Podcasts about Vermont Public Radio

Last week, I received an unexpected call from Bill Mares, an old friend. Bill told me that he had terminal lymphoma and had only days to live. He was home in hospice care, which focuses on a person's quality of life as they near death. And he had chosen to make use of Vermont's medical aid-in-dying law, which passed in 2013.He had a few things on his mind that he wanted to share. He was medicated when we spoke but still sharp, thoughtful and funny. Bill died on Monday, July 29, just a week after our conversation. He was 83 years old. His wife Chris told me that his final week was filled with visits from over 70 friends. Bill regaled them with stories from his long and colorful life. No matter how serious the topic or dire the situation, he would find the humor in it. He believed deeply in the power of a good laugh. Bill Mares was raised in Texas and educated at Harvard, where he majored in history, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, where he received a master's degree. He was a former journalist, state representative and high school history teacher in Vermont. For over a decade, he was a regular commentator on Vermont Public Radio. He authored or co-authored 20 books on subjects ranging from the U.S. Marines, to desert travel, to Vermont humor. His books include Real Vermonters Don't Milk Goats (with Frank Bryan), and his latest, I Could Hardly Keep From Laughing: An Illustrated Collection of Vermont Humor (with Don Hooper). His memoir, Better to Be Lucky Than Smart, will be published posthumously later this year. Among the many nonprofit organizations to which he gave his time and talents, Bill was a board member of the Vermont Journalism Trust, the parent organization of VTDigger. Bill called me to talk about how he was approaching his last days. He especially wanted others to know that the end of life could be peaceful and beautiful with medical aid-in-dying. Vermont is one of 11 states that has such a law. In 2023, Vermont revised it to become the first state to permit medical aid-in-dying to qualifying patients from anywhere, regardless of the state in which they live. To qualify, a patient must meet strict criteria, including having a terminal illness with six months or less to live and have two physicians sign off."I had the chance to drive the bus of my own disappearance," he said of how he was ending his life.Bill asked me if I would record our conversation. We both knew it would likely be the last time we talked. "I was never an expert in anything. But I was good enough to pass the giggle test," he told me. I asked him what his advice was for young people. "Start by serving other people. It said on the wall of my camp as a kid, 'God is first, others second, I am third.' And you can't go wrong with that.""You just have to remember those two beings, which is you and everybody else. You're sharing this planet with 8 billion other people. And that's enough work to do for anyone."

This week we are joined by Annie Russell! Annie Russell is a comedian and editor, currently working as a senior producer at Storycorps, where her work can be heard on NPR's Morning Edition. She is an experienced public radio editor, reporter and producer. She's worked on a variety of short and long term projects, comedy podcasts, news stories and audio work. She was previously an editor at NPR affiliates KQED in San Francisco, WBEZ in Chicago and Vermont Public Radio. She hosted The Pub, a podcast about public media for Current.org. In past lives she's worked as a freelance podcast producer, live sound engineer, social worker, music director, and video store clerk.She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School.In this episode, we discuss growing up in Westchester, New York, being an organized control freak playing in bands and loving Indie Rock, misogyny in the music industry, working in public radio, and so much more. You don't want to miss our discussion about when Annie worked in social work and the wild tasks she was given. Give this episode a listen!Recommendations from this episode: Fountain HouseNormal GossipHow to Build a Girl - Caitlin MoranEmpire RecordsFollow Annie: @anniemrussellFollow Carly: @carlyjmontagFollow Emily: @thefunnywalshFollow the podcast: @aloneatlunchpodPlease rate and review the podcast! Spread the word! Tell your friends! Email us: aloneatlunch@gmail.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

CNN speaks with Israeli whistleblowers who describe brutal conditions at a shadowy detention facility for Palestinians. Vermont lawmakers passed a bill that would allow the state to go after big oil companies for compensation over damage wrought by climate change. Vermont Public Radio reports. A miniature poodle named Sage won the top prize at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Fox Sports has video of the moment. Today’s episode was guest-hosted by Yasmeen Khan.

In the midst of excitedly preparing for AWP 2017, we record this episode in which we discuss two poems by Rita Banerjee, “The Suicide Rag” and “Georgia Brown” This week's discussion both took us back and made sure that none of us would see the world the same way again. With images of breakdancing, gospel choir, and the not-so-innocent Georgia Brown, we were in it. Whether we're distinguishing jazz from jazz or figuring out what a clapper is, this episode is filled with risky moves. Join us in the campaign to have your local library carry lesser-known authors and small presses. Let us know what books you'll be requesting with #getsomebooks! Let's support libraries, small presses, and the authors who write for them. Make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and let us know what you think of this episode with #longandskinny! Stay tuned to hear about our AWP 2017 experience–we hope to see you there! And of course, most importantly, read on!   At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Tim Fitts, and Sara Aykit Rita Banerjee is the author of Echo in Four Beats, CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing, the novella “A Night with Kali” in Approaching Footsteps, and Cracklers at Night. She received her doctorate in Comparative Literature from Harvard and her MFA from the University of Washington, and her work appears in Hunger Mountain, PANK, Tupelo Quarterly, Isele Magazine, Nat. Brut., Poets & Writers, Academy of American Poets, Los Angeles Review of Books, Vermont Public Radio, and elsewhere. She is the co-writer of Burning Down the Louvre, a forthcoming documentary film about race, intimacy, and tribalism in the United States and in France, and serves as Senior Editor of the South Asian Avant-Garde and Creative Director of the Cambridge Writers' Workshop. She received a 2021-2022 Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council for her new memoir and manifesto on female cool, and one of the opening chapters of this memoir, “Birth of Cool” was a Notable Essay in the 2020 Best American Essays. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.    The Suicide Rag Billy played ragtime on the church organ but we lunch hour kids, kept time by another name.  Behind St. Augustine's we learned to hit the pavement, sound like an anvil crack hammers hitting steel, Billy playing skeletons on the fifth, we arpeggioed haloed, froze on the black top.  Learning to cakewalk This was our battle— tar-mat babies doing handsprung suicides for the girls standing 'round with knife-like eyes That's all we needed— a rolling beat, a firing squad and schoolyard skirts scouring the lot as we fell face forward hands locked & stiff, the only thing that could've come between us was a kiss.   Georgia Brown Harlem had yet to be born, the globe had not been spun, but we knew how to whistle, how to call clappers and skirts on cue: That summer, we first met Georgia, she was an echo in four beats, we learned to hum her story. Mike played her with a licked reed but she was all brass, sharp like an abandoned railroad cutting through wild wood, and when she took stage, she made those trombone boys whisper, “Sweet Georgia, Sweet.”

Nancy Hayes Kilgore brings to life a small town in Vermont at a time of great change, and the fears of what this may bring in her second novel, "Wild Mountain." Mona Duval runs the local general store, and when the nearby covered bridge is destroyed in a flood it is just one more matter that weighs on her. It is 2008, and Vermont is facing the potential shift to permitting gay marriage, a subject the locals have opinions on, and some will do whatever they can to stop it. While Mona weighs her relationship with her dear friend Roz, there is the question of Frank, a seasonal cabin-dweller whose own style makes itself known. Atop this, Mona's abusive ex-husband Johnny is back, and what purpose does he have in mind? Then, too a mysterious watcher believed part of Green Mountain folklore, the changing times and lives of all are examined in "Wild Mountain." A winner of the Vermont Writers Prize, Nancy's works include "Bitter Magic," released by Sunbury Press in 2021, and "Sea Level," released in 2012. Sunbury Press is proud to bring "Wild Mountain" to its shelf as well. A parish pastor, psychotherapist and teacher of unique creative writing classes, Nancy discusses her spiritual and literary journey with Tory Gates on this program. Her stories have appeared in Vermont Magazine, Bloodroot Literary Magazine, the Bottle Imp and on Vermont Public Radio. She lives in Burlington, VT with her husband and pets.  

We talk to a lot of interesting people on the show. Today, we're revisiting three memorable conversations we've had this year. Eric Jacobsen just completed his final season as the conductor at the Greater Bridgeport Symphony. We spoke with Eric about his work as a conductor and also heard about the search for the next orchestra leader. The State Department of Education and Connecticut's five sovereign tribal nations are working together to develop Native American curriculum for K-12 social studies classes which will be rolled out next year. We'll hear from a member of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation about how local tribes worked with the state on this curriculum. For Earth Day 2023, the New England News Collaborative highlighted innovative solutions to mitigating climate change, including a renewed interest in green burials. We talk to a Vermont Public Radio reporter about how they're having a resurgence in New England. GUESTS: Eric Jacobsen: Former conductor at the Greater Bridgeport Symphony orchestra. He is also a cellist and a member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project Darlene Kascak: Education Coordinator, Institute of American Indian Studies; Traditional Native American Storyteller, Schaghticoke Tribal Nation Lexi Krupp: Science and Health Reporter for Vermont Public You can listen back to the full interviews below: Conductor Eric Jacobsen says goodbye to the Greater Bridgeport Symphony Connecticut tribes co-create state social studies curriculum, centering 'our culture and our ways' Small solutions to climate change that make a big impact Check out the NENC 2023 Earth Week coverage here. Where We Live is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.Support the show: http://wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In December it was announced WWLR, Lyndon State College's Radio station was in the process of being sold to Vermont Public Radio for them to run as part of its statewide classical music network. This is the 1st in a special series of conversations with staffers who were there through the years. Bill Perrault attended Lyndon State from 1973 to 1977 If you want to leave your memory or set up a conversation just like what is here... text or call 802-467-0212 and leave a message I will get back to you. This was produced on May 13, 2023 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bobwelch/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bobwelch/support

Scotland, 1662. A young girl named Margaret meets Isobel, a teller of tales, of faeries and magic, which sweeps Margaret away from her devout Protestant family to learn of charms and the Otherworld. When Isobel is arrested and accused of practicing witchcraft, Margaret becomes a suspect. It remains for Katharine, Margaret's tutor and a Christian Mystic to potentially save them. Nancy Hayes Kilgore brings her third novel, "Bitter Magic" to Milford House Press. She is a winner of the Vermont Writers Prize, and a ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award. Her writings have appeared in the anthology She Writes Press, Vermont Magazine, Bloodroot Literary Magazine and on Vermont Public Radio. Her previous works are "Wild Mountain" and "Sea Level." A Western Pennsylvania native, Nancy is a graduate of the Radcliffe Writing Seminars with a Master of Divinity degree and a Doctorate in Pastoral Counseling, She is a psychotherapist, former parish pastor and a conductor of worshops on creative writing and spirituality. Nancy lives in Vermont with her husband and pets.

Mercy's guest today is John Miller. John is a documentary photographer based in Irasburg, Vermont. His career has spanned a wide range of projects on life in northeastern Vermont, what we call the Northeast Kingdom, Italy, the West, well…anywhere he travels. Today we will be talking about the evolution of his career as an artist and his deep love for humanity. John Miller first began his photographic career for Shelburne Museum in Vermont and has since been the project photographer for seven major exhibits funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. His photographs have been exhibited nationally and have been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Village Voice Literary Supplement, Publishers Weekly, the Journal of Visual Anthropology, the Vermont History Quarterly, Yankee Magazine, Vermont Public Radio and Vermont Public Television. He has published two books - Deer Camp: Last Light in the Northeast Kingdom and Granite and Cedar. He directed and edited the exhibit and publication Voices and Faces: Portrait of a Community. Miller received his MFA degree from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. He has taught documentary photography seminars at the University of Vermont and is a retired Professor of photography and digital imaging at Northern Vermont University. He has also been a visiting artist in elementary schools in northern Vermont and at the American Academy in Rome. Recent photographic exhibits include Human/Nature (a comparative photo-documentary about humans and land and architecture in both Italy and the United States) and the 2018 traveling exhibit Dialogue with Resonance: Recent Collage – Italy.

This weeks podcast is joined by  educator, writer and speaker Jessica Lahey (@jesslahey), who holds a deep interest in exploring what motivates children to learn.  Jessica is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts with a J.D. concentrating on juvenile and education law from the University of North Carolina School of Law.  She has also spent many years as an English and writing teacher, a correspondent for the Atlantic, a commentator for Vermont Public Radio, and she wrote the “Parent-Teacher Conference” column for the New York Times.She is also the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed.  She also cohosts a writing and creativity podcast, #amwriting.Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children.  Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner. Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss?  Email your suggestion to: askdrjessicamd@gmail.com. Dr Jessica Hochman is also on social media:Follow her on Instagram: @AskDrJessicaSubscribe to her YouTube channel! Ask Dr JessicaSubscribe to this podcast: Ask Dr JessicaSubscribe to her mailing list: www.askdrjessicamd.comThe information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only.  She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals.  If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

My guest is Jessica Lahey, an educator, writer, and speaker, and the author of one of my favorite parenting books, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. Jess shares her insights about how we can best prepare our kids for an independent, successful adulthood in the way we practice autonomy supportive parenting versus overparenting, what it means to let our kids “fail” to help them thrive, how we can help our kids learn how to “sit with frustration,” and much more.  Jessica Lahey is an educator, writer, and speaker. She is an English and writing teacher, correspondent for the Atlantic, commentator for Vermont Public Radio, and writes the “Parent-Teacher Conference” column for the New York Times.  Jessica earned a B.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts and a J.D. with a concentration in juvenile and education law from the University of North Carolina School of Law. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and two sons.  Things you'll learn from this episodeThe difference between overparenting and “autonomy supportive parenting"How many parents underestimate their kids and might be unknowingly fostering learned helplessness in themHow we can build scaffolding for our kids What Jessica wishes parents of atypical kids knew about teachersJessica's advice for how we can best advocate for our kids in schoolHow we can foster more of a growth mindset in our children, especially those who are perfectionist, as well as how to NOT foster “learned helplessness” Resources mentioned about the gift of failureJessica Lahey's websiteThe Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed by Jessica LaheyWhy Parents Need To Let Their Kids Fail (The Atlantic article)Dr. Ross Greene Talks About Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (podcast episode)The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous and Smart About Money by Ron LieberAm Writing (Jessica's podcast)The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children by Dr. Ross GreeneJessica Lahey's speaking bibliographyWhen Children Say ‘I Can't,' But They Can, and Adults Know It (NY Times article by Jessica Lahey)Support the show

When Erica Heilman heard about the death by suicide of 17-year-old Finn Rooney, she initially recoiled from telling the story. It was too raw. But Heilman, an independent podcaster and the creator of Rumble Strip, lives by the credo, “good conversation takes its time.” So she patiently waited and continued talking with Rooney's mother. The story that evolved was not about suicide. It was about how the family and the Hardwick community grieved and healed together. The podcast that she crafted is called “Finn and the Bell.” It is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of love and loss.Last week, Heilman won a Peabody Award for the podcast, the highest award in broadcast journalism. “A Peabody is like an Oscar wrapped in an Emmy inside a Pulitzer,” said Stephen Colbert, a multiple Peabody Award winner.Heilman's award is notable because she is an independent producer who, as she likes to say, makes podcasts in her closet. Rumble Strip, which she founded in 2013, is a one-woman operation. That's not the typical profile of her fellow Peabody winners this year, who include longtime host of NPR's Fresh Air Terry Gross, former CBS anchor Dan Rather, and other well-known media figures and institutions.Heilman has a history of punching above her weight. Rumble Strip was named the No. 1 podcast of 2020 by The Atlantic, ahead of podcasts produced by the Washington Post and the New Yorker, to name a few.Heilman is a self-taught podcaster. She was born in Vermont but left to study musical theater at the University of Michigan. She then landed an entry-level job at PBS' MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and continued to work as a freelance television producer around New York. That wasn't paying the bills, so she moved back to Vermont and took a job as a private investigator. She began producing her distinctive Rumble Strip podcasts on the side, relying on listener donations to support it. Rumble Strip podcasts now air on Vermont Public Radio and at rumblestripvermont.com.The Peabody Awards praised Heilman's work on "Finn and the Bell" as “subtle, thoughtful, and gorgeous.” “Heilman's important work serves as a reminder of what we stand to lose with the ongoing crisis in local news,” the Peabody Award announcement stated. “Local media institutions aren't just responsible for holding the powerful accountable and shedding light on injustice; they're also there to simply document life around them, to act as the institutional memory for the people they serve. They reflect communities back to themselves, forging the shared bond felt with each other through joys as much as tragedies.”Heilman continually looks for ways to build community. Alongside her podcasting, her newest project is to help create a “mobile cultural center” in Hardwick called The Civic Standard.Heilman wants her work to dignify the lives of ordinary people. “My hope is that … people I've talked to have felt seen,” she said.“It makes me very happy to introduce Vermonters to each other who might never meet, where you can see yourself in that person,” Heilman said on The Vermont Conversation. “If I achieve that, I feel I've done something perhaps useful.”

A new analysis gives us a better understanding of the Milky Way galaxy's dramatic early years. Astronomer Hans-Walter Rix joins us. And, many older residents in Vermont are relying on the kindness of volunteer drivers to help them get around. Vermont Public Radio's Nina Keck reports on how volunteers are helping those in need during the pandemic.

