A former Chicago cop named police chief in Montpelier is believed to be the first ever black police chief in the State of Vermont. He’s coming from a New Mexico city where, as police chief, he clashed with apparently dysfunctional city leadership.

Four people - none of them St. Johnsbury Academy students who earlier in the day staged a large, peaceful protest - were arrested in a melee on the front steps of the St. Johnsbury police station. And the Oscar for Least Convincing Display of Police Violence Victimhood goes to…..

Vermonters have another acronym to learn: BIPOC, standing for “Black, Indigenous, People of Color.” In a crisis-response two-fer, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger yesterday announced a new task force to address Covid-19 concerns specific to the BIPOC community.

With Vermont’s hospitals virtually empty of Covid-19 patients, the “emergency” has impelled several communities to mandate wearing masks in public places. Montpelier passed a mandate Monday night, and Barre narrowly avoided a mandate Tuesday night.

Milton voters June 9 can either pass a budget with a smaller increase than the budget they rejected at Town Meeting, or turn it down and accept a 13% spending cut. If they choose the latter, programs like sports, theater and music would be greatly at risk.

A 2.2 megawatt solar “farm” will be built on Rte. 100, Morrisville land now being used to raise cow corn. At an estimate 2.5 acres necessary per MW of solar power, that means the Encore project will require about seven acres of farmland.

Zebulon Scoville of Middlesex (at right in photo) is sending astronauts into space.

Nothing says summer like slurping on a creemee on a warm night.

It looks like a St. Albans Black Lives Matter protester who didn’t like what a heckler was saying had his hand on a gun, shortly before police took him into custody. After his release, he says he was charged with assault. What just happened here?

A Massachusetts man has been cited to appear in Vermont court for throwing a big pickle at a Vermont AOT worker reading out-of-state license plates in Pownal.

Bad day for the Subaru driver on I-91 in Derby. First the Official Vermont State Car struck a deer. Then it caught on fire.

A nursing home in the North End of Burlington was the scene of almost 40% of all Vermont coronavirus deaths. Now, it’s Covid-free.

Tourist town Manchester - scene of some unfriendly exchanges between the locals and the second-homers in March - has just passed a mask mandate.

Beware younger Vermonters “helping” elderly people with complicated things like bank transactions, as the arraignment of the Hodgdon siblings shows.

An Essex Town selectboard member and ukulele player will run as an independent for the Essex/Westford House seat now held by Republican Bob Bancroft. The incumbent is already being challenged by Democrat Alyssa Black.

A 2018 Republican candidate for governor is running as an independent in bluer-than-blue Windsor County.

According to a leaked memo, Massachusetts State Police expect Antifa to leave large urban areas and take their mischief to small towns. Small towns just south of the Vermont border are under observation.

In years past, a parade of first-grade girls in white dresses would circle the Brandon war memorial, leaving flowers at its base. This year the solemn responsibility fell to just two girls, Emily Mendiola and Marion LaPorte.

A spokesperson for Saturday’s protest in Burlington said the police department building “is going down” if another person is killed by police. Angry words. Threatening, even. But still - just words.

Tons of rock plummeted onto the road at Smugglers Notch in Cambridge over the weekend.