FEMA Disaster Survivor Assistance teams are stationed at the Vermont State Fair, helping eligible attendees apply for FEMA assistance, providing application status updates, and answering application questions. FEMA preservation specialists are also giving demonstrations and informing about how to salvage storm-damaged family photos, artwork, textiles, media and other family treasures. Stop by FEMA’s booth near…

  By Curt Peterson  For two years, JuanCarlos Gonzalez, who lives in Plymouth, visited farms in Vermont, taking pictures of women owning and/or managing their enterprises. Billings Farm in Woodstock will be exhibiting 45 of his images in their historic barn from Aug. 19 through Oct. 31. Gonzalez has gathered the best of his photos…

    Green Mountain Power (GMP) is making it easy for Vermonters to switch to driving an electric vehicle (EV) with its new Try-an-EV program letting customers experience what it is like to own and drive an EV, without a long-term commitment. The subscription service allows customers to select a vehicle and schedule delivery online…

  By Brooke Geery  Tucked into a wildflower-filled field just off lower Killington Resort’s Great Eastern trail, several hundred thousand bees are hard at work. They’re in various stages of life, from hatching to metamorphosis to learning the ropes around the hives. The adults are busily collecting pollen and nectar, carrying it back to the…

   A suspect in a June double shooting in Leicester that left one man dead and his brother critically injured has been arrested on an unrelated federal charge in Maine.  Zaquikon Roy, 35, of Brooklyn, New York, was arrested Thursday, Aug. 10, in Lewiston, Maine, on a federal charge of being a felon in possession…

Staff report Police said one died in a two-car crash on Route 4 near Craigs Lane in Mendon around 7:30 p.m. Aug. 11. Police said Stephen P. Marcoulier, 62, of Ashby, Massachusetts, was pronounced dead at the scene. Preliminary investigation determined Marcoulier was driving a 1983 Volkswagen traveling eastbound on Route 4. Marcoulier left the…

  The Vermont Dept. of Financial Regulation was notified that a large-scale data security breach has compromised the personally identifiable information of roughly 42,000 Vermonters and over 38 million consumers nationwide. The breach occurred when the CLOP Ransomware Gang, a known threat actor, infiltrated the MOVEit file transfer software used by many public and private…

  The Carving Studio and Sculpture Center is dedicating public artwork at noon on Saturday, Aug.19, as part of the annual Rutland Town-wide celebration. The permanent installation at Northwood Park is in partnership with the town of Rutland.   Seven teenage sculptors carved the 14th public artwork in the Stone Bench Project from June 26 through…

  Vermont Emergency Eats (VEE), a smaller-scale version of Vermont Everyone Eats, the pandemic-era program that provided meals to food-insecure Vermonters, has launched in response to the recent flooding in the state. VEE is  providing meals to those affected in the nine counties in the Federal Disaster Declaration, which includes Rutland County.  Southeastern Vermont Community…

  By Tiffany Tan/VTDigger LUDLOW — The Timber Inn Motel is among roughly a thousand Vermont businesses damaged in last month’s historic flooding. Propelled by the raging Black River, floodwaters rose over 6 feet at the motel, wrecking guest rooms, machinery and outdoor structures. Three weeks after the deluge, the nine flooded guest rooms lay stripped…

  Un-permitted structures for paramilitary school must be removed and fines paid or face prison  Staff report A judge has thrown out a federal lawsuit against the town of Pawlet brought by resident Daniel Banyai as he attempts to build a paramilitary school. The lawsuit was dismissed Monday, Aug. 7 by U.S. District Court Judge…

  By Curt Peterson Four members of the Hartland Select Board grilled Daniel Peck, project manager for Vanasse Hangen Brustlin (VHB) engineers, regarding three expensive glitches discovered during the now-notorious $1.5 million intersection reconfiguration in Hartland Three Corners. Board Chair Phil Hobbie outlined the issues, including failure to provide replacement street lighting in the project…

  By Curt Peterson Monday night, Aug. 7, found Hartland businessman David Cowdrey and his son Allan at Damon Hall for a final hearing regarding Cowdrey’s application for a town salvage yard permit. All signs point to eventual approval. The long-time auto repair and service provider has mapped out a 150’ x 75’ area where…

  By Karen D. Lorentz On a sunny Aug. 5, family, friends, and former colleagues of Norma Biathrow gathered at the Killington Grand Hotel to celebrate the life of a mother, grandmother, great grandma, sibling, friend, early Killington pioneer, and dedicated state police dispatcher on what would have been her 87th birthday.  As family and…

‘There will be a next time’: Ludlow emergency management director gears up for future calamities By Tiffany Tan/VTDigger Sometime in the afternoon of July 9, Angela Kissell and her husband began knocking on doors in this southern Vermont town, telling residents to prepare for a possible evacuation. She’d been following forecasts of a storm that…