Vermont Public Radio reporter Angela Evancie says with the decline in trust of the media, the best way to build back that trust is with listener engagement and podcasts like the one she produces: Brave Little State.

As we prepare to launch our second season at iHeartRadio, we're revisiting some of Alec's favorite episodes from the archives. In this episode, Alec speaks with ice cream magnates Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's fame. In the late 70s, Cohen was a rootless pottery teacher, laid off when his school closed down. Greenfield was a diligent pre-med, realizing he was never going to get into med school. They'd formed a deep friendship years earlier, as the two chubby kids in their middle-school gym class. Their joint reaction to their separate crises was to open a small ice cream shop in Burlington, Vermont. That decision would change the face of the industry and give America a model for a new set of corporate values. At the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington -- just a couple miles from the site where Cohen and Greenfield set up shop in 1978 -- Alec talks to Ben and Jerry in front of a crowd that idolizes their hometown heroes, and the energy is infectious. From their Long Island childhood to the tensions surrounding Ben & Jerry's acquisition by Dutch conglomerate Unilever in 2000, the conversation is open, honest, and brimming with the deep bond these two men continue to feel, 40 years after they first put their names together on a sign in Vermont. Thanks to Vermont Public Radio for making it possible. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Here's a stunning and sobering statistic: In 2021, there were 249 school shootings in the U.S. That's more than twice the highest total in any previous year going back to the first tracking of school shootings in 1970. All of these incidents make headlines. But what about shootings that never happen, that only reach the point of a serious threat? A team from Vermont Public Radio dug deep into one such episode that reverberated throughout the state. My guests today are Nina Keck and Liam Elder-Connors, the hosts and reporters of the podcast “Jolted.”

Betsy Kaplan has been producing episodes of The Colin McEnroe Show for a decade. Today is her last day. (Ostensibly, anyway. She's producing our show next Monday, which isn't really how last days are supposed to work. But it's very much how Betsy Kaplan works.) The Nose is crestfallen. And: In the Heights is the big (and/or small) screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's multiple Tony Award-winning musical. It is directed by Jon M. Chu and stars Anthony Ramos. It debuted in theaters and on HBOMax on Thursday. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Those Descriptions on the Inside of Book Covers Are Full of ItThey've become meaningless mush -- but they don't have to be. Bogus Social Media Outrage Is Making Authors Change Lines in Their Books NowThe silly idea that a fictional character's statements reflect an author's actual beliefs is spreading. 'Raiders of the Lost Ark': Why the "Indy Doesn't Matter" Criticism Needs to Be Put in the GroundHere's what an often-cited "plot hole" completely misunderstands about storytelling. Actress Karen Allen addresses her character's underage relationship with Indiana Jones: 'I don't think of him as a pedophile' Grown-ups, it's okay to love pop culture for kids. Stop being embarrassed about it. Chris Harrison Is Officially Out As Host Of The "Bachelor" FranchiseDeadline reported that Harrison, who hosted the franchise for nearly two decades, will receive an eight-figure payout. Dove Cameron Just Got So Real About Coming Out, And We Need To Talk About ItWe stan a bi queen! GUESTS: Carmen Baskauf - Produces Where We Live on Connecticut Public Radio Lydia Brown - Managing producer of Vermont Public Radio's Vermont Edition John Dankosky - Host The CT Mirror's Steady Habits podcast, and he is news and special projects editor for Science Friday Robyn Doyon-Aitken - Senior producer for Seasoned on Connecticut Public Taneisha Duggan - Artistic producer at TheaterWorks Jacques Lamarre - A playwright, and director of client services at Buzz Engine Jonathan McNicol - Hasn't quit his job producing The Colin McEnroe Show Ali Oshinskie - A corps member with Report for America covering the Naugatuck River Valley for Connecticut Public Patrick Skahill - A reporter at Connecticut Public Radio, and he was the founding producer of The Colin McEnroe Show Chion Wolf - Hosts Audacious with Chion Wolf on Connecticut Public Radio Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jessica Lahey is a teacher, writer, and mom. Over twenty years, she's taught every grade from sixth to twelfth in both public and private schools. She writes about education, parenting, and child welfare for The Atlantic, Vermont Public Radio, The Washington Post and the New York Times and is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. She is a member of the Amazon Studios Thought Leader Board and wrote the educational curriculum for Amazon Kids' The Stinky and Dirty Show. Jessica earned a B.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts and a J.D. with a concentration in juvenile and education law from the University of North Carolina School of Law. She lives in Vermont with her husband and two sons. Her second book, The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence, will be released in April 2021. Key Takeaways: 00:25 Her favorite age group of learners to teach and why 07:24 How learning opportunities get lost when parents rescue their children 00:09 The effect of helicopter parenting on motivation and learning 11:01 The red flags about our parenting and teaching that we might need to take a look at 12:50 The difference between directive and autonomy-supportive teaching 17:52 Getting support in non-directive and free-range parenting styles 31:35 What parents should look for in a school 36:00 Her take on self-directed education 42:12 Screentimes and how students are learning differently during COVID 53:26 Building intrinsic motivation Quotes: “Kids who have had what's called autonomy-supportive parenting, teaching, coaching tend to have a little more comfort with frustration, tend to be the kind of kids who can take a breath, figure it out and push through without having to sort of go to someone else for the answer.” “What is great for learning is frequent formative assessments. It helps the kid exercise a little bit of metacognition, because they're on a constant basis having to reevaluate what they thought they knew and what they didn't know.” “The reason that so many colleges and universities are switching, moving away from lecture-based teaching and towards small group teaching is that we know it works better.” “There's all sorts of emotional engagement that has to happen. It's not just about interpersonal relationships, but engagement and relevance and all that stuff. That's where the secret sauce of teaching is.” “Being more controlling of kids has the opposite effect. It undermines their motivation to want to do the things that we're trying to get them to do. Giving control to kids will help them feel less out of control.” Social Links: Download Jessica's Bibliography: Click Here Jessica Lahey Website - https://www.jessicalahey.com/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-lahey-b815a366/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/jesslahey Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/teacherlahey

Reducing automobile dependence in America's suburbs, small towns, and rural places is a daunting task. But a tiny non-profit organization in Brattleboro, Vermont is offering a glimpse of how it might be done. Launched in 2010 by bike advocacy legend and psychotherapist Dave Cohen, VBike Solutions is fomenting an electric-assist bicycle revolution in the Green Mountain State. Forging partnerships with state government, electric utilities, financial institutions and local bike shops, VBike is making e-bikes more accessible, affordable and just plain normal. Dave calls it “car reduction therapy for Vermonters." And as War on Cars co-host Aaron Naparstek discovered while playing softball in Brattleboro this summer, it seems like it's working. Plus: Vermont's state bird makes a cameo! This episode was sponsored by our friends at Cleverhood. For 20% off of stylish, functional rain gear designed specifically for bicycle commuters, enter coupon code: WARONCARS when you check out.  Support The War on Cars on Patreon. Rate and review the podcast on iTunes. Buy a War on Cars t-shirt at Cotton Bureau. Check out The War on Cars library at Bookshop.org. SHOW NOTES:  Learn more about Dave Cohen and his organization VBike Solutions: Car reduction therapy for Vermonters.  Brattleboro-Based VBike Is 'Rebooting The Bike' With Electric Assistance via Vermont Public Radio.  Dig in to the State of Vermont's Renewable Energy Standard.  More on Green Mountain Power's electric bike rebate program.  This episode was produced by Aaron Naparstek. Editing, sound design and additional production by Ali Lemer. Our music is by Nathaniel Goodyear. Our logo is by Dani Finkel of Crucial D Design. Find us on Twitter: @TheWarOnCars, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek, Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1.  Questions, comments or suggestions? Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com TheWarOnCars.org

Jessica Lahey is an educator, writer and speaker. She writes "The Parent-Teacher Conference" advice column for The New York Times, is a contributing writer to The Atlantic is a commentator for Vermont Public Radio and wrote the book, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. Jessica currently teaches high school English and writing, and lives in New Hampshire with her husband and two sons.

Evolutionary Psychology and Sex In this episode, Rebecca tells us about Evolutionary Psychology, examining our roles and interactions through a biological and historical lens. Listen in as she compares our human proclivities to our great ape relatives. Animal Roles – Not an Excuse Our rules and culture help us to maintain our civility, but males and females still have biological roles. Hear Rebecca talk about the basic ideas of a male's desire to spread his seed and a female's inclination to be choosy and selective. Evolution of Lust and Romance While nature and nurture are the major contributing factors to our biology and we share some main characteristics with great apes, there are still major differences between humans and other great apes. Enjoy the show as Rebecca presents a unique series of examples comparing and contrasting sexual differences between great apes and humans. What happened to Estrus? Listen to Rebecca talk about ideas relating to Desmond Morris, famed author of The Naked Ape. Hear some of the modern and historical adaptations that humans have developed as open signs of Estrus are not as readily visible as they are in our great ape relatives. Great Apes and Humans Rebecca presents a viewpoint on Modern Civilization and the inclination towards war and aggressive tendencies. We enjoy some interesting commentary discussing the variations of sexual proclivities in the great ape world and the fascinating habits of one particular species, the Bonobo. How do these perspectives help humans? Tune in to hear Rebecca offer a personal anecdote. We learn the importance of the nose in choosing a mate and how this can help us better understand our similarities to the great apes, and more importantly develop a better understanding between partners. “Understanding our evolutionary past helps us seem, yes, more animalistic, but more human.” Conflict in Power Listen as Rebecca helps to develop further, the understanding of the inequality of power between men and women and the unfortunate consequences. On the Romantic Side What is the importance of a kiss? How does a kiss play a part in romantic behaviors? Join in to hear about the importance of kissing and other romantic behaviors. Is there romance in suicide or jumping out of trees? Find out as Rebecca presents this issue and others within historical and cultural contexts. Listen as Rebecca clarifies the purpose of the texts of the Atharvaveda, the Knowledge Storehouse of Procedures for Everyday Life, and the Kamasutra. We enjoy some lighthearted banter as the discussion continues, comparing these ancient texts with a modern take on kissing tips from Bustle.com. The Importance of Size It's not what you think, as Rebecca clarifies some of her own perspectives along with research that demonstrates women's preferences for something bigger, but it's not about the genitals. Tune in and find out. About Rebecca Coffey Rebecca Coffey is an award-winning science journalist and television documentarian. Over the course of her long career, she has contributed regularly to Scientific American and Discover magazines and to major market newspapers. She is a commentator for Vermont Public Radio and a columnist for PsychologyToday.com. Coffey is also a novelist and a humorist. Links and How to contact Rebecca Coffey Other Books by the Author: Anna Freud's Story (She Writes Press, 2014). A novel. Nietzsche's Angel Food Cake: And Other Recipes for the Intellectually Famished (Beck and Branch, 2013). Humor. Unspeakable Truths and Happy Endings: Human Cruelty and the New Trauma Therapy (Sidran Press, 1998). Nonfiction. More information: https://RebeccaCoffey.com and https://ScienceandLust.com. More info on the Better Sex Podcast: Web - https://www.bettersexpodcast.com/ Sex Health Quiz - http://sexhealthquiz.com/ If you're enjoying the podcast and want to be a part of making sure it continues in the future, consider being a patron. With a small monthly pledge, you can support the costs of putting this show together. For as little as $2 per month, you can get advance access to each episode. For just a bit more, you will receive an advance copy of a chapter of my new book. And for $10 per month, you get all that plus an invitation to an online Q&A chat with me once a quarter. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/bettersexpodcast Better Sex with Jessa Zimmerman https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/better-sex/More info and resources: How Big a Problem is Your Sex Life? Quiz – https://www.sexlifequiz.com The Course – https://www.intimacywithease.com The Book – https://www.sexwithoutstress.com Podcast Website – https://www.intimacywithease.com Access the Free webinar: How to make sex easy and fun for both of you: https://intimacywithease.com/masterclass Secret Podcast for the Higher Desire Partner: https://www.intimacywithease.com/hdppodcast Secret Podcast for the Lower Desire Partner: https://www.intimacywithease.com/ldppodcast

I chat with science writer Rebecca Coffey about her new book, Science and Lust. You can buy book here: www.scienceandlust.com SCIENCE AND LUST Headlines suggest humans have become a mindlessly lust-driven race. Hmmmm. Have we always been that way? And, if so, can intelligence and culture ever save us? To answer such questions, SCIENCE AND LUST, a new, “entertaining and envelope-pushing popular science”* book, takes the lens of evolutionary psychology to the #MeToo movement and a host of other current mating-and-madness issues. In twelve fun and fact-packed essays by science journalist and humorist Rebecca Coffey (Scientific American, Discover, and Psychology Today magazines as well as Vermont Public Radio). The most current essay, “The Human Ape” examines why even “good guys” sometimes act like apes. -Music- Jason Mraz, "I'm Yours" --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the-dope-science-show/message

