The Deeper Dig is a weekly podcast from the VTDigger newsroom.
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Connecting Vermont’s most rural homes to high-speed internet has been a challenge for decades. Christine Hallquist, the incoming executive director of the state’s new community broadband board, hopes to finish the job within seven years.
The state is in legal limbo about how to maintain church-and-state protections while allowing public dollars to flow to private institutions.
It’s too soon to know what the long-term effects of Covid-19-related migration might be. But many families who found their way to Vermont last year say they’re not going anywhere.
Recorded at a live storytelling event, VTDigger’s Katie Jickling and Kevin O’Connor talk about how stories of abuse and injustice can be invisible to communities.
Benjy Renton, who just completed his undergraduate studies, has spent a year and a half earning accolades for his work tracking the pandemic. “It’s been quite nuts,” he said.
Progress has been slow, if it’s been visible at all, according to organizers of last year’s rallies for racial justice.
“It looks like we’re losing a lot of friends,” one recovery coach says of the rise in fatal opioid overdoses during the pandemic.
The front line for difficult conversations about the Covid-19 vaccine is often the exam table at a local health clinic. Doctors say to lead with empathy — and information.
Local business leaders have blamed expanded unemployment insurance for their staffing woes, but interviews with Vermonters collecting benefits reveal a range of workforce issues.
Some experts are pushing back on the “lost year” narrative, arguing that the adaptations schools have made during Covid could provide a road map to a more inclusive education system.