After weeks of mounting citizen opposition, Progressive/Democrat Mayor Peter Clavelle pulled the plug Monday on the planned fall construction of a new $15 million multi-modal transportation center on Battery Street near the Burlington Waterfront.

Project opponents had scheduled a Tuesday City Hall press conference to announce a petition drive calling for a September citywide referendum on the new bus station. In the wake of Monday's cave-in by the Clavelle administration, however, the press conference was canceled.... Read more

They never change," says Jack, the social worker who's taking care of The Boys Next Door. Since the "boys" are all developmentally disabled adults, his assessment is pretty accurate -- and as a dramatic premise, not too promising. We like to see characters undergo some kind of change in the course of a play, even if they wind up exactly where they started.... Read more

Their lives seem ripped from the pages of a Graham Greene novel or an Indiana Jones screenplay. Writers Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett are seasoned investigative reporters living in Burlington who have tangled with assassins to alligators -- while gathering information in some of the planet's most perilous places.... Read more

It's a sweltering Friday, the Muslim holy day, as worshippers trickle in the door of the Islamic Society of Vermont, welcoming friends and strangers alike with the traditional Arabic greeting, "Assalamu alaikum," or "Peace be upon you." The converted two-story brick barracks at Fort Ethan Allen in Colchester is not exactly a stereotypical, domed mosque with a towering minaret, but it accommodates the dozens of Burlington-area Muslims who regularly come here to perform Salat, the five daily prayers required by their faith.... Read more

Republicans in Vermont, more so than those in any other state, can lay claim to membership in a truly Grand Old Party.

From today's perspective, however, that might seem a mocking mistitle. For despite the electoral successes of Richard Snelling and James Jeffords in the 1970s, '80s and '90s, and notwithstanding James Douglas' victory last year, the Vermont GOP has been in a steady -- sometimes steep -- decline for the past four decades. The party has come to resemble an oldies act that can occasionally draw a crowd even though it has long since sunk from superstar status.... Read more

Opening in time for the Fourth of July, the thematically titled Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde stars Reese Witherspoon in a reprise of her role as a seemingly air-headed sorority girl who goes to the head of the class... at Harvard Law.

After that improbable success story in the 2001 original, the sequel sends this vividly garbed gal into the political fray of the nation's capital. In a recent publicity blitz, the actress described her new movie as a girl-power version of the 1939 Frank Capra classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.... Read more

The Dean for America HQ in South Burlington, Vermont, was Ground Zero Monday in the world of American presidential politics. It was the last day of the second quarter, and presidential hopefuls were in a horse race to rake in as much dough as possible before the clock struck midnight.

Since Gov. Howard Dean's controversial appearance on "Meet the Press" with Tenacious Tim Russert, millions of dollars have been pouring into Dean's campaign war chest via the Internet.... Read more

Driving up College Street just east of Union, you pass a modern, unmarked brick building. Its tall, narrow windows, separated by slender brick columns, suggest a cage. But it's immediately clear from the windows' pleasant glow that no one's being forced to stay inside. You're being kept out.... Read more

When I was growing up there was a popular bumper sticker, seen mostly on the back of old VW vans, that said: "What if there was a war and nobody came?"

I am reminded of that bumper sticker now, in light of this administration's unprecedented attack on civil liberties. What if our basic rights were taken away and no one noticed? What if our system of checks and balances was destroyed and everyone remained convinced it was happening to someone else?... Read more

As a newly minted Vermonter, I made my first pilgrimage to Bread & Puppet Theater's fabled farm in Glover last Sunday. I knew about it, of course; anyone who's studied the development of alternative theater in the last half-century does. And I moved here this spring from Philadelphia, where scores of "puppetistas" were arrested during the 2000 Republican National Convention for doing what B&P founder Peter Schumann has been doing for decades: using masks and giant puppets to make political statements that transcend words.... Read more