A Guatemalan family living in Massachusetts faces a painful separation. Organic dairy farmers feel the squeeze of low prices and production quotas. And we talk to two communities on opposite sides of the political spectrum who are opting for dialogue over division. Plus, we hear the true story behind the legend of a notorious Rhode Island shipwreck; and learn how artists make a living in New England and beyond. WBUR's Shannon Dooling fills in for John Dankosky this week. Isidro Macario waits at security as his travel documents are processed by ICE officers before boarding his flight. (Jesse Costa/WBUR) “They're Taking Them One-By-One” Isidro Macario, right, hugs his younger brother Erwin goodbye before being escorted by ICE officers to the boarding gate at Logan Airport. (Jesse Costa/WBUR) Saying goodbye at Boston's Logan Airport is a familiar, and painful scene for the four Macario brothers. Two years ago they said goodbye to their father when he was deported back to his native Guatemala after losing an asylum case. This week, the oldest brother, Isidro, faced the same fate. Accompanied by federal immigration officers through airport security, Isidro was bound for deportation back to Guatemala, where he was born. Shannon Dooling met with the family in Lynn, Massachusetts just a few days before Isidro was deported. Too Much Milk Randolph Center, Vt. farmer David Silloway offers free milk samples at the annual Farm Show. An oversupply of organic milk has stalled Silloway’s plans to earn a higher price for his product. (John Dillon/VPR) Organic dairy farmers are getting paid less because of an oversupply of their milk.The overabundance was enough to keep one major organic buyer from signing up with new farmers. For years, organic farming was a bright spot in the regional dairy economy. But as Vermont Public Radio’s John Dillon reports, organic milk sales are falling down, and so are the wages that farmers are paid. Reaching Out The election of President Donald Trump in 2016 left much of the country divided along strict partisan lines. But residents in Leverett, Massachusetts, a small, liberal town just north of Amherst, wanted to know more about the people who voted for Mr. Trump. To do that, they had to look outside of their own community. Paula Green, a professional conflict facilitator and co-founder of the Leverett Peace Commission led the charge. Her group reached out to conservative communities throughout the country, and they connected with one in Letcher County, Kentucky after reading an article written by a Connecticut native. Soon enough, the Leverett group was emailing back and forth with a community in the heart of coal country, many of whom were Trump voters. Last October, community members from Letcher County visited Leverett for a three-day workshop, facilitated by Green. In April, the Massachusetts residents will visit Kentucky. They call the project “Hands Across the Hills.” We got a group of women together on the phone– Paula Green and Danielle Barshak from Leverett, and Gwen Johnson and Nell Fields of Letcher County– to talk about finding common ground, gaining an understanding of divergent positions, and forging friendships. Ghost Ship In 1738, a British merchant ship carrying immigrants from southwest Germany was grounded in a post-Christmas blizzard on the tip of Block Island. The storm and on-board sickness wiped out 200 passengers and crew members leaving, only 100 alive. The incident grew to a local legend as tales of murder, mutiny, and theft began swirling. Over centuries, islanders have reported seeing an apparition of a flaming ship off the coast of Block Island. Writer Jill Farinelli uncovers the true story of that shipwreck and its passengers in the new book The Palatine Wreck: The Legend of the New England Ghost Ship. The Business of Culture New England is often seen as a destination for history and natural beauty, but not necessarily as a hub for the arts. But New Englanders are known for being hard-working, thrifty, and ingenious. And consultant-turned-podcaster Lucas Spivey says those qualities are just as important for artists as a creative spark. Spivey travels the country interviewing artists about how they make a living from their art. He does that inside the “Mobile Incubator” – a retrofitted 1957 Shasta Trailer. Then he publishes those interviews on his podcast, Culture Hustlers. Mobile Incubator for Arts & Culture (LONG) from Mobile Incubator on Vimeo. Spivey spent part of last summer and fall as the public-artist-in-residence at the Boston Center for the Arts, where he interviewed local creators of different stripes. Now he's back at the BCA with a gallery show featuring works by artists from around the country. NEXT producer Andrea Muraskin met up with Spivey for a tour of the exhibition and for an insight into the hustle of creating culture in New England. Got a question about the business of the arts? Leave a voicemail for Lucas Spivey on the Culture Hustlers Hotline at 978- 712-8858. You just might get the answer in the form of a podcast. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Guest Host this Week: Shannon Dooling Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: John Dillon, Shannon Dooling and Andrea Muraskin Special thanks this week to Ben Fink Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, “Not for Nothing” by Otis McDonald, “Down the Line” by Romare Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send critique, suggestions, praise, questions, story ideas, and stories about your hustle to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Bedford, Massachusetts is known for its profitable fishing port. It even draws visitors by celebrating Moby Dick, a novel inspired by whalers there. But facing a crackdown on fishing by regulators, the city is starting to look at another source of revenue – offshore wind. We take a look inside the hidden, often lucrative world of Vermont sheriffs, and mourn (or celebrate??) the end of L.L. Bean's lifetime return policy. Plus: responding to racism on campus through art, and Palestinian storytellers in Boston. A man looks at a harpoon display at the New Bedford Whaling Museum (John Bender/RIPR) Keeping Tabs on the Sheriff When Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a speech to the National Sheriffs Association said “The office of sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement,” he prompted many shocked observers to wonder where that leaves people of color within that heritage. It's also thrown a pretty harsh spotlight on the job of sheriff. But do you even know who your sheriff is? In 2006, an anonymous whistleblower tipped the Vermont state auditor off to financial misdeeds in the Windham County Sheriff’s Department, which was led by Sheila Prue. If you live in Connecticut, that’s a trick question! County government is nonexistent in the Nutmeg State — that’s why there are no sheriffs — but it’s not very strong in other New England states either. While Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts have elected sheriffs, their elections don’t get much attention. That lead a listener to the Vermont Public Radio podcast Brave Little State to ask: if voters aren't holding these elected officials accountable, then who is? VPR investigative reporter Emily Corwin dug in and joins us to share some surprising tales of sheriffs going bad — and virtually getting away with it. So, did that dog bed you purchased from LL Bean five years ago get chewed by its occupant? Up until last week, you could just take it back and get a replacement for no charge. But the iconic Maine company is changing its famous unconditional return policy — one that has been a part of the brand since it started more than a century ago. The change comes as a response to the growing number of customers who have been taking advantage of the policy. Maine Public Radio’s Patty Wight reports. “The Last Arrow,” by Thomas Moran, is one of the works slated for sale by the Berkshire Museum. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s And there are plenty of complaints about a deal the Massachusetts attorney general struck with Berkshire Museum. The deal allows, with some conditions, the museum to sell up to 40 works of art — including two Norman Rockwell paintings — to fund renovations and boost its endowment. A group of the museum’s members said it will press forward in a lawsuit attempting to block the sale. New England Public Radio’s Adam Frenier has more. A Maritime Past and Future in New Bedford Boats docked at the Port of New Bedford. (Lynn Arditi/RIPR) New Bedford, Massachusetts was on the front page of the New York Times this week. The headline: “A Famed Fishing Port Shudders as Its Codfather Goes to Jail.” Back in October, fishing magnate Carlos Rafael, also known as “the Codfather,” was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for mislabeling his catch and money-laundering. But with Rafael behind bars, the men who worked for him are barred from catching groundfish with his boats. Some of Rafael's boats and permits have even been seized by regulators. And as the Times reports, the ripple effects can be felt across the usually bustling port of New Bedford, which has gone eerily quiet. Visitors listen to Moby Dick read aloud, during the annual Moby Dick Marathon at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. (John Bender/RIPR) Yet while the fishing sector sits in limbo, another industry is just gearing up off Massachusetts' South Shore — offshore wind. Right now, the Commonwealth is developing what could be the nation's first large-scale offshore wind project, and New Bedford wants to be a big part of it. Rhode Island Public Radio's environmental reporter Avory Brookins takes a look at that city's bet on offshore wind energy. In the mid 19th Century, New Bedford was one of the world’s whaling capitals. The whaling industry is long gone, but New Bedford is drawing in fans of the world most famous leviathan. RIPR’s John Bender has the story. The RIPR newsroom has been exploring New Bedford for their series “One Square Mile,” and there’s lot’s more at ripr.org. RIPR and the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth are holding a public forum on Wednesday, February 21 called “After the Codfather: The Future of New Bedford’s Fishing Industry.” Admission is free, registration required. Cultural Catharsis A painting of Trayvon Martin was part of a performance piece by Imo Nse Imeh at Westfield State University. (Jill Kaufman) NEPR An art professor recently spent four days painting a six-foot-tall portrait of Trayvon Martin, while spectators came and went. The performance took place at Westfield State University, near Springfield, Massachusetts, where last semester there were numerous reports of racist messages left around campus. New England Public Radio’s Jill Kaufman reports. Nadia Abuelezam performs on stage at “Palestinians, Live!” a night of storytelling in Cambridge, Mass, on January 28. Photo by Annie Sinsabaugh When we hear about Palestinians in the news, it's usually in the context of conflicts or negotiations with Israel. With their stories being so highly politicized, the personal narratives of Palestinians don't often make it to American ears. Nadia Abuelezam, a Palestinian-American living in the Boston area, wants to change that. In 2015, she launched an event series called Palestinians, Live! featuring true stories told on stage. The stories are later released on Palestinians Podcast, which Nadia also created. Reporter Annie Sinsabaugh went to a recent Palestinians, Live! event at the Oberon Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she found not only entertainment but a community. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Emily Corwin, Patty Wight, Adam Frenier, Patrick Skahill, Avory Brookins, John Bender, Jill Kaufman and Annie Sinsabaugh Music: Todd Merrell, Ben Cosgrove, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, “Sama’i” and “Julnar” by Huda Asfour, “September Mountains” by “DrumTamTam” Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and diaspora stories to next@wnpr.org. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The world of renewable energy doesn't seem like one that would be filled with drama. But that's just what we had this week, when a New Hampshire governing body decided to deny a permit for a massive transmission project. We talk to our panel of energy reporters about what it will take to get green power to New England. Plus, Maine’s lobster population has been booming, and new research points to some reasons why. And we sit down with the man behind Take Magazine – an ambitious, but ultimately unsustainable magazine that attempted to tell a story about New England’s arts and culture. “Black Madonna.” Public artwork created by Cedric “Vise” Douglas and Julz Roth for the Beyond Walls Mural Festival in Lynn, Mass. Featured in the final issue of Take Magazine. Photo courtesy of Beyond Walls and Christopher Gaines of the Littlest Astronaut Northern Pass Wins in Mass, Loses at Home Massachusetts has been looking to increase the amount of renewable energy it gets to serve its growing population. As we've reported, there are many suitors to try and serve that need, from small-scale solar farms to big transmission projects. After a lot of lobbying dollars spent, the Commonwealth picked one big power line to cover a sizable portion of its energy needs for the next 20 years, to the surprise of many observers. A sign protesting Northern Pass stood in the parking lot Wednesday outside the building where the New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee met to discuss whether to greenlight the project. (Annie Ropeik/NHPR) That power line is known as Northern Pass – a  controversial project which would transmit Canadian hydro-electric power by cutting through nearly 200 miles, traversing New Hampshire from north to south. The drama came Thursday, when the New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee voted unanimously to deny a permit to Eversource to build Northern Pass, citing concerns that the power line would harm the state’s economy. Eversource has promised to appeal the decision in court. So what does this decision mean for Northern Pass, and for other projects that hope to bring renewable energy to the New England grid? We speak with New Hampshire Public Radio energy reporter Annie Ropeik, Vermont Public Radio’s John Dillon and Connecticut Public Radio’s Patrick Skahill. Hydro-Quebec’s Daniel-Johnson Dam seen from a helicopter. (Hannah McCarthy/NHPR) There’s another story behind this one: about the massive Canadian hydro-electric dams that would provide inexpensive, reliable power to Northern Pass and other proposed transmission lines from Quebec to New England. To hear that fascinating tale, we highly recommend the series “Powerline” from the NHPR podcast Outside/In. Or for a condensed treatment, check out Episode 72 of the NEXT podcast. Lobster Tails A female lobster bearing eggs. When Maine lobster harvesters find a lobster like this, they put a notch in its tail and throw it back. That way, other fishermen will know not to harvest a fertile female. (Gulf of Maine Research Institute) It's either boom or bust for New England's lobster industry, depending on where you're looking. The southern lobster fishery — in Long Island Sound and off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts — is in trouble. Climate Change has contributed to die-offs, and the lobster population has largely moved North. That's great news for Maine fishermen, who've seen record lobster landings this century. New research concludes that the conservation techniques pioneered in Maine have helped drive that boom. And as Maine Public Radio's Fred Bever reports, researchers say those same techniques could have slowed the collapse of the Southern New England lobster fishery. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates interstate fishing, has started an effort to better gauge the East Coast lobster population. The commission says their assessment of lobsters will be complete by  2020. The goal is to evaluate the health of the lobster population, and to improve management of the species. We called Megan Ware, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, to learn more. Reflections on “New England’s New Culture” The last three issues of Take. What are some of the first things you think when you hear the words “New England?” Lighthouses? Pilgrims? Paul Revere? Autumn leaves? Lobster? That list – filled with history and nature – helps form our perceptions of the place; even though New England is also filled with world class museums, galleries and performing arts. Michael Kusek is the publisher of Take, based in Holyoke, Mass. (Courtesy Michael Kusek) That's the perception that a magazine called Take fought against when it launched in 2015. It's tagline: “New England's New Culture.” Operating out of Holyoke, Massachusetts with a staff of ten, Take puts out beautiful print issues bimonthly. The magazine is filled with profiles of artists all over our region, and there's also a website highlighting things to do. But last week, Take published their final issue. Our guest, publisher Michael Kusek, says he learned a lot about the arts in New England – and the challenges of spreading the word. Visit our Facebook page to view a gallery of photographs from Take‘s reporting around the region. While you're there, leave a note about something going on in the arts in your corner of New England, and we'll be sure to share with our followers. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Annie Ropeik, John Dillon, Patrick Skahill and Fred Bever Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and fan art to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, some interviews and stories from the archive. We look at the data on gun deaths in Vermont, and think through ways to prevent suicides in places where gun ownership is part of life for many. Plus, Orange is the New Black actress Yael Stone reveals the thinking behind her character’s blend of Boston and Brookyln accents, and we talk with a linguist about how the way New Englanders talk is changing. Also, wicked powda, wicked cheap: a visit to a down-home mountain where skiing is affordable for the masses. Can you spot the dialect difference in this bagel shop menu? From the (now closed) Bagel Basement in Hanover, New Hampshire. Courtesy of James Stanford Under the Gun For many people in Vermont, guns are a way of life. Unlike more populous, more urban states in our region, Vermonters own guns at a higher rate, and fiercely protect their gun rights. That means looser gun laws than in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island; but also a higher per capita rate of gun deaths than in those states. Reporters at Vermont Public Radio looked into the numbers behind this reality, and found some surprising data and personal stories.  They learned that 420 people died from gunshot wounds in Vermont between 2011 and 2016. Eighty-nine percent of those deaths were suicides. Data visualization by Taylor Dobbs for Vermont Public Radio Cragin’s Gun Shop in Rutland, Vt. primarily serves hunters. Owner John Cragin said suicide is a tricky issue – but if he has any doubts about selling someone a gun, he won’t make the sale. Photo by Liam Elder-Connors for VPR Our guest Taylor Dobbs produced the reporting project “Gunshots: Vermont Gun Deaths, 2011-2016″ last summer, when he was digital reporter at Vermont Public Radio. (Dobbs is now an investigative and statehouse reporter for Seven Days.) We were also joined by Matthew Miller, M.D., a professor of health sciences and Epidemiology at Northeastern University and co-director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. VPR has made the death certificate data gathered for the project public. You can find a spreadsheet here. The Shifting New England Accent The Netflix prison drama “Orange is the New Black” features a woman with a Boston-flavored accent. Bit this character's way of talking is complicated, and so is her story. Developing that sound brought actress Yael Stone to Boston. There, she she met up with WBUR’s Sarah Rose Brenner, who has this report. A linguistic map based on 626 recent recordings collected by James Stanford and others from speakers around New England. Speakers in the red areas tend to pronounce the vowels in the words “lot” and “thought” the same way. Speakers in blue areas tend to pronounce the vowels in each word differently. Dropped Rs and long As can be heard, of course, not only in Boston, but across much of New England. Yet in a 2012 paper published in the Journal of American Speech, Dartmouth College linguist James Stanford and his colleagues made the case that a classic New England accent is receding. In a recent study, Stanford and his partners used an online crowd-sourcing tool to reach over 600 speakers around the region. This big data set allowed them to tease out subtle differences in the way people from different parts of New England talk. Their results will be published this year in American Speech. James Stanford joined us to discuss some of his team’s findings. Chaeyoon Kim, Sravana Reddy, Ezra Wyschogrod, and Jack Grieve are co-authors on the study. For a deep dive into the Vermont accent, we highly recommend the very first episode of Vermont Public Radio’s podcast Brave Little State. Are you proud of your accent? A little embarrassed? Or maybe you don't have an accent at all (or you don't think you do!) Tell us about it on Twitter or Facebook. You can also record yourself –or your loved one– on your phone’s voice recorder/ voice memo app. Send a clip to next@wnpr.org. Powder to the People A hand-painted sign hangs on the wall at the Veterans Memorial Recreation Area in Franklin, New Hampshire. Photo courtesy of NHPR. Here in New England, downhill skiing comes with a high price tag and a ritzy reputation. A lift ticket at Sugarloaf in Maine will run you $95, and at Jay Peak in Vermont, the price is $84. Even at Ski Sundown, a small mountain in Connecticut, getting on the slopes on a Saturday or Sunday costs $60. But at Veterans Memorial Ski Area in Franklin, New Hampshire, admission is just $20. Instead of a chair lift, there's a metal bar that goes behind the thighs, attached to a rope that pulls skiers up the 230-foot hill. Once upon a time, these no-frills ski areas were the rule in New England, rather than the exception. So what happened? The team at New Hampshire Public Radio’s podcast Outside/In went to Franklin to figure out how skiing “got fancy.” For more, listen to the full Outside/In episode, “Gnar Pow.” Connecticut is not known for big mountains. But if you travel to the far northwest corner, the Berkshires rise to nearly 2400 feet in the tiny town of Salisbury. It's there that you find a little piece of Nordic sporting history. For 92 years, Salisbury has been hosting “Jumpfest,” a celebration of ski jumping. During the main event, skiers in brightly colored suits fly off a snow-covered ramp, on top of a 220-foot hill. Spectators ring cowbells and drink hot toddies, but this isn't just for fun. The competition is a qualifier for the junior nationals, and most of the jumpers on the big hill are between 12 and 16. NEXT producer Andrea Muraskin paid a visit to last year’s festival and brought back this audio postcard. The 2018 Jumpfest runs February 9 through 11, and is open to the public. