Every 10 years, as lawmakers consider how to redraw the boundaries of Vermont’s state senate districts, the same old question arises: What to do with the juggernaut that is Chittenden County?

Since it was created in 1836, the 30-member Vermont Senate has been divvied up, more or less, along county lines. But since 1965, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state legislative districts had to closely reflect population, the decennial redistricting dance has grown more challenging.... Read more

According to conventional wisdom, the hardest part of beating an addiction is admitting that you have a problem. But for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Vermont addicts who are hooked on heroin or prescription painkillers, the hardest part is finding someone to treat their dependency.... Read more

How does fracking work? Click on the diagram above for a visual explainer.

Want a piece of neighborly advice?

Keep the frack out.

That’s the word from Québecois residents who support Vermont’s possible three-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing — a controversial method of drilling for natural gas more colloquially known as fracking. ... Read more

Ask N.B. to recount the lowest point in her life and she doesn’t have to stop and ponder. In October 2006, the Jericho native recalls, the father of her child had kicked her out “for the 50th time.” An intravenous drug habit had withered her down to 85 pounds, and both her arms were bruised, from wrists to shoulders. Then she discovered she was pregnant again.... Read more

Imagine:

Four new buildings flanking the Unitarian Universalist Church at the northern end of the Marketplace

An Intervale demonstration garden — perhaps including “chickens on Church” — in place of the fountain on the perennially problematic top block

Student apartments added above ground-floor retail spaces on the Marketplace

Then Imagine:

An indoor farmers market replacing the waterfront parking lot at the foot of College Street... Read more

If James Maroney had his way, we wouldn’t be writing about him at all.

We’d be discussing, instead, the state of agriculture in Vermont, the crisis of floundering dairy farms and pollution in Lake Champlain — all issues that Maroney thinks should stand on their own, beyond the matter of his polarizing advocacy. These are causes near and dear to the former organic dairy farmer’s heart, and which he has addressed for years at local farm bureau meetings, at Statehouse hearings and in the pages of Vermont newspapers.

So far, not many people are listening.... Read more

Is Sen. Patrick Leahy losing his sense of political timing? For most of his 37 years in the U.S. Senate, Leahy, 71, has been a defender of civil liberties, earning praise from First Amendment advocates and right-to-privacy groups.

But lately, Leahy has ignited outrage across the nation — and among Vermonters — for supporting two bills that critics say give the government too much power.... Read more

In the market for a slaughterhouse? Apparently, you’re in good company: Last week the website Auctions International logged 241 bids for the sale of Vermont’s only mobile poultry-processing unit.

Think “Pimp My Ride” gone to the birds: Custom designed and built for the state in 2008, the 36-foot trailer comes with kill cones, an eviscerating trough, turkey broiler shackles and a giblet station, to name a few features.... Read more

Miro Weinberger wants everyone to know: He is not “The Donald.”

“People think of Donald Trump when they hear you’re a developer,” Burlington mayoral candidate Weinberger says of the job title the local media has bestowed upon him. But unlike the Republican builder of casinos and luxe cribs for the 1 percent, “my whole career has been about equity issues and green building,” says the Democrat who wants to lead Burlington.... Read more

Nicole and Justin Matten of Barton have lived every parent’s worst nightmare. On December 2 their 7-year-old daughter, Kaylynne, visited her physician for an annual checkup. She got a flu shot. The next day, she developed a bad headache and fever. On December 6, the normally happy and healthy girl, who had no previous history of chronic health problems or adverse reactions to vaccines, turned blue, stopped breathing and died in her mother’s arms.... Read more