Episodes

Are we alone? The question of whether human beings on Earth are the only intelligent life forms has long inspired scientists and philosophers. It has also animated generations of conspiracy theorists who believe that the U.S. government has been engaged in a decadeslong coverup about extraterrestrial intelligence and unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. Bestselling Vermont author and historian Garrett Graff has a new book that attempts to settle long swirling questions and conspiracies. "UFO:...

In an attack that shocked the world, three Palestinian American college students were shot and wounded while walking in Burlington on Nov. 25. The men were in Vermont visiting family for Thanksgiving. Police allege that 48-year old Jason Eaton stepped off his porch and shot the three men. The attack appears to have been unprovoked and the assailant said nothing before opening fire, the victims told police. Eaton has been charged with three counts of attempted second degree murder, and authoriti...

This Vermont Conversation originally aired on January 8, 2020. A beloved voice of Vermont fell silent with the passing of Kenley Dean Squier on Nov. 15, 2023. He was 88 years old. Squier is best known as a NASCAR Hall of Fame broadcaster and the owner of radio station WDEV, part of the Radio Vermont Group, which has been owned by the Squier family for over nine decades. Ken Squier was my friend. A highlight of coming to the WDEV studio to broadcast The Vermont Conversation every week since 20...

The war raging between Israel and Hamas continues to take a staggering toll. About 1,200 Israelis were killed and 230 were taken hostage on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked Israel, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. In response, Israel has mounted a relentless bombardment and ground invasion that has claimed the lives of 1 of every 200 Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and displaced two-thirds of the population. U.N. Secretary General António G...

Newly married couples swear that they will love each other “till death do us part.” But for many couples, love ends far sooner than life. Half of first marriages and two-thirds of second marriages end in divorce. Is a happy ending still possible after a divorce? Collaborative divorce is a process of ending a marriage through cooperation and negotiation. Couples agree to work together with their respective attorneys to resolve differences and not go to court. Collaborative divorce usually incl...

The war between Israel and Hamas reaches new levels of brutality each day. Some 1,400 Israelis were killed and 5,400 injured in Hamas’ surprise attack on Oct. 7, according to Israeli officials. In retaliation, Israel launched a bombardment and blockade of the Gaza Strip, killing over 8,500 Palestinians and injuring more than 22,000 as of Nov. 1, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. UN Secretary General António Guterres denounced Hamas’ bloody attack on Israel as “appalling” but insisted it di...

When Becca Balint ran for Congress last year, she spoke about how her family’s history as Jews who lived through the Holocaust motivated her to “heal divisions.” Now as a progressive Jewish member of Congress, Balint has been thrust into the center of a raging debate about how to respond to the horrific attack on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s intense retaliatory bombardment of the Gaza Strip, home to over 2 million Palestinians. On October 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing ...

Rick Hubbard left his home in South Burlington in October 2022 driving a large RV en route to Los Angeles, where he began walking across the country. The 81-year-old retired attorney says he is walking to fix our democracy. One year later, Hubbard is still walking. The Vermont Conversation caught up with Hubbard in Colorado, where he is currently walking. The purpose of the walk, he said, is “to involve other people to help get Americans thinking about how important it is for us to have our sy...

Several decades before Adolf Hitler and the Nazis took the notion of "purifying" society to genocidal extremes in the Holocaust, the ideas behind it were enthusiastically embraced in Vermont. Eugenics is the pseudoscience that humans can be improved through selective breeding. Many American states, including Vermont, used eugenics as the basis for public policies including family separation, institutionalization and sterilization. By 1936, over half of states practiced eugenical sterilization. ...

VTDigger is re-releasing some of our favorite interviews of the past decade to mark the 10th anniversary of The Vermont Conversation. This Vermont Conversation with Jane Mayer was originally published in April 2022. Jane Mayer has earned a reputation as one of the country’s top investigative reporters. As chief Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, Mayer has been relentless in exposing the hidden forces shaping American politics. Her bestselling book, “Dark Money: The Hidden History of ...

Sixty years ago, a troupe of performers toting giant papier-mâché puppets and art painted on bed sheets made its first appearance in a protest march in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. This was the Bread and Puppet Theater, founded by Peter and Elka Schumann. In 1970, the Schumanns moved to Vermont, eventually purchasing a farm in Glover, which has been the home of Bread and Puppet ever since. Peter Schumann told The Vermont Conversation that the large puppets are “so much more persuasive. It'...

“The truth isn’t dying. It’s being killed.” Lee McIntyre argues this in his latest book, “On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth andProtect Democracy.” McIntyre is a research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University. His previous books include “Post-Truth,” and “How To Talk To A Science Denier.” The war on truth is threatening to topple democracies around the world, according to McIntyre, and undermining truth is a key strategy of authoritarian leaders...