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Taylor Dobbs, Sarah Rose Brenner, Sam Evans-Brown, Jimmy Gutierrez, and Maureen McMurray Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and recordings of your uncle’s accent to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This was a big week in weed: we catch up on the news around New England, and hear the story of a puzzled cancer patient trying to figure out how to manage the side effects of chemo with cannabis. Also, an investigation into water contamination in Vermont wells near farms reveals a shocking shortage of oversight by the government agency in charge of agricultural pollution. In the wake of a cold snap and flood-inducing “bomb cyclone,” we parse the difference between climate and weather. Plus, we'll visit a driving school designed for New England winter, and explore the legacy of the first American woman to write a symphony. A Jersey heifer peers through a door used to push manure into a manure pit. (Emily Corwin/VPR) Even the Weather is Political Vermont Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, has said he will sign new marijuana legislation, calling it a “libertarian approach” to legalization. (Angela Evancie/VPR) There was big news this week about marijuana — both here in New England and in Washington. On Wednesday, Vermont became the first state to legalize recreational marijuana through the legislative process. Other states including Massachusetts and Maine have legalized cannabis through ballot questions. Both of those states have been slowly working on legislative fixes to their laws that will allow for retail sales and taxation. In Connecticut, where medical marijuana is legal, the Department of Consumer Protection announced this week that it will award three new licenses to dispensaries. But marijuana is still illegal under federal law. And hanging over all of this news is United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s announcement that he will rescind an Obama-era policy against enforcing the federal law criminalizing the drug. Sessions has given prosecutors in those states discretion to prosecute violators, and the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts said that he can’t promise to take a hands-off approach to legalized marijuana. New England Treatment Access, in a former branch of Brookline Bank, is seen in February 2016. (Jesse Costa/WBUR) So, where does this leave people who want to use the drug legally, either for recreation or for medicine? Kate Murphy felt frustrated by what she sees as a lack of guidance from doctors on how to use medical marijuana to mitigate the impact of side effects related to her cancer treatment. (Jesse Costa/WBUR) A 2017 study in Washington State, where cannabis is legal even without a prescription, found that a quarter of cancer patients use pot to help with physical and psychological symptoms. As WBUR’s Karen Weintraub reports, large numbers of cancer patients in Massachusetts are also turning to cannabis. Weintraub introduces us to Kate Murphy, a breast cancer patient who found relief from the nausea of chemotherapy in medical marijuana for more than four years. But her story reveals a stunning lack of medical supervision over the type and dosage of the drug that patients are using. As all of New England was gripped with record setting cold temperatures over the last few weeks, you may have been wondering: “will it ever be warm again?” But that cold snap also prompted a flood of social media posts from climate-change doubters, including the president. The reply below others like it included an image from a visualization tool called the Climate Reanalyzer, which was created at the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute. It shows much of the eastern U.S. and Canada blanketed with colder than normal temperatures, and the rest, alight with red, showing temperatures above normal. Actually I'm pretty sure Antarctica shouldn't be warmer than us soooooo pic.twitter.com/YwQeC9h4KW — Nate Heroux (@nateherouxmusic) January 2, 2018 We wanted to learn more about this tool and what it can tell us about the realities of climate. So we turned to its creator, Sean Birkel, Maine State Climatologist and Research Assistant Professor at the Climate Change Institute, University of Maine. Not Your Grandmother’s Dairy (Samantha van Gerbig/VPR) We've reported here on how nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen run off from farms into bodies of water — causing algae to bloom and fish to die from lack of oxygen. But these chemicals can also cause problems for humans when they leech into our drinking water. One such contaminant is nitrate — a nitrogen compound found in manure and fertilizer. Nitrate in drinking water can be fatal for babies who drink it and may be carcinogenic. When nitrate is found in public drinking water, federal law requires state regulators to notify residents. But in Vermont, 40 percent of residents have private drinking wells. And when farm runoff contaminates those wells with nitrate, the government body tasked with enforcement — in this case the Agency of Agriculture – says it can't notify the community. Our guest, Vermont Public Radio investigative reporter Emily Corwin, uncovered inconsistent, often undocumented state response to nitrate contamination in private wells. It’s a complex issue, and we highly recommend reading Corwin’s report. John Laggis stands beside a new manure storage pit on his dairy farm in East Hardwick, Vermont. Though Laggis’ farm is in compliance with environmental regulations, his neighbors believe manure from the dairy is the source of nitrate contamination in their well. (Emily Corwin/VPR) Much of the hard work on Vermont’s dairy farms is done by migrant farmworkers — many of them undocumented. There's been a new anxiety among those workers and the farmers who employ them, since sweeping changes to immigration policy made by President Trump a year ago. For the first time since 2010, arrests and detentions by the United States Border Patrol increased in Vermont, New Hampshire, and northeastern New York last year. VPR’s John Dillon went to a recent gathering of Mexican workers in Middlebury, to find out how life has changed in the first year of the Trump Administration. Be Safe Out There A student drives with an instructor during a one-day winter driving course at the Team O’Neil Rally School in Dalton, Nh. (Chris Jensen/NEXT) You’ve probably said it to yourself this winter: “It’s New England — why can’t anyone drive in the snow?” In Dalton, New Hampshire, racer Tim O’Neil converts his 600-acre rally driving school into a place where everyday drivers can learn to maneuver on snow and ice. Reporter Chris Jensen went for a ride. Composer Amy Beach was born in Henniker, New Hampshire in 1867. By the time she was 29 she was famous the world over for being the first American woman to write a symphony. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of her birth, the University of New Hampshire has been honoring Amy Beach with a series of special performances. New Hampshire Public Radio's Sean Hurley recently visited the school to learn more about the composer and her music. Amy Beach About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Karen Weintraub, Emily Corwin, John Dillon, Chris Jensen, Sean Hurley Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon. Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and winter driving tips to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does a state owe to people serving time in prison? And what does it owe those who should never have been locked up in the first place? We speak with a man who went to prison in Massachusetts for 32 years for a crime he didn't commit. And we travel back over 300 years to a war on New England soil where women leaders played a major role. Plus, elm trees make a comeback, and a New Hampshire bagpipe business bumps up against global trade rules. Released on bail after serving 32 years on a murder charge after doubts about his guilt surfaced, Darrell Jones speaks to the media in front of the Brockton, Mass. Superior Courthouse. Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR Behind Bars On December 21, Darrell Jones walked out of a courthouse in Brockton, Massachusetts, 32 years after being convicted for a murder he always maintained he didn't commit. Jones – who is African American – was released based on suspicions that police tampered with video evidence, and allegations of racial bias among jurors. Standing on the courthouse steps, Jones made a plea for others like him. “I stayed in prison a long time, not just for something I did not do,” He told reporters. “But it was hard to get people to hear you, so I’m trying to get everybody here to understand one point: There is somebody else back at that jail that nobody is listening to that’s probably innocent, and been trying to fight like I’ve been trying to fight, and I’m just asking all the reporters and all the people that do this, to sometimes just give them a chance.” Now imagine yourself in that situation: walking out of court, your innocence finally proven. Would you expect the state to compensate you for your time behind bars? 37 states have some sort of law that allows the wrongfully convicted to file for compensation, including every New England state except Rhode Island. The dollar amount ranges widely from state to state. For example, Vermont awards exonerees between $30,000 and $60,000 for each year in prison, while New Hampshire caps the total lifetime award at $20,000. It can be difficult to get any money at all from the state. Advocates say that's the case in Massachusetts, where a rewrite of the wrongful convictions compensation law is moving through the legislature. Victor Rosario, on Sept 8, with wife Beverly, following a hearing in which he was formerly exonerated. Photo by Debora Becker for WBUR In light of the news about Darrell Jones, we've decided to revisit our November conversation with Jenifer McKim and Victor Rosario. Jenifer McKim is a senior investigative reporter at the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, where she's been covering wrongful convictions – including the Darrell Jones case – and the legislative push.  Rosario was convicted for starting a fatal apartment fire in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1982 – but his sentence was overturned  in 2014. A 2010 report from the New England Center for Investigative Reporting pointed to his innocence.  Rosario was formally exonerated on September 8, 2017.  Ordained while in prison, he now works as an outreach pastor at the Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston, where runs a program to help former prisoners readjust to society. Further reading: “Should state change compensation law for wrongfully convicted?” – recent reporting from the NECIR and WGBH about efforts to amend the Massachusetts law governing compensation for the wrongfully convicted “Reasonable Doubts” – NECIR investigation into the case of Darrell Jones, a  Massachusetts man who has spent 32 years in prison on a questionable murder charge “Wrongful incarceration. Moral debt?” – Jenifer McKim tells the story of Kevin O’Loughlin, a man falsley convicted for child rape, who is struggling to obtain compensation from Massachusetts Roger Brown’s prison diary mentions repeated trips to pick up medications that weren’t in stock. There have been rumors and allegations coming out of Vermont’s prison system for years about inmates requesting medical care, and not getting the help they needed. But getting the full story can be challenging: the inmates involved are behind bars, or dead, and officials are bound from giving their account by privacy rules. But Roger Brown, an inmate at a prison in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, kept a diary. Brown was one of more than 200 Vermont inmates sent to state prison in Pennsylvania due to a shortage of beds in Vermont. Taylor Dobbs reported this story for Vermont Public Radio. Revisiting King Philip’s War Here on NEXT, we've shared the stories of refugees from countries like Syria and Iraq- people who escaped war to start over in a peaceful New England. But during the early years of European colonization, New England was a war zone too – where colonists fought indigenous people over land, resources, and the rights to self-government. Native homelands of the Northeast, highlighting places mentioned in Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War. Courtesy Yale University Press King Philip's War, fought from 1675 to 1678, was perhaps the most devastating of those conflicts for both sides. The Wampanoag leader Metacom, known by the the colonists as King Philip, organized attacks on 12 settlements before the colonists gained control of Southern New England. This meadow abutting the Connecticut River in Vernon, Vermont is illustrative of the fertile fields and floodplains that indigenous women used to plant crops in the 1600s. Photo courtesy Lisa Brooks. Since then, as it often happens, the colonial perspective has dominated the historical narrative. In her upcoming book Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War, historian Lisa Brooks flips the script, focusing on the stories of Native American leaders. Lisa Brooks is Associate Professor of English and American Studies at Amherst College. Our Beloved Kin is out from Yale University Press on January 9, 2018.  At the same time, Brooks will also be launching ourbelovedkin.com, a website with maps, historical documents, and images from her journeys through New England's indigenous geography. Brooks will speak about the book at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston on February 7, and at Harvard on February 14.  Acorns, Elm Trees and Bagpipes It's nearing the end of mating season for deer in our region, and deer hunting season wrapped up a few weeks ago. This time of year, a more likely encounter with a deer would be on the road, with a bad outcome for both you and the animal. New England states rank right around the national average for likelihood of a car strike, but the danger increases in rural areas during mating season. WNPR's science reporter Patrick Skahill spoke with a biologist to find out more. And he uncovered an interesting connection between roadkills and acorns. An American elm tree in 2012 at Spring Grove Cemetery in Hartford, Connecticut. Photo via Wikimedia Commons No matter where you live in New England, you probably know of an Elm Street; but if you go there, you probably won't find many surviving elm trees. In the mid 20th century  Dutch Elm disease killed off millions of the species. Towns and forests were notably changed. Decades later, new invasive pests and disease are attacking other species of trees. Watching this, ecologists have been engineering a comeback for the American elm, as New England Public Radio’s Jill Kaufman reports. Richard Spaulding runs Gibson Bagpipes in Nashua, Nh. Photo by Todd Bookman for NHPR Newly made bagpipe parts await assembly inside Gibson’s Nashua factory. Photo by Todd Bookman for NHPR Think bagpipes, and you likely think Scotland. But one of the world's largest bagpipe manufacturers happens to call Nashua, New Hampshire home. That company, however, recently faced an unexpected wrinkle in its international supply chain. New Hampshire Public Radio’s Todd Bookman reports. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Taylor Dobbs, Patrick Skahill, Jill Kaufman, Todd Bookman, Bruce Gellerman Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, bagpipe music by Eric Bean Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and bagpipe music recommendations to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When a local sheriff in northern Vermont pulled over two Mexican farmworkers last August for a traffic violation, he immediately called for the U.S. Border Patrol. Immigrant rights advocates say more detentions and deportations are likely under a new Vermont policy that governs cooperation between state and federal law enforcement. And north of the border, a fascinating story of land disputes, Quebecois pride, and massive dams that are set to supply more power to the New England grid. Plus, a tale of survival on the high seas. NHPR reporter Sam Evans-Brown (left) tours the Daniel-Johnson Dam on the Manicouagan River in Central Quebec. The mile-long dam is one of 62 owned by the provincial utility Hydro-Quebec. New England currently gets about 10 percent of its electricity from Hydro-Quebec dams. Utilities in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine are hoping to build transmission projects to bring down more of this power to the New England grid. Photo by Hannah McCarthy for NHPR Stops Last August and September, the U.S. Border Patrol set up checkpoints on the southbound lanes of I-93 near Woodstock, NH. Photo courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection The United States Border Patrol’s jurisdiction extends 100 miles from any border, and we've been covering interactions between local police, federal border officials, and immigrant communities in the area south of the border between Quebec and New England. During multi-day checkpoints in August, and then again in September, Border Patrol agents, in collaboration with local and State Police, stopped vehicles on I-93 near Woodstock, New Hampshire, about 75 miles as the crow flies from the Canadian border. Along with the detention of more than two-dozen undocumented immigrants, Border Patrol and local law enforcement also made arrests for drug charges. But this week, the ACLU of New Hampshire is challenging those checkpoints, saying the stops violated the state's constitution. New Hampshire Public Radio’s Todd Bookman reports. When a sheriff in northern Vermont  pulled over two Mexican farmworkers last August for a traffic violation, he immediately called for Border Patrol. Now, the two men will soon be deported. And immigrant rights advocates say more detentions and deportations are likely under a new Vermont policy that governs cooperation between state and federal law enforcement. Fueling the debate is body cam video of the August traffic stop, as Vermont Public Radio’s John Dillon reports. Catherine Violet Hubbard in a school picture, left, and a welcome tent on the grounds of the future animal sanctuary being built in her honor in Newtown, Conn. Courtesy of Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary This week marks five years since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Catherine Violet Hubbard was one of 20 children killed, along with six educators. Her family has spent the past three years planning an animal sanctuary in her memory. WSHU's Davis Dunavin visited the land in Newtown that will serve as the grounds for the sanctuary. The Power Up North Hydro-Quebec’s Daniel-Johnson Dam and Manicoucagan Reservoir seen from a helicopter. Photo by Hannah McCarthy for NHPR Imagine a massive dam cutting a line a mile long across a pristine pine forest, 900 miles north of the Canadian border. Then picture yourself coming home and switching the lights on after a long winter day. A map provided by Hydro-Quebec shows existing dams, transmission lines, and projects under construction. These two things are, increasingly, connected. First, there's a vast network of hydroelectric dams, all part of Hydro-Quebec, the electric company owned by the province. Hydro-Quebec has powered Quebec for decades, and it has plenty of electricity left over to sell outside the province. The big utility already supplies about ten percent of the power used by the New England grid. Electric companies in northern New England are competing to build new transmission projects — which would result in our region getting about 17 percent of its power from Quebec’s dams. The most well known of these proposals is the Northern Pass, a hotly debated transmission line that would cut north to south across much of New Hampshire. A famous 1962 campaign poster of the Quebec Liberal Party reads “NOW OR NEVER!” “MASTERS IN OUR OWN HOME.” The results of the election enabled the government to nationalize the province’s hydroelectric dams. Part of what's up for debate is whether hydroelectric power can be considered a renewable resource. While damming rivers impacts local ecosystems, carbon emissions from these dams are quite low — all together, they actually give off less carbon than solar power. And in a region where energy costs are high, Canadian hydro is appealingly inexpensive. But north of the border, hydroelectric power tells another story. It's a story of a struggle over economic power, ancestral lands, and cultural pride that cuts deep in Quebec — and it's totally fascinating. Reporters Sam Evans-Brown and Hannah McCarthy traveled up north to bring that story back. They co-host Powerline, a new series all about Hydro-Quebec from the podcast Outside/In. (There’s a trove of visuals for the series on the Outside/In website – it’s not to be missed!) The One That Came Back Howard Blackburn. Courtesy Cape Ann Museum Before you could get farmed salmon at every grocery store in America, all of our fish had to be caught in the wild. For thousands of men drawn to Gloucester, Massachusetts to work in the fishing industry, that meant long and dangerous journeys into the North Atlantic. It's still a very dangerous job, but imagine what it was like more than 100 years ago. Every year, hundreds of fishermen were lost at sea. Howard Blackburn should have been one of those statistics. But instead, he became a hero. Independent producer Matt Frassica has Blackburn's story. It comes to us from The Briny, a new podcast about our relationship with the sea. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Todd Bookman, John Dillon, Davis Dunavin, Sam Evans-Brown, Hannah McCarthy, and Matt Frassica Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, “Freezing” by David Szesztay, “Celadon” by Podington Bear, “In My Head” by Podington Bear, “Sad Cyclops” by Podington Bear, “Skeptic” by Podington Bear Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and holiday wishes to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we get an update the flow of migrants leaving the US to go to Quebec, and meet Puerto Ricans deciding whether to stay on the island or come back to New England. We’ll talk about housing for a rapidly aging population in Vermont, and learn how a the settlement dollars from a Volkswagen lawsuit could help spur electric vehicle use in Maine. Finally, we get a taste of what’s new about New England food. Flight Fearing the Trump administration’s stricter immigration policies, thousands have been fleeing the United States for Canada. One policy change is the end of a temporary residency program for 59,000 Haitians allowed to legally enter the United States following an earthquake in 2010. The Haitians will have to leave the country by July 2019, or face deportation. That program has also ended for two thousand Nicaraguans. It's unclear if other groups including 300,000 Salvadorans will be allowed to remain. A man from Congo speaks with Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers after illegally entering Canada. The man from Congo was then frisked before being processed in the white trailer. Photo by Lorne Matalon for VPR The net result is a continued flow of people crossing the border into Canada by foot. They take advantage of a Canadian law that says those who cross by foot won’t be turned back until their case is heard. Reporter Lorne Matalon takes us back to the site of earlier reporting: the illegal boarder crossing at Roxham Road north of Champlain, New York. Puerto Ricans have been facing similar questions about whether to relocate following the devastation of Hurricane Maria. Of course, Puerto Ricans who choose to leave the island to come to New England aren't immigrants, they're US citizens. WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports on the lack of power and water across much of the island is causing a growing number of people to make hard choices. A Few Years Down the Road… Jan Belville decided to sell her large house in Brandon, Vt. to move into a senior affordable apartment. Bellville was on a a waiting list for almost five years. Photo by Howard Weiss-Tisman for VPR In the 18 years after World War II, birth rates across America hit unprecedented levels. Demographers named that sizable generation the Baby Boom. Today’s baby boomers make up about 25 percent of the United States population. As boomers head into retirement they’re rewriting the expectations we have about where and how senior citizens want to live. As we've reported previously, New England's population is older than most of the country. Given that Vermont is expected to have the oldest population in the nation by 2030, many baby boomers there are facing tough decisions about housing. Vermont Public Radio’s Howard Weiss-Tisman reports. For more, check out “Aging Well,” a special VPR series exploring how the Baby Boom generation is viewing retirement and changing the future makeup of Vermont. ReVision Energy’s Barry Woods charges up his company car in Brunswick, Maine. Photo by Fred Bever for Maine Public Electric vehicles make up a fraction of the cars sold in New England. But new state policies – and a cash infusion from the settlement of Volkswagen’s pollution scandal – could speed the build-out of electric vehicle charging stations, and jump-start the region’s EV market. Maine Public Radio's Fred Bever reports. The Best Food in New England “Local” has become the most important word in the world of New England food. “Local” grass-fed beef, locally-made sheep's milk cheese, or restaurants that proudly list the names of local farmers that grow their food are all a growing part of this movement. Amy Traverso is senior food editor for Yankee Magazine and NewEngland.com, and she's been watching these trends. She's an expert in New England food, and an advocate for it. She says chefs and food producers are challenging the notion that New England's traditional foods are stodgy and boring. Think dishes like lobster on black rice with brown butter aioli, or baked beans with pomegranate molasses. Traverso is also in charge of giving out Yankee Magazine's annual Editor's Choice Food Awards – now five years in the running. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Lorne Matalon, Jeff Cohen, Patrick Skahill, Howard Weiss-Tisman, Fred Bever Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and artisanal chocolate bars to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does a state owe to people serving time in prison? And what does it owe those who should never have been locked up in the first place? We speak with a man who went to prison in Massachusetts for 32 years for a crime he didn't commit. And we travel back over 300 years to a war on New England soil where women leaders played a major role. Plus, elm trees make a comeback, and a New Hampshire bagpipe business bumps up against global trade rules. Victor Rosario, right, with wife Beverly on Sept. 8, following a hearing in which he was formerly exonerated. Rosario spend 32 years in a Massachusetts prison after being convicted for homicide and arson. Photo by Deborah Becker for WBUR. Behind Bars Imagine that you've been convicted and locked up for a crime you didn't commit. After years appealing your case, you finally prove your innocence and are set free. Would you expect the government to compensate you for that time behind bars? 37 states have laws that allow the wrongfully convicted to file for compensation, including every New England state except Rhode Island. The amount of that compensation ranges widely from state to state. For example, Vermont awards exonerees between $30,000 and $60,000 for each year in prison, while New Hampshire caps the total lifetime award at $20,000. And it can be difficult to get any money at all from the state. Advocates say that's the case in Massachusetts, where they're pushing for a rewrite of the state's wrongful conviction compensation law. Our guest Jenifer McKim is a senior investigative reporter at the New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR), where she's been covering wrongful convictions and the legislative push. We're also joined by Victor Rosario, an outreach pastor at the Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston, where runs a program to help former prisoners readjust to society. Rosario was convicted for starting a fatal apartment fire in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1982 – but his sentence was overturned  in 2014. A 2010 report from the New England Center for Investigative Reporting pointed to his innocence.  