Sheep used to dominate the Vermont landscape. But these days, it’s kind of rare to drive by a large flock. What happened to Vermont’s sheep? Today on Vermont Edition: It’s the latest in our March series Animal Hour and it’s all about sheep. We begin with local historian Mark Bushnell who tells us all about the sheep boom and bust of the 1800s.  Even though there aren’t as many sheep here as there used to be, there’s still a lot of Vermonters out there shearing sheep for their wool, raising lambs for meat, or producing award-winning sheep’s milk cheese. We’ll talk with Mark Rogers, head o ..read more

Dr. David Krag and his team are sifting through around 43,000 studies about opioids and addiction to create an easy-to-access research database ..read more

South Burlington children's book author and illustrator Jason Chin uses paint and pen to bring the world around us to life. Chin won one of the highest honors in his field in 2022, when he was awarded the Caldecott Medal for Watercress, written by Andrea Wang. This year, he and the writer Lynn Brunelle won the Robert F. Silbert Medal for the most distinguished informational book for children for Life After Whale: The Amazing Ecosystem of a Whale Fall ..read more

This episode of Vermont Edition also included a conversation with VTDigger reporter Peter D'Auria about plans for a juvenile detention facility in Vergennes and some possible updates to Vermont's Raise the Age law.Your shoes are soggy. Your car wheels are spinning. You're not sure if you should dress for sun, rain, or even snow. Yes, it's mud season. Some Vermonters like Keegan Tierney, the Green Mountain Club's director of field programs, approach mud season with optimism and energy. Others, like Vermont Edition host Mikaela Lefrak, drudge their way through the sludge each year. Vermont's sta ..read more

The U.S. Department of Education is cutting nearly half of its workforce. President Donald Trump wants to see the agency eliminated completely. What do these tidal shifts in education mean for individual states, like Vermont? Today's show answers that question ..read more

Vermont's famous big cats are rumored to be roaming the woods and hills. Here's how to know if you really did spot one in the wild ..read more

A wounded Union captain from Vermont and the resilient wife of a Confederate soldier cross paths — and fates — in Chris Bohjalian's new novel.Bohjalian is the New York Times bestselling author of 25 books, a playwright and a longtime Weybridge resident. His work has been translated into 35 languages and become three movies and an Emmy-winning TV series (The Flight Attendant on Max). His novel Midwives was an Oprah’s Book Club selection. He was a weekly columnist for The Burlington Free Press from 1992 through 2015.This show was recorded on Mar. 9 at a live event, when Bohjalian sat down with M ..read more

The average marketplace premium in Vermont is more than 140% higher than the national average in 2025. For individuals who get their insurance through their employers, not the marketplace, their contributions are the highest in the whole country.In a recent Brave Little State episode, senior producer Josh Crane explores why Vermont's health care system is so expensive. He looks into the UVM Health Network and compares health care costs in different parts of our region. Then, Chief Health Care Advocate for Vermont Legal Aid Mike Fisher answers your questions about our health care system. Broadc ..read more

The proposed center will provide medical supervision to people using illegal drugs ..read more

Town and state leaders are working to improve humans' relationship with beavers to support flood resiliency. Beavers' brains are small — about the size of a walnut — but you wouldn't know it from watching them work. "They get up and go to work every single day, never take a vacation," said Skip Lisle, a wildlife biologist in Grafton. Lisle invented the Beaver Deceiver, a flow device that sneaks water away from beavers and removes the need to trap or kill them.For naturalist Patti Smith of the Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center in West Brattleboro, it's important for Vermonters to underst ..read more