against this backdrop, Vermont is moving to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. In November, Vermonters will vote on Proposal 5, the Reproductive Liberty Amendment, which states in part that “an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central...

In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the constitutional right to an abortion, half of women in the U.S. live in states where they are at imminent risk of losing abortion access. Against this backdrop, Vermont is moving to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. In November, Vermonters will vote on Proposal 5, the Reproductive Liberty Amendment, which states in part that “an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central...

In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the constitutional right to an abortion, half of women in the U.S. live in states where they are at imminent risk of losing abortion access. Against this backdrop, Vermont is moving to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. In November, Vermonters will vote on Proposal 5, the Reproductive Liberty Amendment, which states in part that “an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central...

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade on June 24, it left each state to decide its own abortion laws. Many Republican-led states are reverting to the anti-abortion laws that were on the books before 1973 when Roe legalized abortion. Vermont legalized abortion a year before Roe. In 1972, the Vermont Supreme Court overturned a 122 year-old law that made it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion, though it was not against the law for someone to have one. In practice, this meant ...

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade on June 24, it left each state to decide its own abortion laws. Many Republican-led states are reverting to the anti-abortion laws that were on the books before 1973 when Roe legalized abortion. Vermont legalized abortion a year before Roe. In 1972, the Vermont Supreme Court overturned a 122 year-old law that made it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion, though it was not against the law for someone to have one. In practice, this meant ...