Rosario was formally exonerated on September 8, 2017.  Further reading: “Should state change compensation law for wrongfully convicted?” – recent reporting from the NECIR and WGBH about efforts to amend the Massachusetts law governing compensation for the wrongfully convicted “Reasonable Doubts” – NECIR investigation into the case of Darrell Jones, a  Massachusetts man who has spent 32 years in prison on a questionable murder charge “Wrongful incarceration. Moral debt?” – Jenifer McKim tells the story of Kevin O’Loughlin, a man falsley convicted for child rape, who is struggling to obtain compensation from Massachusetts Roger Brown’s prison diary mentions repeated trips to pick up medications that weren’t in stock. There have been rumors and allegations coming out of Vermont’s prison system for years about inmates requesting medical care, and not getting the help they needed. But getting the full story can be challenging: the inmates involved are behind bars, or dead, and officials are bound from giving their account by privacy rules. But Roger Brown, an inmate at a prison in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, kept a diary. Brown was one of more than 200 Vermont inmates sent to state prison in Pennsylvania due to a shortage of beds in Vermont. Taylor Dobbs reported this story for Vermont Public Radio. Revisiting King Philip’s War Here on NEXT, we've shared the stories of refugees from countries like Syria and Iraq- people who escaped war to start over in a peaceful New England. But during the early years of European colonization, New England was a war zone too – where colonists fought indigenous people over land, resources, and the rights to self-government. Native homelands of the Northeast, highlighting places mentioned in Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War. Courtesy Yale University Press King Philip's War, fought from 1675 to 1678, was perhaps the most devastating of those conflicts for both sides. The Wampanoag leader Metacom, known by the the colonists as King Philip, organized attacks on 12 settlements before the colonists gained control of Southern New England. Native and colonial settlements it what is now Rhode Island and southeast Massachusetts at the time of King Philip’s War. Courtesy Yale University Press Since then, as it often happens, the colonial perspective has dominated the historical narrative. In her upcoming book Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War, historian Lisa Brooks flips the script, focusing on the stories of Native American leaders. Lisa Brooks is Associate Professor of English and American Studies at Amherst College. Our Beloved Kin is out from Yale University Press on January 9, 2018.  At the same time, Brooks will also be launching ourbelovedkin.com, a website with maps, historical documents, and images from her journeys through New England's indigenous geography. Acorns, Elm Trees and Bagpipes It's peak mating time for deer in our region. And, depending on the state, it's also deer hunting season. If you're not a hunter this time of year, a more likely encounter with a deer would be on the road, with a bad outcome for both you and the animal. New England states rank right around the national average for likelihood of a car strike, but the danger increases in rural areas during mating season. WNPR's science reporter Patrick Skahill spoke with a biologist to find out more. And he uncovered an interesting connection… between roadkills and acorns. In the mid 20th century  Dutch Elm disease killed off millions of the species. Towns and forests were notably changed. Decades later, new invasive pests and disease are attacking other species of trees. Watching this, ecologists have been engineering a comeback for the American elm, as New England Public Radio’s Jill Kaufman reports. Richard Spaulding runs Gibson Bagpipes in Nashua, Nh. Photo by Todd Bookman for NHPR Newly made bagpipe parts await assembly inside Gibson’s Nashua factory. Photo by Todd Bookman for NHPR Think bagpipes, and you likely think Scotland. But one of the world's largest bagpipe manufacturers happens to call Nashua, New Hampshire home. That company, however, is facing an unexpected wrinkle in its international supply chain. New Hampshire Public Radio’s Todd Bookman reports. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Taylor Dobbs, Patrick Skahill, Jill Kaufman, Todd Bookman Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, bagpipe music by Eric Bean Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and acorns to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we're talking ballot questions. Why are more of them showing up in voting booths in states like Maine and Massachusetts, and how much power do elected officials have to tinker with citizen-passed laws? Plus, a Puerto Rican family is reunited in Holyoke, Mass., and a Vermont veteran with PTSD finds a way to heal, through farming. Listen to the end, and we’ll take you to the most peaceful place in the universe. Marijuana plants are harvested and hung in a processing facility in Franklin, Mass. Currently only medical cannabis sales are legal in Massachusetts. A referendum passed in 2016 set the date for legal recreational sales to begin at January 1, 2018. But a law passed this summer by the state legislature pushed the date to July 1, 2018. Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR Power to the People? Mainer Kathleen Phelps speaks in favor of expanding Medicaid at a news conference in Portland. Me. on Oct. 13, 2016. Photo by Patti Wight for Maine Public Maine voters earlier this month approved a ballot measure that would expand the Medicaid program, making it available to more than 70,000 Mainers. But Governor Paul LePage — who used his veto power to block past legislative attempts to expand Medicaid — has said he won't implement Medicaid expansion until the statehouse appropriates funds to pay for the state's share of the program. Last year, Maine and Massachusetts voters approved legalizing recreational marijuana through a referendum — but in both states, lawmakers have altered the legislation, raising taxes and pushing back the start date for legal weed sales. Looking forward to 2018, Boston public radio station WBUR recently polled Massachusetts residents on three questions proposed for next year’s election. Respondents showed overwhelming support for initiatives to institute paid family leave, raise taxes on millionaires, and lower the sales tax. All this left us thinking: how powerful are ballot questions when the will of the people is later overhauled by their legislators? And why are they showing up  more frequently in states like Maine and Massachusetts in recent years? Joining us to help answer those questions are Steve Mistler, chief political corespondent for Maine Public Radio, and Colin A. Young, Massachusetts statehouse reporter for the Statehouse News Service. Trying to Find Stability Kristin, an active drug user, finds a syringe and a mirror from the tent she once lived in that other drug users took over. She says methamphetamine users use the mirror as an aid to inject themselves in their neck. Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR According to Massachusetts Department of Health data, homeless individuals who use heroin or fentanyl experience an overdose-related death rate 30 times higher than people with stable housing. The finding is no surprise to drug users who live on the streets or in the woods, as WBUR's Martha Bebinger discovered on a visit to an urban tent community in Greater Boston. Solimari Alicea hands baby Yedriel to German Santini to hold. Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR WBUR reporter Simón Rios has been charting the influx of Puerto Ricans into Massachusetts since Hurricane Maria left much of the island without power, water, or infrastructure. He went to Holyoke, and introduces us to two young parents who are trying to get their feet on the ground. Next we travel a bit further west on the Mass. Pike to the bucolic Berkshires. Those hills are alive with art — museums, galleries, theater and dance companies, and the summer home of the Boston Pops, Tanglewood. “La Fete,” by Raoul Dufy, is one of the works slated for sale by the Berkshire Museum. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s But the arts community has been in turmoil over a plan by the Berkshire Museum to sell off some of its artwork — including two Norman Rockwell paintings — to fund an expansion. The plan angered many in the art world, and got the attention of the state's Attorney General, who's working to stop the sale. Our guest Adam Frenier, Berkshire County reporter for New England Public Radio, has been following the story closely. Finally at Peace Pigs grub for food on a veteran-owned farm in Norwich, Vt. Photo by Peter Hirschfeld for VPR Nearly 4,000 Vermont veterans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11, and many are still dealing with the invisible wounds of the nation's longest-running war. Some of them, however, have begun to find healing through farming. Vermont Public Radio’s Peter Hirschfeld brings us the story of Brett, an army vet who says learning to raise livestock saved his life. Read and listen to more stories of veterans-turned-farmers in Vermont. Life on a farm may sound peaceful enough to you. But New Hampshire Public Radio's Sean Hurley says he's found the most peaceful place in the universe. It's a spot he calls Moose Painting Pond. Sean Hurley looks out over “Moose Painting Pond.” Photo by Sean Hurley for NHPR Do you have a question about New England you’d like NEXT to investigate? Tell us about it here. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Martha Bebinger, Simón Rios, Peter Hirschfeld, Sean Hurley Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, “Hotline Bling” by Drake, “Unsquare Dance” by David Brubeck, “Shameless” by Ani DiFranco Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, and sound recordings of the most peaceful place in your personal universe to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Utility companies face allegations that they drove up the cost of electricity in New England, and they’re pushing back. A rural doctor is told by the state she has to quit – in part because of her prescribing practices. Her patients ask, “who will help me with my pain?” We have the story of a wildfire that ravaged Maine 70 years ago. And we find out what the deal is with wild turkeys that are bugging residents around Boston. Dr. Anna Konopka of New London used only paper records and did not accept take insurance, but patients raved about her care. She closed her practice this month to settle allegations from the New Hampshire Board of Medicine. Photo by Britta Greene for NHPR Gaslighted A new academic report, released in conjunction with the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, says that New England electricity consumers paid billions of dollars more than necessary over a three-year period. The reason? Large utility companies created artificial gas shortages, according to the report. One of the big utilities named called the report a fabrication, but it's drawn concern from state officials. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey says she is “reviewing” the report, and public utility regulators in Connecticut have opened an investigation. Maine Public Radio’s Fred Bever has the story. Mellanie Rodriguez, Francisco Rodriguez’s 10-year-old daughter, goes shopping for school supplies with her grandmother, Jesus Rodriguez. Photo by Hadley Green for WBUR We've been following the story of a Chelsea, Massachusetts, man who remains behind bars after being arrested by federal immigration officials during a scheduled office visit. Francisco Rodriguez is awaiting potential deportation back to El Salvador, the country he fled more than ten years ago. But as WBUR’s Shannon Dooling reports, life carries on for his family. There are homework assignments, meals to cook and loads of laundry to be done. Greg Gibson, of Gloucester, Mass, with a photo of his son’s killer, Wayne Lo, on a computer screen. Gibson has kept up a correspondence with Lo for years, and the two men met in person for the first time this week. Photo by Anthony Brooks for WBUR It’s been a little more than two weeks since a gunman opened fire on crowd of concert-goers in Las Vegas, leaving 58 people dead and 489 injured. While investigators search for a motive, the family members of those who were murdered are just beginning a long and painful period of grief. WBUR’s Anthony Brooks has the story of two New England fathers who experienced this kind of grief firsthand, and who turned their losses into action. Not Your Typical Doctors Anna Konopka, M.D. Photo by Britta Greene for NENC Dr. Anna Konopka of New London, New Hampshire ended her decades -long practice this month. She's nearly 85, but her retirement is not voluntary. She says she was forced to shut her practice down by a system that no longer values her brand of patient-centered medicine. However, the New Hampshire Board of Medicine has a different opinion. The board challenged her medical decision making and other aspects of her work. While the details of the allegations against Konopka are confidential, it’s likely that her practice of  prescribing opioid painkillers to many of her patients is under scrutiny. New Hampshire Public Radio’s Britta Greene reports. An empty marijuana jar at the Canna Care Docs clinic in Burlington. The company opened its first location in Vermont last month, and offers patients a new avenue to medical marijuana. Photo by Emily Corwin for VPR Two weeks ago, a new health clinic opened its doors in Burlington to do in Vermont what it has already done in several other states: bring thousands of new patients into the state's medical cannabis program. Canna Care Docs bills itself as a “medical marijuana evaluation and education center,” and in places like Maine and Massachusetts, it has created an efficient new avenue for patients to gain legal access to medical marijuana. But some in Vermont worry that the Canna Care model sidesteps the important doctor-patient relationship. Vermont Public Radio’s Peter Hirschfeld has more. Wild Fires, Wild Turkeys Fast-moving wildfires in northern California have destroyed thousands of homes and taken more than forty lives. Seventy years ago, this same time of year, wildfires burned over hundreds of miles in Maine. These fires wiped out towns and forever changed the landscape. New England Public Radio’s Jill Kaufman reports. On Columbus Day, a Cranston, Rhode Island orthodontist stopped in to check on his office, only to find the double pane glass of his waiting room window shattered. And then he found the culprit– a fully-grown wild turkey – still alive. While smashing through a window is rare, human encounters with wild turkeys are becoming increasingly common in the Boston metro and other cities and suburbs around the country. Some residents complain that the animals are attacking humans and cars. Others are bemused or fascinated by the birds, like the Boston man who tweeted this cell phone video of a group of turkeys circling a dead cat, causing a stir online earlier this year. We talk with David Scarpitti, the wild turkey and upload game biologist for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife about why we're seeing this influx of wild turkeys in urban and suburban areas – and what makes some of them so aggressive. Do you have a question about New England you’d like NEXT to investigate? Tell us about it here. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Fred Bever, Shannon Dooling, Anthony Brooks, Britta Greene, Peter Hirschfeld, and Jill Kaufman Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, “Gold Dayz” by Ultraista Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, and turkey tales to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We check in with New Englanders and their loved ones in Puerto Rico. And with everything we now know about opioid addiction, are doctors still over- prescribing painkillers? Also, after Las Vegas, one gun shop owner says the industry should self-regulate. Plus, we chat with singer-songwriter Dar Williams about her new book on rebuilding America's towns. All that and more this week on NEXT. A pedestrian street in the Old Port in Portland, Maine, a neighborhood popular with tourists. Musician and author Dar Williams says towns thrive when they achieve a balance between places of interest to visitors and those of interest to residents. Photo by PhilipC via Flickr Aftermath Katie Herzog takes a walk with her dog, Pippen. Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR Katie Herzog, a business consultant and grandmother from Newton, Massachusetts had back surgery at one of Boston's teaching hospitals last spring. The doctor sent her home with a powerful opiod, which she took as prescribed. Four weeks later, she was in withdrawal. Herzog’s experience reveals the many ways doctors, nurses, and hospitals are still fueling the opioid epidemic, and helps to explain an emerging call to hold hospitals accountable. From WBUR's CommonHealth, Martha Bebinger reports. Connecticut native Veronica Montalvo (not pictured) has spent time delivering food, water, and toiletries to Puerto Ricans outside of San Juan. Photo by Veronica Montalvo via Facebook Veronica Montalvo was born in Willimantic, Connecticut and has lived in Hartford, Middletown, and Waterbury. She moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico earlier this year, and she weathered Hurricane Maria in her 300-year-old apartment building. She says the hours of howling winds were unbearable. The walls of her apartment were so wet they looked like they were crying. Part of her ceiling caved in. But many others had it worse. So Montalvo set out to help. WNPR’s Jeff Cohen has her story. Ben Beauchemin owns Wicked Weaponry in Hooksett, Nh. Photo by Casey McDermott for NHPR After the mass shooting in Las Vegas on October 1, people on both sides of the debate over firearms started to come together toward a possible ban of “bump stocks,” the device that the shooter used to increase the firing capacity of his rifle. Despite this small patch of middle ground, a gulf remains between gun advocates and those who want stricter gun control. New Hampshire Public Radio's Casey McDermott spoke with a gun store owner in Hookset, New Hampshire who says his outlook differs from others in the gun industry. More on the gun debate in New England: Wednesday’s episode of The Exchange from NHPR. Vermont Public Radio’s multimedia in-depth reporting project “Gunshots,” which digs into six years of data on firearm deaths. NEXT‘s conversation with Harvard gun violence researcher Matthew Miller and VPR reporter Taylor Dobbs. A Better Place Have you ever revisited a town you hadn't seen in years and thought “Boy, this place has changed”? Suddenly, there’s a new row of restaurants, or a boarded-up mill building has come back to life. Maybe you’ve witnessed the opposite: a hollowed-out shell of a once-busy main street. As a touring musician, singer-songwriter Dar Williams has a front seat to the changes happening in American towns large and small. Her new book is What I Found in a Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musician’s Guide to Rebuilding America’s Communities – One Coffee Shop, Dog Run, & Open-Mike Night at a Time. In her writing, she theorizes about why some towns thrive, and others can't seem to get out of their post-industrial slump. The book is peppered with references to New England towns, and Williams has personal history here. She lived and worked in Boston, and Western Massachusetts, and went to college at Wesleyan University  in Middletown, Connecticut in the 1980s. And she visits the region often. You can see her perform at several venues this fall. Destructive Bugs, Healing Plants The yellow blobs are a sign of infestation by southern pine beetle. When attacked, the tree releases resin in attempt to push out the beetles. Photo courtesy of CT DEEP. Pine forests in New England could soon be at the mercy of an incredibly destructive insect. As WNPR's Patrick Skahill reports, the southern pine beetle is making its way north. And a new study says climate change could speed its migration. To prevent their collective cultural knowledge about medicinal plants from disappearing, some Vermont tribal nations are sharing their expertise with those outside the native communities. On a recent sunny morning, Vermont Public Radio’s Kathleen Masterson went along on an educational plant walk. Usnea is a genus of lichen that’s sometimes referred to as old man’s beard. Photo by Kathleen Masterson for VPR About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Jeff Cohen, Martha Bebinger, Casey McDermott, Patrick Skahill, Kathleen Masterson Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, “Johnny Appleseed” by Dar Williams Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, and story leads next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we walk the US-Canada border with Border Patrol agents, and hear the concerns of civil rights lawyers who worry about their ability to stop people they suspect of living in the country without documentation. We’ll also hear the story of an unusual experiment proposed for Martha’s Vineyard, one that asks residents to trust a scientist who’s trying to stop the spread of Lyme disease. We meet a man who’s become a Boston institution while playing music in a bear suit. And we go to church on an uninhabited island. U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brad Brant on the U.S. -Canada border in Highgate, Vt. Photo by Ryan Caron King for NENC South of the Border United States Border Patrol agents are dedicated to protecting the border 24 hours a day, monitoring for things like drug smuggling and human trafficking. Their jurisdiction also extends significantly inland. Within 100 miles of the border and the coastline they have broad authority to stop cars for immigration questions. Civil rights advocates say recent stops in New Hampshire and Vermont are concerning. Vermont Public Radio's Kathleen Masterson reports. Carlos Rafael’s fleet, nearly one fifth of the fishing fleet in New Bedford, Massachusetts, photographed on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016.  