Vermont Edition

An azure wave did occur last Tuesday, when the Democrats took back control of the House in the midterm elections. Rep. Peter Welch will return to Washington in January as part of that Democratic majority. He joins us to discuss what that shift in power will mean.

Maple sugar products are pretty standard: there’s the ubiquitous syrup, as well as maple sugar and candy. But one producer has expanded their offerings that run from standard syrups to creams, granules, seasonings and even a mysterious maple cube.

They Are Us is a new seven-part series about mental health airing on VPR featuring the personal stories of Vermonters. We're convening a conversation with some of the people from that podcast, and we'll talk about their perspectives on mental illness, stigma and mental health care.

She stands 14-and-a-half feet tall, weighs around two tons and Vermont can't wait for her to ascend the roof of the Statehouse in Montpelier. The statue of Ceres, goddess of Agriculture, is expected to be placed atop the golden dome on Friday, November 30, according to sculptor Chris Miller of Calais.

The National Book Award is one the most prestigious literary prizes in the country, given every year since 1950 to celebrate the best writing in America. This year, three finalists for the award have links to Vermont.

How do you create a diverse student body in a state like Vermont? For some schools, it's by recruiting students from out-of-state. We're looking at ways Vermont colleges and universities recruit for diversity and how they support students who make the move to Vermont.

Animal fats like lard, tallow or schmaltz have been used in cooking for centuries, but have fallen out of favor more recently, mostly for health reasons. But the author of a new cookbook says that isn't fair. We're talking to Andrea Chesman about her take on how these animal fats can fit into modern cooking.

Many of us take it for granted that when we visit the doctor's office, shop for groceries or otherwise go about life in Vermont we do so in English. But more than five percent of Vermonters don't speak English at home. We're talking about how Vermonters without English navigate schools, health care, work and other basic needs.

In conversations about climate change, the role of soil often comes up as one way to sequester carbon. Better soil management would retain more carbon in the ground and release less into the atmosphere. But Dartmouth College Biological Sciences professor Caitlin Hicks Pries says soil's role is even more central, either making climate change worse or playing a key role in mitigating its affects.

In Tuesday's election, Republican Phil Scott won a second term as governor, and Democrats expanded their big majorities in both the Vermont House and Senate. Vermont Edition is hosting a roundtable with top Vermont politics-watchers about the election results and the impact on the state going forward.

The experience of transgender and nonbinary Americans has changed significantly in recent decades. Alongside increased visibility is a new federal push to define how transgender people identify. But in Vermont these communities face daily questions, from bathrooms to health care to pronouns. We're talking about the transgender and nonbinary experience in Vermont.

Once the last vote has been cast and most have been counted, it's time to make sense of the results. Then it's time to parse the outcomes and look into what it all means for Montpelier and Washington. We'll talk to politicians and reporters to make sense of the results.

At the VPR - Vermont PBS U.S. Senate debate , there were two election observers present. They were from an international organization called the OSCE, or the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe. They send observers to elections in all participating nation states, and representatives from the organization have been watching many aspects of the midterm elections around the U.S.

Flu season is just beginning, but brace yourself, because it's only going to get worse from now until we hit a peak in a few months. We're talking about how the season is shaping up this time around, and how healthcare workers fight a continuous battle against a host of rapidly mutating influenza viruses.

As the 13th president of the University of Vermont, Guy Bailey expanded the campus, constructed new buildings and led the school through the Great Depression. For decades his name adorned the university library, the Guy W. Bailey/David W. Howe Memorial Library, often called simply the Bailey/Howe Library. But Bailey was also a proponent of eugenics. That legacy inspired students and faculty to push to drop his name from the library. Last month, the university’s board of trustees did just that ,