Current News

Vermont Business Magazine On average only three in 10 students attending public colleges graduate in four years, with each additional year of college representing both an extra expense and a delay in the earning power a college degree confers. The University of Vermont is near the top of a new list of public universities that do the best job of helping students avoid these pitfalls and graduate on time.

Vermont Business Magazine UVM’s Convocation ceremony, which formally launches the academic year, will be held on Sunday, August 25, at 6:30. The event culminates with a walk down Main Street – by new students, faculty, staff and UVM leadership – to the UVM green, where a twilight induction ceremony will be held.

Brandon Arcari, Vermont Business Magazine The University of Vermont Medical Center broke ground on a new primary care facility in Essex Thursday, Aug. 22, a new building nearly double the size of the current leased space. The new facility, which will fully replace the aging leased building currently in use, will offer 12,500 square feet of space to allow for more spacious exam rooms, as well as more of them. The facility was designed to be LEED certified, and will offer telemedicine services for patients to talk to their healthcare providers from home.

Vermont State Police At 6:52pm on the night of August 23^st, the Orleans Fire Department responded to the report of an explosion at a single-family home on 2056 Chapdelaine Road in Brownington (Orleans County). Upon arrival they found an explosion had occurred causing extensive damage to the building. A small fire in basement had self-extinguished.  There was no one home at the time of the incident. 

It was discovered by the owner Mr. Bowen upon returning home. The residence is not habitable due the structural damage. The family of five is being assisted by the Vermont Red Cross with temporary housing. The Fire Chief contacted the Department of Public Safety Fire & Explosion Investigation Unit and requested an investigation. 

by Roger Allbee Congress is finally taking steps to end surprise medical billing, a longstanding issue that for years has caused needless stress and financial woes for Vermont patients as well as patients across the country. No one should be subjected to the pain and hardship that comes with surprise billing. Yet, due to a number of factors—including insurance companies that continue to shrink their provider networks—more and more patients find themselves stuck with exceedingly high bills for treatments and services they assumed would be covered by their health care plans.

Vermont Business Magazine On Saturday, September 14, two locomotives and six historic coaches will depart from the historic downtown St Johnsbury train depot and head south on one of the most beautiful train rides in New England. The train rides, part of the daylong Colors of the Kingdom Community Festival, will start at 9:30 a.m. and be repeated at 11:30 am, 1:30 and 3:30 pm from the St Johnsbury Welcome Center. The train follows the tracks of the Connecticut and Passumpsic Railroad, established in 1850, and clings to the banks of the Connecticut and Passumpsic rivers, cutting through massive rock ledges and crossing many bridges.

Vermont Business Magazine On Friday, August 23rd, 2019, at approximately 0650 hours Troopers with VSP Williston were notified of a head-on collision involving two vehicles on I-89 Northbound in the area of Mile Marker 76 in the town of Richmond. Investigation determined that a 2015 Dodge Ram drifted from the southbound lanes of I-89, into the median, went airborne, and then struck a vehicle travelling north head on. The vehicle that was struck was a 2012 Ford F-350. Both vehicles sustained totaling damage.

Vermont Business Magazine Fall semester 2019 is officially under way at Saint Michael's College today with the arrival of our first-year students from the Class of 2023 on this Move-In Day. It was the typical happily chaotic scene in the main first-year Quad residences beginning at about 9 a.m. as families with plates from states near and far pulled in, to be greeted by helpful if noisy Orientation Leaders who were enthusiastically and efficiently helping schlep belongings up to new rooms.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Department of Labor announced today the hiring of a new Assistant Director in their Workforce Development Division. Hugh Bradshaw will serve as the Assistant Director of Workforce Development, adding to the robust team of workforce and training professionals the Department of Labor has been assembling.

Vermont Business Magazine Weekly unemployment numbers are holding at a low level. Summer usually brings low claim levels. Initial claims for the week of August 17, 2019, totaled 321, up 32 from last week. This is the first time they've been over 300 since mid-July. Claims are 56 more than they were at this time last year.

Altogether 3,129 new and continuing claims were filed, a decrease of 241 from a week ago, and 250 fewer than a year ago.

Nationwide, according to the US Labor Department for the week ending August 17, initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped to 209,000, an unexpected decline of 12,000 claims. The 4-week moving average increased 500 to 214,500.

Vermont Business Magazine A pool of mosquitoes collected in Essex has tested positive for West Nile virus at the Vermont Department of Health Laboratory. This is the first positive pool – or group of up to 50 mosquitoes of the same species and location – of the 2019 mosquito surveillance season. The infected mosquitoes were collected by the Vermont Agency of Agriculture and tested at the Health Department Laboratory as part of an ongoing interagency mosquito surveillance program that helps the state better understand the risk of diseases spread by mosquitoes. More than 2,000 mosquito pools from around the state have been tested so far this year.

Vermont Business Magazine Hydropower has provided the nation with clean, renewable energy for over 200 years. In recognition of the first form of renewable energy, the Vermont Public Power Supply Authority (VPPSA) today is celebrating National Hydropower Day. National Hydropower Day celebrates hydropower’s undeniable contributions to America’s clean energy infrastructure, electrical grid resiliency and reliability benefits, and environmental protections.

Hydropower has been the backbone of Vermont’s electricity generation since the late 1700s, when many dams were built to power grain mills. Today, VPPSA members own nine hydropower facilities with a total generating capacity of 21.9 megawatts (MW). In 2018, public power owned hydropower accounted for 14% of VPPSA’s energy portfolio.