Photo by Tristan Spinksi for Mother Jones/FERN. Earlier this year we brought you the intriguing true crime story of Carlos Rafael, also know as “The Codfather.” Back in March, the New Bedford Massachusetts – based fishing magnate plead guilty to 28 counts of fraud. The Codfather grossly under-reported his catch – at the expense of smaller fishermen who lacked the permits to bring in more valuable fish. Last week, Rafael was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison, plus a $200,000 fine. Because of his outsized influence, Rafael's imprisonment has the potential to reshape New England's groundfishing business. To learn more, we invited back Ben Goldfarb, a freelance journalist who’s covered the case of the Codfather for Mother Jones Magazine and the Food and Environment Reporting Network. Veteran Cindy McGuirk speaks up for women veterans at a town hall meeting addressing concerns about the Manchester VA on July 31, 2017. Photo by Peter Biello for NHPR NEXT  has also been keeping an eye on problems at the VA medical center in Manchester, New Hampshire. This past July, the Boston Globe Spotlight Team published an investigative report detaining unsanitary conditions and patient neglect at the VA – a facility that was given a four-star rating by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The next day, two top officials were removed. Two days after that, a pipe burst, flooding five floors at the hospital. One of those spaces was dedicated to women’s health. Now, as the Manchester VA rebuilds itself, some see an opportunity to improve the experience for women veterans. New Hampshire Public Radio's Peter Biello reports. Surrounded by Water Not only was Lyme Disease discovered here in New England, it's had a pretty profound effect. As we've reported, the Northeast has the biggest concentration of Lyme cases, and the problem seems to be getting worse. Public health officials have tried all sorts of efforts to cut down on the transmission of the disease, which is spread by deer ticks – after they are infected by rodent hosts. Geneticist Kevin Esvelt (right) takes questions from a Martha's Vineyard audience. in July 2016. Photo by Annie Minoff for Science Friday One of the places with the highest concentrations of Lyme cases is also one of New England’s most famous vacation destinations: Martha's Vineyard. That's where the podcast Undiscovered went to track a geneticist who's proposing a novel solution – releasing genetically modified mice on the island. Undiscovered co-host Annie Minoff joins us to talk about a science experiment that has as much to do with people and politics as mice and ticks. Margie Howe Emmons sits in the outdoor chapel on Chocurua Island on New Hampshire’s Squam Like. Photo by Sean Hurley for NHPR Every Sunday morning through the summer, a bell rings out three times from an island in the middle of Squam Lake. It’s a signal that boaters, kayakers, and even swimmers, should begin to make their way to the island – because church is about to start. With a granite boulder serving as an altar and music from a hand cranked organ, Chocurua Island has hosted religious services of all kinds for more than a hundred years. New Hampshire Public Radio’s Sean Hurley visited the island with one of its most devoted caretakers. Net Zero The all-concrete “Home Run House” in Warren, VT. Photo by Jon Kalish for NENC We've been bringing you stories of super-energy-efficient housing as part of our series, The Big Switch. Most of these dwellings use a combination of traditional building materials, some high tech advancements, and renewable energy sources like solar and geothermal to get to what's called “net zero” – meaning NO fossil fuels. Reporter Jon Kalish found another such building in the small town of Warren, Vermont. But the key to this house is its unconventional building material. Renderings show the “Home Run House” when complete. Image courtesy of Dave Sellers. Bostonians are not exactly known for the warm fuzzies, but in recent years a fuzzy, costumed street performer has won the affection of many in New England's largest city. The busker dresses in a bear suit, plays the keytar, and is known as Keytar Bear. Freelance reporter Carol Vassar wanted to know more about the bear, and the man inside the costume. She brings us this report. A post on the “We Love Keytar Bear” Facebook page after the performer was attacked by teenagers this June. Keytar Bear is not the hero we deserve but the hero we need. @KeytarBear pic.twitter.com/8wwLlbISit — Roomba (@TheRoomba) September 18, 2017 About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Kathleen Masterson, Ben Goldfarb, Peter Biello, Annie Minoff, Sean Hurley, Jon Kalish, and Carol Vassar Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, and story leads next@wnpr.org. Tweet your Keytar Bear photos to us @NEXTNewEngland.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, immigrants facing domestic violence take a chance applying for a special visa. Plus, we take a nervous look at Vermont’s outdated flood maps, and a new study that finds New England is losing forestland fast. Also, how does geology influence human behavior? We go WAY back into the history of our region to find out. And it’s time once again for The Big E – the massive agricultural fair that ties together the New England states. We’ll give you a taste. The Pawtuckaway Mountains in Southeastern New Hampshire are the remnant of an extinct volcano. “Blobs” of granite, formed from magma, created the rock formations that characterize much of New Hampshire’s topography. Image via USGS, 1957. Choosing Between Safety and Deportation Immigrants living in New England illegally have reason to be on edge. President Trump’s enhanced enforcement priorities are leading to increased arrests. And reports of federal immigration agents showing up at schools and courts are heightening fears among people in the country without authorization. But what happens when that fear is used as a weapon? This episode, reporter Shannon Dooling tells us how immigration status is used to torment and intimidate — and why more people may be looking for a way out. Some immigrants living here without authorization who’ve been victims of crime in the U.S. may be eligible for a U visa. The application process and lengthy wait time used to be a deterrent, but that appears to be changing under the Trump administration. Here, immigration lawyer Susan Roses, left, reviews documents and with Antonia concerning her U-visa filing. Photo by Jesse Costa via WBUR. And as Hurricanes rip through Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Texas, and Florida, the impacts are felt in New England, too. Not just in the high winds and surf we saw from Hurricane Jose along the coastline, but in the way we think about risks from those storms. Right now, the National Flood Insurance Program is $25 billion in debt, and Congress is trying to figure out how to make it work. But even before the funding crisis, the national program was not addressing the flood risks in many states, including Vermont. Vermont Public Radio’s Howard Weiss-Tisman reports that some of the ideas under discussion could have real impacts here. Department of Environmental Conservation floodplain manager Ned Swanberg points to areas in a map of Jamaica that are prone to flooding. Many of the FEMA flood maps in Vermont are outdated and don’t accurately convey the true threat of catastrophic floods. Credit Howard Weiss-Tisman. Also, one of the ways to prevent flooding is by planting trees – a study in the UK last year showed that planting trees could reduce the height of flooding in by up to 20 percent. But another study, just out from Harvard, shows that New England is losing trees at a rapid rate. The authors say our region is losing forest at a rate of 65 acres a day, and could lose more than a million acres of forest cover over the next half-century. Maine Public Radio’s Fred Bever reports. Bedrock and Politics in New Hampshire and Vermont Listeners to Brave Little State – the people-powered podcast from Vermont Public Radio – have a knack for curiosity. Visitors to VPR's website vote on their favorite listener-submitted questions about Vermont – sending reporters scampering across the Green Mountain State in search of answers. When we heard the question they took on for this month's episode, we knew we had to discuss it on NEXT. Matt “Beagle” Bourgault, of Hinesburg, Vermont, asked: “What does the geology have to do with the character of Vermont? How do the underlying, rocks, soils, topography affect how Vermont is different from other New England states and from New York?” Our guest Angela Evancie is the host of Brave Little State and managing editor for podcasts at Vermont Public Radio.  Also joining us is Sam Evans-Brown, host of Outside/In, a podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio about the outside world and how we use it. Sam's also a self-professed “secret geology nerd.” (The secret’s out now, Sam.) This bedrock geologic map shows the folded bedrock that creates Vermont’s long north-south valleys, as well as some blobs of bedrock in the Northeast Kingdom.Courtesy of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation / Agency of Natural Resources. Do you have a question you’d like NEXT to investigate? Submit it here. Pleasure Horses, Lobster Rolls, and State Pride at The Big E Rider Jillian Silva introduces her horse, Indy, to the camera after winning a park horse competition. Credit: Ryan King/ WNPR. The Eastern States Exposition – better known as The Big E – is a massive fair that runs for two weeks in the fall in West Springfield, Massachusetts. This is The Big E's 101st year. The exposition was the brainchild of Joshua L. Brooks, a printer from Springfield, who also operated a farm. At the time, even as industry was booming in New England, farming was in decline – local farmers couldn't compete with the farms out in the fertile land of the Midwest. Pig racing at The Big E. Credit: Ryan King/ WNPR. Brooks’s idea was to start an event that would showcase new farming methods and technology, and establish competitive awards that would motivate farmers to produce more efficiently. Brooks got a group of businessmen together, they purchased some land in Springfield. And they convinced the National Dairy Association, which was headquartered in Chicago, to have their exhibition here instead of the Midwest. The dairy show was held in September 1916, and by the next year, Brooks had the agricultural showcase that he envisioned. A woman selling lobster rolls in the Maine building says Maine lobster rolls are better than the Connecticut kind. Host John Dankosky disagrees. Credit: Ryan King/WNPR. Today, The Big E features many attractions familiar to country fairs. There are still livestock competitions, and of course, lots of greasy fair food. But it's also a uniquely pan-New England event. On the grounds, six permanent buildings showcase the goods, cuisines, attractions and quirks of each state in our region. As a show about New England, the state buildings were what drew us to the fair last year, and they did not disappoint. There was so much to see and do at The Big E, we couldn’t possibly take it all in. For a taste, check out this video by the wonderful Ryan Caron King. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Shannon Dooling, Howard Weiss-Tisman, Fred Bever, Angela Evancie, Sam Evans-Brown Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, “Shameless” by Ani DiFranco Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and ideas for your state’s new motto to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dams clog rivers and streams all over New England. Environmentalists want to take many of them down to improve habitat for fish, but some entrepreneurs want to put them back to work doing their original jobs: making power. Plus, with the Trump Administration’s voter fraud commission meeting in New Hampshire this week, we revisit our conversation about the wacky political world of the Granite State. And, we take trips to two places that are trying to attract tourists: the factory site of a controversial gun magnate, and a mythical wonderland that takes shape just over the border in Québec. Built about 150 years ago, Mill Pond Dam in Colchester, Vt., is currently breached, but still creating a small swamp upstream. Photo by Kathleen Masterson for VPR What Do You Do With an Old Dam? The rivers and streams of New England are littered with thousands of dams. Many of them were used to produce the energy that sparked industry, but they’re now doing little more than than clogging waterways. Conservationists looking to restore the health of rivers are often met with political and emotional resistance when they try to remove large dams. So some are turning their attention to smaller, privately owned ones. Vermont Public Radio’s Kathleen Masterson took a closer look. Nick Cabral is a co-founder of Goose River Hydro in Belfast, Maine But not everyone’s ready to tear down old New England dams. In central Maine, a couple of young entrepreneurs sees potential in old dams in the form of renewable energy and profit. Maine Public Radio’s Fred Bever has more.  Vote First or Die Voters cast ballots in Windham, New Hampshire. Photo by Allegra Boverman for NHPR. Even by New Hampshire's high standards, this was a pretty big week in politics. President Trump's controversial voter fraud commission met in Manchester, where one of the commission's members, long-time New Hampshire secretary of state Bill Gardner, faced criticism from all four members of the state's congressional delegation. Gardner used the occasion of the meeting to rebuke Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State, for his op-ed on Brietbart.com, suggesting widespread voter fraud in the 2016 New Hampshire election. It's a claim that FactCheck.org called “bogus.” Meanwhile, a state judge ruled against a provision in a new voter law that would have subjected voters to a possible fine or jail time if they failed to submit residency paperwork in a timely fashion. The judge wrote that the provision was a “very serious deterrent” to the right to vote. That New Hampshire's elections have come under scrutiny is something that grates at state residents. The Granite State takes pride in the way it conducts its elections, with no institution more sacred than its first-in-the-nation primary. Scott Conroy is a long-time political reporter, who grew up in neighboring Massachusetts, and who became enamored with New Hampshire's political culture while covering presidential candidates criss-crossing the state. His book is Vote First or Die: The New Hampshire Primary: Americas Discerning, Magnificent, and Absurd Road to the White House. NEXT caught up with Conroy earlier this year. Building a National Park Based on Hartford History Sparks Pride, and Discomfort Unlike New Hampshire, Connecticut has long suffered from a kind of civic inferiority complex. The state is stuck between Boston and New York, but far more congested than scenic New England destinations to the north. Student reporters Nicole Ellis (left) and Madyson Frame pose at Samuel Colt’s statue in Hartford’s Colt Park, with historian Bill Hosley. Photo by Sam Hockaday And then there are the money problems. It's one of the richest states in the nation, but the state budget is billions in the hole. And Hartford, the state’s capital, struggles with a perception that it has too much crime and not enough to do. But something big is on the horizon. A new national park, set to open in the next few years, will tell the story of one of the city's most important industrial leaders. Coltsville National Historical Park will be built on land that once belonged to firearms manufacturer Samuel Colt, and will include parts of the historic Colt factory complex. Colt had an outsized influence on Hartford and was a major player in the Industrial Revolution. But is his a history worth honoring? Madyson Frame, a recent graduate of Hartford's Journalism and Media Academy, reports. Lighting Up the Forest Flips the Switch on a Small Town A stroll through Foresta Lumina includes some sparkly, stunningly lit sections of forest. Photo by Chris Jensen While Hartford dreams about creating a tourist attraction from the ground up, Coaticook, Québec, which sits right on the Vermont border, pulled it off. Local officials took an unusual idea, made a $1 million gamble, and hit a tourism geyser: a high-tech enchanted woodland called Foresta Lumina. Reporter Chris Jensen, with the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism, went to see for himself. Below: a video from the Creators Project goes behind the scenes at Foresta Lumina. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Contributors to this episode: Kathleen Masterson, Fred Bevers, Madyson Frame, Nicole Ellis, Tikeyah Whittle, Sam Hockaday, Jose Vargas, and Chris Jensen Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, “Nature Kid” by Podington Bear, “Cm” by Podington Bear Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and tourism ideas to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Paola, 19, has lived most of her life in the U.S. after being brought from El Salvador by her mother when she was a child. She received deferred action in 2016 and Tuesday was her first day of classes at UMass Boston. Photo by Shannon Dooling for WBUR In Vermont, suicides account for 89 percent of gun-related deaths. Why is that percentage so high, and what’s being done to lower the risk? Also, we learn how the region is reacting to President Trump’s decision to end the DACA program. And we explore the wide variety of accents that color the speech of New Englanders and how those sounds are changing. Finally, we wade into an offshore war between Maine and New Hampshire and visit a summer camp with a colonial flair. It’s NEXT! You can stream the entire episode by clicking play on the embedded media player above or listen to the embedded SoundCloud files below for individual reports.  At Risk Students at Eastern Connecticut State University protest President Trump’s decision to end protections for undocumented young people on Tuesday, September 5, 2017. Photo by Ryan Caron King for WNPR We've been hearing the voices of young people around New England whose future is very uncertain. About 15,000 immigrants in our region have been granted temporary status under the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. The Obama-era initiative allows young people whose parents brought them to the country illegally to live and work in the United States. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday that the government will phase out the DACA program. Many elected officials have reacted sharply toward that decision and four New England States have joined a lawsuit in support of DACA recipients. As reporter Shannon Dooling found, this news came at a difficult time for many students. She went to the University of Massachusetts-Boston on the first day of school with this report. Cragin’s Gun Shop in Rutland, Vt. primarily serves hunters. Owner John Cragin said suicide is a tricky issue – but if he has any doubts about selling someone a gun, he won’t make the sale. Photo by Liam Elder-Connors for VPR For many people in Vermont, guns are a way of life. Unlike more populous, more urban states in our region, Vermonters own guns at a higher rate and fiercely protect their gun rights. That means looser gun laws than in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island — but also a higher rate of gun deaths per capita than in those states. Vermont Public Radio wanted to look into the numbers behind this reality and found some surprising data and personal stories. Four hundred twenty people died from gunshot wounds in Vermont between 2011 and 2016. Eighty-nine percent of those deaths were suicides. Data visualization by Taylor Dobbs for Vermont Public Radio Our guest Taylor Dobbs is the digital reporter at Vermont Public Radio, and he produced the reporting project “Gunshots: Vermont Gun Deaths, 2011-2016.” We’re also joined by Matthew Miller, M.D., a professor of health sciences and Epidemiology at Northeastern University and co-director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. VPR has made the death certificate data gathered for the project public. See the spreadsheet here. The Shifting New England Accent The Netflix prison drama “Orange is the New Black” features a woman with a Boston-flavored accent. In fact, this character's way of talking is a little more complicated than that, and so is her story. Developing that sound brought actress Yael Stone to Boston. There, she met up with WBUR’s Sarah Rose Brenner, who has this report. Dropped Rs and long As can be heard, of course, not only in Boston but across much of New England. But in a 2012 paper published in the Journal of American Speech, Dartmouth College linguist James Stanford and his colleagues make the case that a classic New England accent is receding. Can you spot the dialect division in this bagel shop menu? From the (now closed) Bagel Basement in Hanover, New Hampshire. Courtesy of James Stanford In a study currently under peer review, Stanford and his partners used an online crowd-sourcing tool to reach over 600 speakers around the region. This big data set allowed them to tease out subtle differences in the way people from different parts of New England talk. James Stanford joins us to discuss some of his team’s findings. Chaeyoon Kim, Sravana Reddy, Ezra Wyschogrod, and Jack Grieve are co-authors on the study. For a deep dive into the Vermont accent, we highly recommend the very first episode of Vermont Public Radio’s podcast Brave Little State. Lobster Pots and Chamber Pots This map, produced by NH Fish & Game in 1976, details the claims made by both sides in the lobster wars. Courtesy Portsmouth Athenaeum Off the coast of New Hampshire are the iconic Isles of Shoals. Somewhere around the middle of those isles, there’s a dotted line: the state border between New Hampshire and Maine. As New Hampshire Public Radio's Jason Moon learned, that line has been the cause of some intense disagreement over the years among lobstermen. It's back-to-school time in New England. And in their “what I did this summer” essays, some Connecticut kids might be writing about the week they spent in 1774. Each year, the Noah Webster House in West Hartford, the childhood home of the founder of the American dictionary, holds Colonial Children's Camp. The program gives kids a taste of what daily life was like in Webster's time. NEXT producer Andrea Muraskin paid a visit. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Shannon Dooling, Taylor Dobbs, Sarah Rose Brenner, Jason Moon Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and recordings of your mom’s accent to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Lake Champlain to the Connecticut River, overtaxed sewage systems are being pushed to filter out more pollutants. This week, we look into what it takes to clean up our water systems. Following the announcement that Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics, we revisit Boston’s aborted Olympic bid in search of lessons about urban planning and civic engagement. We follow the journey of an aluminum can, and meet a DIY Youtube star from the woods of Maine. The mouth of the Connecticut River. The Amtrak Old Saybrook-Old Lyme bridge is the last crossing before the river meets Long Island Sound. Nitrogen runoff from soil upriver is responsible for fish die-off in the salt waters of the sound. Photo by Ryan Caron King for NENC Influent and Effluent Springfield Water and Sewer Plant Manager Mickey Nowak gives a quick biology lesson, explaining how bacteria found in sewage is currently denitrified at the plant. Photo by Jill Kaufman for NENC By the end of the year, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce new limits on the amount of nitrogen that wastewater treatment plants in Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire can release into New England's largest river, the Connecticut. These new rules could mean a small tweak of the system, or a costly plant retrofit. No one knows for sure until the limits are announced. Nitrogen is a nutrient in soil, but when it reaches salt water it becomes a pollutant. And it’s nitrogen that's blamed for fish die-offs in Long Island Sound, where the Connecticut river ends. New England Public Radio’s Jill Kaufman reports. A combined sewer overflow outfall in Rutland, VT. When there’s too much rain in the lines, the system starts working differently. Instead of going to the treatment plant, untreated stormwater gets diverted, along with with untreated sewage, straight into the river. Photo by Talyor Dobbs for VPR There's another nutrient that's plaguing water quality in New England: phosphorous. It's linked to toxic blue-green algae blooms in Lake Champlain. But that's just one of the problems the podcast Brave Little State went to investigate in a recent episode. This people-powered program from Vermont Public Radio asks for listener questions. This month, listener Mike Brown asked, “How are we going to address the aging sewage systems in Vermont?” Angela Evancie and Mike Brown visit a combined sewer overflow outfall on the edge of a cemetary in Rutland, Vermont, with public works commissioner Jeff Wennberg. Photo by Taylor Dobbs for VPR Brown was concerned about sewage overflows that were happening more frequently with big storms and flooding. As it turns out, the problem is linked to climate change and an antique sewer system that in some spots predates the automobile. Our guest is Vermont Public Radio digital reporter Taylor Dobbs, who co-reported the episode with host Angela Evancie and question-asker Mike Brown. Lessons From the Boston Olympics That Wasn’t Residents hold signs before a community meeting in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood in June 2015. Photo courtesy of University Press of New England At the end of July, the city of Los Angeles reached a deal with the International Olympic Committee to host the 2028 Summer Games. L.A. was actually competing with Paris to host the 2024 Olympics, but L.A. officials agreed to wait four more years, with Paris hosting in 2024.  