Current News

Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food & Markets Are you interested in the prices paid at farmers markets across Vermont? Whether you are a consumer or producer, it's important to be informed. Each week the Agency of Agriculture produces a report highlighting prices of more than 50 vegetables, fruits, meat, and eggs, from markets across the state. It covers conventional and organically grown products, and includes high, low, and average price points. 

Vermont Business Magazine Casella Waste Systems, Inc (Nasdaq: CWST), a regional solid waste, recycling, and resource management services company, announced that it completed the acquisition of the Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland collection, transfer, and recycling operations of GFL Environmental Inc. (“GFL”) on June 30, 2023. The purchase price of the acquisition was approximately $525 million and was funded through a combination of the company’s new $430 million Term Loan A under its existing senior secured credit facility and proceeds from the Company’s recent equity offering. 

Vermont Business Magazine Average gasoline prices in Vermont have risen to $3.59 per gallon, up 0.9 cents per gallon from last week. The lowest price in the state yesterday was $3.37/g while the highest was $3.73/g, a difference of 36.0 cents per gallon. The national average price of gasoline has fallen 4.1 cents per gallon in the last week, averaging $3.50/g today. 

Vermont Business Magazine On Saturday, July 15, Governor Phil Scott and Senator Bernie Sanders will help communities all along the 93-mile Lamoille Valley Rail Trail (LVRT) celebrate the trail’s completion at a day-long event and end-to-end bike ride. Governor Scott will ride the length of the trail from Swanton to St. Johnsbury, making trailside stops throughout the day (see full schedule below). Senator Sanders will lead interested Vermonters for a walk along a section of the trail, leading into the Morrisville celebration. Governor Scott and Senator Sanders will be joined at the Morrisville celebration by state and local officials, supporters of the LVRT and community members.

Vermont Business Magazine The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Region 1 Office is announcing a grant competition for an “Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center” (EJ TCTAC) to help New England communities and other environmental justice stakeholders access federal technical assistance and resources to address environmental and energy justice concerns. EPA Region 1 includes the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and 10 Tribal Nations.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Department of Financial Regulation, along with several other states, reached a settlement with Lear Capital regarding unregistered securities activity and misleading marketing. Under the terms of the settlement, Vermont investors who entered a transaction with Lear between January 1, 2016, and March 3, 2022, will receive a distribution equal to the difference between a hypothetical 12 percent fee and the fee charged by Lear. 

Vermont Business Magazine Over 100 attendees gathered together on Thursday, June 22^nd for Windham & Windsor Housing Trust’s Annual Meeting and 35^th anniversary celebration. Residents, Shared Equity homeowners, supporters, staff, funders and friends mingled at the block party-themed event held on the site of the organization’s very first redevelopment at 50, 58, 64 Canal Street in downtown Brattleboro. 

Vermont Business Magazine The U.S Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) estimated 172 thousand acres of corn planted for all purposes in New England for 2023, down 1% from last year’s acreage of 173 thousand acres. Vermont's production is unchanged and it leads all states in corn and hay production.

by Aubrey Weaver, Community News Service Deepfakes — fake images and videos made with machine-learning technology that can realistically depict people’s faces  — have made headlines in recent years for tricking people and even the news in a lot of relatively harmless ways, such as a viral image of Pope Francis sporting a Rihanna-esque puffer coat. But lawmakers and advocates say photo-generative software represents a serious escalation of “image-based sexual abuse”: the practice of blackmailing or extorting an individual by threatening to leak nude or sexual images of them. 

Northeastern Vermont Development Association Governor Scott signed the HOME Act into law on June 5th. This legislation marks a strong compromise between housing and environmental advocates who worked with the Administration to find a path forward for housing policy reform. The HOME Act modernizes local zoning and land use regulations by allowing higher density development in areas with sewer and water service, creating more housing opportunities and affordable homes. Key provisions of S.100 include: Affordable & Inclusive Housing Expansion; Land Use Regulations; and Municipal Zoning Reforms.

Vermont Business Magazine NuHarbor Security, trusted managed security provider in Colchester, has announced the winner of its recent Natural Language Processing (NLP) hackathon. ”The Polyglot Project” was created to spur interest and innovation in the challenges posed by the differing outputs and alerts created by cybersecurity tools. It presented a specific set of criteria for the creation of an AI/ML-based approach to creating an evolving and dynamic common ontology for cybersecurity information. The winner of the competition, which had over 800 early applicants, was Chirag Hegde, a developer and student. 

by Joyce Marcel Popular, some say inspirational — and very tall — Thomas A Dee got into the field of hospital administration when academia barely recognized it as a profession. By the time he was 26, he was running two small hospitals in upstate New York. Now at 67 and the height of his career, he runs the tiny juggernaut that is Southwestern Vermont Health Care (SVHC) and is currently getting it ready to merge with Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.