Current News

by C.B. Hall, Vermont Business Magazine An eight-mile upgrade to the Winooski Branch railroad in Chittenden County, connecting downtown Burlington’s Union Station to Essex Junction via Winooski and Colchester, is expected to boost Vermont’s passenger rail and freight services. The New England Central Railroad, a Genesee & Wyoming subsidiary, received a federal grant last October to fund these improvements. Currently, the line is limited to 10 mph freight traffic and is not permitted for passenger service. The upgrade will enable New England Central Railroad trains to operate at speeds up to 25 mph on the line. NECR utilizes this route for delivering wood chips to Burlington’s McNeil Generating Station and for interchanging cars with the Vermont Rail System.

Vermont Business Magazine This weekly report is a list of planned construction activities that will affect traffic on state highways and interstates throughout Vermont for the week of July 14, 2025. Please remember to drive safely in all work zones. Lives depend on it.    

Vermont Business Magazine CCTV Center for Media & Democracy will host a 24-hour telethon to highlight local programming and raise money for the CCTV Archives. The telethon will be held from Friday, July 25 at 6 p.m. until Saturday, July 26 at 6 p.m. and will broadcast live on YouTube.com/TownMeetingTV, Comcast Channel 1087, and Burlington Telecom Channel 217. The telethon will feature an online auction, local musical performances, creative acts, community-based talk shows, and other unique programming. Saturday’s programs will be held in collaboration with the annual Old North End Ramble event. 

Vermont Business Magazine COTS has successfully met the Hoehl Family Foundation’s $200,000 challenge grant to support their campaign for a new Waystation adult shelter thanks to an incredible outpouring of support from the community. In a powerful show of commitment to the mission of ending homelessness, donors rallied to meet the match, bringing the campaign one major step closer to the finish line. The new Waystation adult shelter marks a turning point in COTS’s mission to provide a more dignified, trauma-informed space for adults facing homelessness in Chittenden County.

Make-A-Wish Vermont & Northeast New York is partnering with the Lake Monsters and Reynolds & Son to provide a completely free baseball experience for 100 families impacted by critical childhood illness this Sunday at Centennial Field. The community event brings Wish Families together for connection and celebration, while raising funds through the 50/50 raffle to help the organization grant nearly 120 wishes this year throughout the region. 

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) has welcomed nine participants to the 2025 Climate Catalysts Leadership Program. Participants from across the state will focus their time on the implementation of a local climate or energy project such as emergency planning and preparedness, promoting transportation equity, mapping climate/sustainability tools used by the ski industry, celebrating climate activists through storytelling and art, and more. The Climate Catalysts Leadership Program supports participants as they take their transformative, community-scale climate economy related projects to the next level by developing their concepts into reality while building peer connections, strengthening leadership skills, and receiving project development support. 

Vermont Business Magazine MBF Bioscience, a world leader in microscopy solutions, today announced the commercial launch of SLICE, a revolutionary light sheet microscope that represents a paradigm shift in advanced imaging technology. Invented by leading researchers at Columbia University, this patent-pending innovation delivers advanced 3D imaging capabilities to research labs of all sizes while offering performance that surpasses systems costing ten times more. SLICE addresses one of the most significant challenges in modern biological research: the limited accessibility of high-performance light sheet microscopy due to high costs and complex infrastructure requirements. 

Saint Michael's College  Not all heroes wear capes – some don hairnets and latex gloves to make 500 turkey sandwiches each morning for those who might otherwise go hungry. That is just one of the tasks a group of seven (six students and a staff leader) from Saint Michael’s College took on during a May service trip to the Edmundite Southern Missions in Selma, Alabama.

Vermont Business Magazine Today, U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vermont) announced that Vermont farmers and producers affected by crop losses from natural disasters in 2023 and 2024 can now submit applications for assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Supplemental Disaster Relief Program. More than $16 billion in aid, made possible by the American Relief Act, 2025, will support farmers across the U.S., including in Vermont, who suffered agricultural and revenue losses due to natural disasters. 

by Vermont Auditor of Accounts Doug Hoffer Back in 1988, my first job in Vermont was in the City of Burlington’s Community and Economic Development Office, often called CEDO.  That is where I was introduced to the strategies and policies designed to produce and protect affordable housing. Vermont has been a laboratory in affordable housing since that time, especially the VT Housing & Conservation Trust, “inclusionary zoning” adopted in Burlington, and the land trust model used by the Champlain Housing Trust and others. For decades I’ve advocated for state government to help increase the stock and particularly the affordability of housing units. Now is no different.

by Timothy McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine Vermont weekly unemployment claims for the week ending July 5, 2025, fell by over 200 claims after a smaller drop the previous week. New claims were 309, down 222 claims from the week before and up 14 from last year at this time. Claims, which tend to be lowest in the summer, were 181 at the end of September 2024. In Vermont for the weekly report, the Service industry accounted for the most claims last week with 54%, up 12 points from the previous week. Construction was 4%, up 2 points. Manufacturing accounted for 22% of claims, up 2 points. 

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Women’s Fund, a component fund of the Vermont Community Foundation, is pleased to announce its 2025 grant cycle awards. This year, awards were distributed to 39 nonprofit organizations across the state, totaling $359,336. These grants support programs advancing economic security and opportunity for women+, girls, and gender diverse individuals throughout Vermont.