Back in 2015,  before the US Olympic Committee set its sights on L.A, it chose Boston. But the Boston 2024 project was beset by problems, including lack of transparency about costs, and a snow storm that brought the subway system to a grinding halt. (The Boston Globe has a helpful timeline of the Olympic bid.) In July, 2015, Mayor Marty Walsh announced he would not sign a contract that would promise taxpayer funding for Olympic costs overruns, and the Olympic bid came to an end. Our next guests are some of Boston 2024’s most outspoken skeptics. Chris Dempsey is a co-founder of the movement No Boston Olympics, previously served as assistant transportation secretary for Massachusetts, and is now the director of the nonprofit Transportation for Massachusetts. Andrew Zimbalist teaches economics at Smith College and studies public financing of sports events. Demspey and Zimbalist are co-authors of the new book, No Boston Olympics: How and Why Smart Cities Are Passing on the Torch. While the majority of public opinion in Boston had turned against hosting the games by the time the city dropped the bid, not everyone was happy to see their hometown pass on the Olympic experience. For another perspective, we speak with Boston Globe columnist Shirley Leung, who covered the Olympic debate closely. Break It Down, Build It Up After aluminum is melted down (above) chemists inject additives to ensure the alloy is correct for can “body stock.” The material is then cast into giant slabs, which weigh thousands of pounds and are very thick. Those slabs are then milled down to a very thin body, which is cooled and coiled before it gets shipped to can makers. Photo courtesy of Constellium – Muscle Shoals, AL Maler Gardner Waldeier, aka “Bus Huxley,” in his Waterford, Maine workshop. Photo by John Kalish for NENC Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut all have bottle bills. Those are recycling programs built around a system of deposits and refunds, aimed at reducing litter and protecting the environment. But when it comes to old aluminum, it's not just environmentalists who want to see more recycling: there's a business case to be made for it, too. WNPR’s Patrick Skahill reports. There’s a thriving scene on YouTube where woodworkers, metalworkers and other “makers” provide a step-by-step guide to their process. In Waterford, Maine a maker named Gardner Waldeier — who calls himself “Bus Huxley” — has been entertaining viewers with equal portions of Yankee ingenuity and video wizardry. Jon Kalish reports. Below: Gardner Waldeier demonstrates how to butcher a deer. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Jill Kaufman, Taylor Dobbs, Angela Evancie, Jon Kalish, Patrick Skahill Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and DIY videos to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The New Hampshire state parole board often addresses inmates using “indelicate language.” Is it defensible? Plus, an investigation into the long-term fallout from Rhode Island’s disastrous deal with former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling. And, we look back at the history of the Newport Folk Festival, and Vermont’s short-lived gold rush. The Newport Folk Festival at Fort Adams in July 2014. Photo by Matthew Bennett via Flickr Business of the State A parole hearing at New Hampshire’s State Prison for Men in Concord. Photo by Emily Corwin for NHPR New Hampshire's criminal justice system has just one parole board. Its nine members decide which inmates get out on parole, and which parolees return to prison. While hearings are open to the public, they take place with little oversight or public scrutiny. As New Hampshire Public Radio’s Emily Corwin reports, unlike most legal proceedings – these can be surprisingly unrefined affairs. A warning: this story contains crude language. There’s more to come from Emily Corwin on parole in New Hampshire. Stay tuned to NEXT or follow @emilycorwin on Twitter. Retired Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling autographs a baseball for a sailor during a USO-sponsored visit. Photo by Seth Coulter for the U.S. Navy Red Sox fans across New England remember Curt Schilling. The star pitcher helped lead the team to two world series titles. Since his playing career ended, though, there hasn't been as much cheering. He was fired from his job as an analyst for ESPN after a series of controversial social media comments about Muslims and transgender people. The staunch conservative now has his own online radio show on Breitbart.com. But in the state of Rhode Island, he's also remembered for a disastrous public financing deal. The state invested $75 million in taxpayer money in Schilling's video game company, 38 Studios, and lost it all before a lawsuit clawed back most of the money. A screen grab from 38 Studio’s only video game, Kingdoms of Amular, via YouTube It was one of the worst financial decisions in Rhode Island history. Yet as Rhode Island Public Radio’s Ian Donnis reports, the company that served as the state's financial adviser on the deal has continued doing business throughout Rhode Island. Live at Newport! Courtesy of Wesleyan University Press At the end of this month, 10,000 music lovers will descend on Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island for the Newport Folk Festival. Through the years, the festival has been a focal point for discussions of what “authentic” folk music truly is. And in turn, Newport has shaped the public's image of American folk music for more than half a century. We spoke with Rick Massimo, author of the new book I Got a Song: A History of the Newport Folk Festival. As a reporter at the Providence Journal, Massimo covered the festival for nine years.  Below: Bob Dylan performs “Mr. Tambourine Man” at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, introduced by Pete Seeger. According to Rick Massimo, Dylan’s decision to perform a song with a personal, rather than political theme represented a departure from the festival’s first years, and set the stage for his historic electric performance of “Like a Rolling Stone” in 1965. Libraries and Gold Mines Today’s libraries are more than just repositories for books. Pianist Emory Smith performed as part of the Hartford Public Library’s Baby Grand Jazz series last year. Photo courtesy of Hartford Public Library Without a state budget in place, Connecticut is operating under executive order. Governor Dannel Malloy has made cuts to get state finances in line. Among those cuts are funds for local libraries. Elsewhere in New England, public libraries are also struggling to maintain core programs like inter-library book exchanges. Tom Verde reports. Stick a shovel in New England soil and you're bound to hit rocks. But what if some of those rocks could make you rich? The allure of the 1849 California Gold Rush drove many Vermonters west — though very few made any money. Vermont gold miners in the 1850s. Photo by E.G.Davis, courtesy of the Plymouth Historical Society But the story goes that two of those men returned to Vermont and realized that the topography of the Plymouth-Bridgewater area, east of Killington Peak, was similar to a hotspot for gold in the Sierra Nevada. In the 1850s, a small but vibrant community grew up around a gold mining operation in the Plymouth-Bridgewater area of Vermont. Called Plymouth Five Corners, it had a hotel, a school and a dance hall. Photo by E. G. Davis, courtesy Plymouth Historical Society To this day, you can still walk through the forest and poke around the remnants of the old mines that were established during Vermont’s own gold rush.  For the podcast Brave Little State, Vermont Public Radio’s Kathleen Masterson took a tour of one old mine with Nelson Illinski, a gold panning hobbyist and a self-taught Vermont gold historian. About NEXT Do you have a question about New England you’d like NEXT to investigate? Tell us about it here. NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Emily Corwin, Ian Donnis, Carmen Baskauf, Tom Verde, Kathleen Masterson Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, the Gorillaz Odetta, Bob Dylan, the Indigo Girls, the Avett Brothers,  and Jalen N’Gonda Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send critique, suggestions, questions, reflections and gold flakes to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alex Ciccolo — a 24-year-old who was arrested two years ago in Adams, Massachusetts on charges of attempting domestic terrorism — is back in the news. His mother spoke with our reporter Jill Kaufman. Later in the show, we take a look inside the world of eel trafficking in Maine, and learn about an effort on Martha’s Vineyard to help small fishermen get a foothold. Plus, we discover the surprising origins of a body pulled in by a fishing boat off the coast of Cape Cod, and explore our region’s ambiguous relationship with inclusivity through the arts. On the fishing boat Diversion, Marvin Benitez dumps a pail full of crabs into a bin for preparation for sale to seafood retailers and restaurants on Martha’s Vineyard. Government-issued permits for fishing rights can be expensive, but nonprofit permit banks are leasing them to small fishermen at lower rates. Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR In Despair, and Angry Shelley MacInnes holds pictures of her son, Alex Ciccolo, who faces domestic terrorism charges. Photo by Jill Kaufman for NEPR Alex Ciccolo, 24, of Adams, Massachusetts, has been in federal custody since July 4, 2015. He’s charged with attempting to commit domestic terrorism. Ciccolo’s father is a Boston police captain, and was among the first responders at the 2013 marathon bombings. He was the one who tipped off federal officials his son was becoming “obsessed” with ISIS. That led to an FBI sting, where Ciccolo described to a government informant his plans to explode pressure cooker bombs in a crowded place. After Ciccolo’s arrest, his father made a single statement to the public. His mother, Shelley MacInnes, has kept an even lower profile, until recently. New England Public Radio’s Jill Kaufman reports. Below, Alex Ciccolo is interviewed by the FBI hours after his 2015 arrest. Reporter Trevor Aaronson of The Intercept has been investigating the connections between domestic terrorism charges that have led to 800 arrests since 9-11. He told Jill Kaufman how Alex Ciccolo fits into the mix. Hauling It In Dutcher’s Dock in Menemsha, Martha’s Vineyard. Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR The Massachusetts fishing industry in recent years has taken a beating. Stiff regulations and expensive fishing permits are making it difficult for small fishermen to stay above water. A nonprofit in Martha’s Vineyard now wants to help by acquiring fishing permits, and leasing them at subsidized rates to emerging fishermen. WBUR’s Simon Rios reports. What's slippery, see-through, and goes for $1,300 a pound? Listeners in coastal Maine probably know the answer. Our guest Rene Ebersole is a contributing writer for National Geographic and a reporter for the Food and Environment Reporting Network. Her recent article: “Inside the Multi-Million Dollar World of Eel Trafficking.” Glass eels are American eels in their juvenile phase. The price per pound of these animals jumped from $99.94 in 2009 to $891.49 in 2011. In 2012, it went over $1,800. Alvah Wendell, 43, rhythmically swishes his dip net to catch young eels as they swim up the Bagaduce River in Maine. He uses a green headlamp because white light spooks the fish. “You don't need to see them to catch them,” he says. “But I like to watch.” Photo by Sarah Rice for National Geographic  The little eels are destined for aquaculture farms in Asia, where they’re later harvested for sushi. The demand for American eels skyrocketed earlier this decade, because the European Union banned eel exports in 2010. European and Asian eels are considered superior to American. The 2011 tsunami, which damaged Japan’s fishery, also had an impact. Eels transform from leaf-shaped larvae into two-inch elongated juveniles with haunting eyes and a visible spine just before they swim from the ocean up freshwater rivers. Photo by Sarah Rice for National Geographic These days, if you're in the eel-catching business, Maine is the place to be. Fishing for American eels is illegal in every other East Coast state, except for South Carolina and Florida, where fisheries are small. High prices have led to poaching. In March, two Maine fishermen, Bill Sheldon and Timothy Lewis, were indicted for illegally trafficking wildlife. Sheldon could face a maximum of 35 years in prison. The Hera II, sister ship to the vessel that brought in a very unexpected catch last year. Both boats are draggers, trailing nets that scrape the ocean floor for groundfish. Photo by Andy Short Whether you're catching eel swimming upstream or haddock in the Atlantic, the work of fishing can get monotonous. On an early December morning, that routine was upended for the crew of the Hera, a commercial groundfishing boat from New Bedford, Massachusetts. Andy Short has the tale. Craving more fishy news? Listen to our own Episode 35: Outfished. You’ll learn about Carlos Rafael, a.k.a. “the Codfather” — the New Bedford fishing magnate who in March plead guilty to 28 counts of fraud. (On a side note, Rafael just happens to be the owner of the Hera). Making Good Neighbors Juan De La Cruz comforts his youngest daughter, Isabella, at their home in Vergennes, Vermont. Photo by Kathleen Masterson for VPR A Vermont father of six is facing deportation to Mexico in a case that highlights shifting federal immigration enforcement priorities. Juan De La Cruz came to the U.S. illegally over a decade ago, and later married a U.S. citizen. They formed a family and a farm business together, and Juan obtained a federal work authorization permit. But a previous deportation on his record now makes De La Cruz a target for ICE. Vermont Public Radio’s Kathleen Masterson has the story. Visiting the ICA on vacation from Colombia, Maria Alejandra Garcia Velez and her daughter Maria Jose Cortes Garcia, 9, approach the shoelace work by Nari Ward, “We the People.” Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR Life often inspires art, and art in turn often reflects society. In a time of divisive political discourse, especially around immigration, an art show currently featured at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art opens up a space for dialogue. The exhibit offers museum-goers a glimpse into the naturalization process and what it means to be, and to become, American. WBUR’s Shannon Dooling takes us there. Thea Alvin is a “dry mason,” meaning she builds stone walls without using mortar. Photo by Amy Noyes for VPR Of course, we know that New Englanders have, and have always had a rocky relationship with inclusivity. For instance, the famous line from Robert Frost's 1912 poem “Mending Wall” — “Good fences make good neighbors” — has been used to describe Yankee culture. But building stone walls like the one in Frost's poem has become something of a dying art. Stonemason Thea Alvin explained to Vermont Edition how she builds her walls for their series “Summer School.” About NEXT Do you have a question about New England you’d like NEXT to investigate? Tell us about it here. NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Jill Kaufman, Simon Rios, Andy Short, Kathleen Masterson, Shannon Dooling, Amy Noyes. Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Special thanks this week to Jane Lindholm at Vermont Edition Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send critique, suggestions, questions, reflections and wildlife trafficking tips to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the closure of  Massachusetts’ last coal fired power plant last month, some South Coast towns are pinning their hopes on offshore wind. Plus, we’ve heard the stories about immigrant farm workers facing deportation – but what is their daily life like? And why do they make the risky journey to Vermont? And, decades after the AIDS crisis hit, residents of Provincetown remember the impact on their community. The Dynegy coal burning power plant at Brayton Point in Somerset, MA ceased operations in May 31. Only three coal-fired power plants remain operational in New England.  Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR Try and Catch the Wind President Trump wants to bring back coal production in America. But here in New England, demand for coal is dwindling. Massachusetts Representative Pat Haddad (D- Somerset) used to call herself the “Queen of Coal.” Now, she tells WBUR’s Bruce Gellerman, she’s the “Witch of Wind.” Photo by Ben Storrow for E&E News Bryant Point, the last coal-fired power plant in Massachusetts — and the largest in New England — shut down permanently at the end of May. Now, two power plants in New Hampshire, and one in Connecticut are the only coal-powered facilities left in the region. Connecticut’s Bridgeport Harbor Station plant is scheduled to close in 2021. For more than 50 years, the massive Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset has generated electricity fueled by shiploads of coal from as far away as Colombia and South Africa. The shutdown marks a victory for environmentalists, but leaves a huge hole in Somerset’s tax base and a potentially a bigger problem for ratepayers across the region, as WBUR’s Bruce Gellerman reports. For more on coal's demise in New England, and the promise of offshore wind, we turn to Ben Storrow, reporter for Energy & Environment News. Storrow says Somerset and nearby New Bedford are hoping that offshore wind farms planned for south of Martha’s Vineyard will give them an economic boost.  On the Farm, Far from Home Recent estimates suggest that there are around 14 hundred foreign-born Latino workers and their family members in Vermont. The state's agriculture industry relies heavily on these workers, most of whom are in the country illegally. With an increase in deportations for noncriminal immigrants since the beginning of Donald Trump's presidency in January, many farmworkers are on edge. In March, the Vermont legislature passed a law that limits the ability of local law enforcement to work with federal immigration authorities. That same month, ICE arrested three immigration activists in Burlington. Six immigrant farm workers share this house on the property of the dairy where they work 72 hours per week. Photo by Kathleen Masterson for VPR Against this backdrop, a listener named Hannah Lindner-Finlay submitted a question to the Brave Little State podcast from Vermont Public Radio. She wondered “What's it like to be a migrant worker in Vermont?” To help answer Lindner-Finaly’s question, VPR reporter Kathleen Masterson interviewed Spanish-speaking dairy workers about their lives. We have excerpts from her reporting in this week’s program. Kathleen also joins us in the studio to talk about the economic forces that bring Mexican farm workers to Vermont. (In the Brave Little State podcast, you’ll also meet seasonal vegetable pickers from Jamaica.) Do you have a question you’d like NEXT to investigate? Tell us about it here. “It Was a Seismic Earthquake” A page from the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod's “Great Book,” a leather bound journal in which the names of those who've died are documented by year. Photo by Sophie Kazis for the Transom Story Workshop When the AIDS epidemic hit the United States in the 1980s, Provincetown, Massachusetts – long a haven for New England's LGBT community – was especially impacted. In the first fifteen years of the crisis, 10 percent of the town's year-round population died. The Provincetown Cultural Council recently announced plans to move forward with an AIDS memorial there, a plan that's been in the works for years. Freelance producer Sophie Kazis spoke with survivors about what they lost, what they built, and the impact of AIDS on this small, close-knit beach town. Sophie’s story comes to us from the Transom Story Workshop. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Bruce Gellerman, Kathleen Masterson, and Sophie Kazis Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, reflections and whittled pieces of driftwood to next@wnpr.org. Got a question you’d like NEXT to investigate? Tell us about it here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we hear a few updates on stories from our archives. The Boston Globe Spotlight team shines light on sexual abuse at elite New England boarding schools, and it prompts more investigations and more allegations. Plus, we follow scientists who are recreating ancient forests, and tracking the effects of climate change on moose. And we hear about a program at a rapidly-diversifying New Hampshire high school that aims to build understanding between American-born students and newcomers. Engineering Forests, Tracking Fading Moose In the northeastern U.S., there is less than one percent of old growth forest left. A new University of Vermont study found that harvesting trees in a way that mimics ancient forests not only restores critical habitat, but also stores a surprising amount of carbon. Researchers created this tip-up mound by pulling over this tree with a cable. A downed tree offers a number of habitat niches for small mammals, insects and invertebrates. Photo by Kathleen Masterson for VPR For a forest to be considered “old growth,” it must grow largely undisturbed, usually for several centuries. These ancient forests help foster biodiversity of plants, animal and even fungi — and can help mitigate flooding. University of Vermont ecologist Bill Keeton wanted to see if he could take a “middle-aged” New England forest and “nudge” the forest ecosystem into old growth conditions. Vermont Public Radio reporter Kathleen Masterson went to take a look. UVM forest ecologist Bill Keeton uses a laser rangefinder to measure the height of a tree in UVM’s Jericho Research Forest. The 1990s were a good time to be a moose in New Hampshire. The animals could take advantage of a perfect mix of young and mature forest, and plenty of food. At its peak, the statewide population reached 7,400. But given the lush habitat, scientists wondered why the moose population wasn't growing faster. Today, there are only about 3,400 moose in New Hampshire, and the same steep decline is being reported in neighboring Vermont and Maine. The culprit? A nasty tick whose proliferation is brought on by climate change. We speak with Kristine Rines, a wildlife biologist with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Rines is leading a four-year study to learn more about how weather changes and forest management practices affect the moose population. Painful Secrets Continue to Come to Light at New England Boarding Schools St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island. Photo by Dina Rudick for the Boston Globe. Another New England private school has come forward with a report detailing sexual abuse of students by staff over decades. Last month, St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire released a report naming 13 former faculty and staff members. According to investigators hired by the school, accusations of sexual misconduct against the 13 — which ranged from inappropriate touching to repeated rape — had been substantiated. The report also includes accounts of misconduct by 10 additional unnamed faculty members. The alleged abuse took place between 1948 and 1988. Steven Starr, a former student at the Fessenden School in Newton, Mass., shows photos of him at 11 taken by teacher James Hallman, who Starr says molested him. Image courtesy of The Boston Globe Spotlight Team. St. Paul's is the latest school to release its own findings since a Boston Globe Spotlight investigation last year revealed allegations of sexual abuse at more than 67 private schools in New England. Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut named 12 alleged abusers in a report released in April. Joining us is Jonathan Saltzman, a reporter on the Globe Spotlight Team who took part in the investigation. Saltzman also worked on several follow-up pieces, including an article on the report from St. Paul's School in Concord. We recorded our conversation in April. A Home for Homeless Women Veterans; A Global Outlook at Concord High Army veteran LouAnn Hazelwood was fleeing her second abusive marriage when she found one of the nation’s few transitional programs for homeless female veterans. Photo by Rebecca Sheir for the American Homefront Project Women make up nearly 15 percent of the U.S. Armed Forces. As more females return from service, many are at special risk of becoming homeless due to mental health problems, substance abuse, and military sexual trauma. As a result, females are the fastest growing demographic of homeless veterans. But nearly all facilities for homeless veterans house males and females together. That can be counterproductive for women recovering from trauma. In Leeds, Massachusetts, freelance reporter Rebecca Sheir introduces us to one of the nation's few programs that caters exclusively to the needs of females. Social worker Anna-Marie DiPasquale with student Rene Ndutiye at Concord High School. Photo courtesy of Anna-Marie DiPasquale Ten years ago, the demographics of New Hampshire and of Concord High School were almost identical. Both were 93 percent white. While that number has remained steady for the state, the capital city's high school has diversified in a big way. More than 10 percent of the school's 1,600 students are now refugees resettled from 66 countries. Anna-Marie DiPasquale, the school's social worker, started a new project this past fall called Travel Around the World. The project allows Ms. DiPasquale to visit different classrooms with small groups of refugee students sharing their cultures and traditions firsthand. Jimmy Gutierrez reports for New Hampshire Public Radio's Word of Mouth. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Kathleen Masterson, Rebecca Sheir, Jimmy Gutierrez Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, and story leads to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SY 2120 Vermont Public Radio Studio One - Colchester, VT Host: Gregg Porter Musicians: Isabel Oliart and Mary Ann Han Guest Player: Timothy Brookes   Stereo Left: Carolyn Faye Fox Arnie Reisman Paula Lyons   Stereo Right: Murray Horwitz Timothy Brookes Barry Nolan   Round 1: Sports – Odd Man Out Round 2 - Bluff: flehmen Round 3: *Celebrity Voice Overs – “I Duo, I Duo” – quotes from famous duos Round 4: Buff: tauthereeze Spotlight Round with Host Richard Sher Round 5: Great Name for a Rock Band   *Celebrity Voice Over performed by: Ben & Jerry (Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield)