Philadelphia is synonymous with liberty and possibility. It is the city where the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were signed. But there is a lesser-known side to Philadelphia. It is the poorest large city in America. Kensington is its poorest neighborhood, a place where “18th-birthday celebrations are not rites of passage but miracles,” writes sociologist Nikhil Goyal. Goyal was a senior policy advisor on education and children to Senator Bernie Sanders. Goyal has a new ...

For the fortieth summer, hundreds of Vermont high school students had a different kind of learning experience. They attended one of eight programs of the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont. In 1983, the very first Governor’s Institutes of Vermont program was launched. It was focused on the arts, addressing what advisers to Gov. Richard Snelling felt was a dearth of opportunity in arts education in Vermont. In the four decades since that first program, more than 10,000 students have attended one ...

When Champlain College President Alejandro "Alex" Hernandez is asked about the value of an education, he responds by telling the story of his family. He is the child of immigrant parents who both became school teachers in California. After Hernandez received a masters degree from Stanford, he went into finance, but eventually left to become a high school math teacher in South Central Los Angeles. He went on to become a dean and provost at the University of Virginia, and in 2022, was named presi...

Stephen Kiernan spent much of his life as an award-winning journalist for the Burlington Free Press and the Boston Globe. In 2013, he made the jump from reporter to novelist with the publication of his debut book of fiction, “The Curiosity.” He has never looked back. Kiernan has now published five critically acclaimed novels, including “The Baker’s Secret” and “Universe of Two.” His latest novel is “The Glass Chateau,” which was published in June. It’s a haunting tale set just after World War ...

Scenes of the smoldering ruins of Lahaina, Maui, are the latest evidence that no place, no matter how idyllic, is safe from climate disruption. The wildfires that destroyed the town this week are the deadliest in the modern history of the U.S. The Maui wildfires were far more lethal but they share common elements with the floods that ravaged parts of Vermont last month. Both disasters were fueled by climate change. And both have displaced numerous people from their homes. Disasters such as the...

Will it be three indictments and Trump’s out? Stuart Stevens doesn’t think so. “The indictments will help (former president Donald) Trump in the Republican primary, of which there’s a certain crazy logic,” he said. “The Republican Party now is pretty much officially a white grievance party. And there's no greater way to prove the grievance than to be indicted by the Deep State.” Stevens contends that the Republican Party that he spent his career promoting has morphed into an authoritarian mov...

The brick crashed through Lauren Chooljian’s window accompanied by a message scrawled on the side of her house: “THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING.” Chooljian had a good idea what this attack was about. She is a senior reporter and producer at New Hampshire Public Radio. She had been investigating alleged sexual misconduct by Eric Spofford, the founder of GraniteRecovery Centers, New Hampshire's largest substance use disorder treatment and rehabilitation network. As more and more women told her of bei...

In the early hours of July 11, the rain-swollen Lamoille River rose up out of its banks and tore through the heart of downtown Johnson. Parts of the small Vermont town lay in ruins. Johnson’s wastewater treatment plant was destroyed, and the downtown supermarket, the town offices and fire department, surrounding farms, the Johnson health center, and dozens of manufactured homes all sustained heavy damage. How do you recover? Johnson may have a homegrown answer as it recovers from twin disasters...

Vermont Sen. Peter Welch spent last week touring his flooded state and assuring residents that help was on the way. Welch has a lot of practice with this. First elected to Congress in 2006, he experienced Vermont’s first so-called 100-year flood following Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. In Irene’s aftermath, Welch fought with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to enable Vermont to rebuild roads and bridges to withstand the new realities of climate change instead of being forced to replace th...

Rick Dente thought this might be the end. The 77-year-old owner of Dente's Market in Barre was trying to save what he could in his family store as flood waters rose on Monday night. The store has been in business since 1907 and had survived previous disasters. But Dente, the affectionately nicknamed "Mayor of North Barre," didn't realize that this time was different. He was suddenly in water up to his neck, pinned to a door, his tired legs giving out. Just when Dente thought it was over, three ...

Randall and Elm Streets in Waterbury felt like a raucous New Orleans funeral on Thursday. Residents and businesses lost so much when the waters of the Winooski River inundated parts of the downtown, flooding some 40 homes and six businesses. But scores of volunteers came from everywhere to give so much back.  Prohibition Pig, the popular restaurant and brewery at the corner of Elm Street and Main Street, was the center of cleanup activity. By midday, the staff were serving free food and pizza...

The rain began on Sunday, and by Tuesday morning, July 11, residents of Waterbury, Vermont, woke up to find the downtown flooded and roads closed. Waterbury took a hard hit, but the damage and destruction were far greater in other Vermont communities. Montpelier, Barre, Johnson and Ludlow, to name a few, were inundated. All of these communities face a long road to recovery. Gov. Scott called this week’s Vermont floods “historic and catastrophic.” Climatologists call it “the new abnormal,” anot...