From Lake Champlain to the Connecticut River, overtaxed sewage systems are being pushed to filter out more pollutants. This week, we look into what it takes to clean up our water systems. We also revisit Boston’s aborted Olympic bid in search of lessons about urban planning and civic engagement. We follow the journey of an aluminum can, and meet a DIY Youtube star from the woods of Maine. The mouth of the Connecticut River. The Amtrak Old Saybrook-Old Lyme bridge is the last crossing before the river meets Long Island Sound. Nitrogen runoff from soil upriver is responsible for fish die-off in the salt waters of the sound. Photo by Ryan Caron King for NENC Influent and Effluent Springfield Water and Sewer Plant Manager Mickey Nowak gives a quick biology lesson, explaining how bacteria found in sewage is currently denitrified at the plant. Photo by Jill Kaufman for NENC By the end of the year, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce new limits on the amount of nitrogen that wastewater treatment plants in Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire can release into New England's largest river, the Connecticut. These new rules could mean a small tweak of the system, or a costly plant retrofit. No one knows for sure until the limits are announced. Nitrogen is a nutrient in soil, but when it reaches salt water it becomes a pollutant. And it’s nitrogen that's blamed for fish die-offs in Long Island Sound, where the Connecticut river ends. New England Public Radio’s Jill Kaufman has our story. A combined sewer overflow outfall in Rutland, VT. When there’s too much rain in the lines, the system starts working differently. Instead of going to the treatment plant, untreated stormwater gets diverted, along with with untreated sewage, straight into the river. Photo by Talyor Dobbs for VPR There's another nutrient that's plaguing water quality in New England: phosphorous. It's linked to toxic blue-green algae blooms in Lake Champlain. But that's just one of the problems the podcast Brave Little State went to investigate for their latest episode. This people-powered program from Vermont Public Radio asks for listener questions. This month, listener Mike Brown asked, “How are we going to address the aging sewage systems in Vermont?” Angela Evancie and Mike Brown visit a combined sewer overflow outfall on the edge of a cemetary in Rutland, Vermont, with public works commissioner Jeff Wennberg. Photo by Taylor Dobbs for VPR Brown was concerned about sewage overflows that were happening more frequently with big storms and flooding. As it turns out, the problem is linked to climate change and an antique sewer system that in some spots predates the automobile. Our guest is Vermont Public Radio digital reporter Taylor Dobbs, who co-reported the episode with host Angela Evancie and question-asker Mike Brown. Lessons From the Boston Olympics That Wasn’t Residents hold signs before a community meeting in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood in June 2015. Photo courtesy of University Press of New England Paris and Los Angeles are in the running to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Before the U.S. Olympic Committee set its sights on L.A., it chose Boston. But the Boston 2024 project was beset by problems, including lack of transparency about costs, and a snow storm that brought the subway system to a grinding halt. (The Boston Globe has a helpful timeline of the Olympic bid.) In July, 2015, Mayor Marty Walsh announced he would not sign a contract that would promise taxpayer funding for Olympic costs overruns, and the Olympic bid came to an end. Our next guests are some of Boston 2024’s most outspoken skeptics. Chris Dempsey is a co-founder of the movement No Boston Olympics, previously served as assistant transportation secretary for Massachusetts, and is now the director of the nonprofit Transportation for Massachusetts. Andrew Zimbalist teaches economics at Smith College and studies public financing of sports events. Demspey and Zimbalist are co-authors of the new book, No Boston Olympics: How and Why Smart Cities Are Passing on the Torch. While the majority of public opinion in Boston had turned against hosting the games by the time the city dropped the bid, not everyone was happy to see their hometown pass on the Olympic experience. For another perspective, we speak with Boston Globe columnist Shirley Leung, who covered the Olympic debate closely. Break It Down, Build It Up After aluminum is melted down (above) chemists inject additives to ensure the alloy is correct for can “body stock.” The material is then cast into giant slabs, which weigh thousands of pounds and are very thick. Those slabs are then milled down to a very thin body, which is cooled and coiled before it gets shipped to can makers. Photo courtesy of Constellium – Muscle Shoals, AL Maler Gardner Waldeier, aka “Bus Huxley,” in his Waterford, Maine workshop. Photo by John Kalish for NENC Except for Rhode Island and New Hampshire, all New England states have bottle bills. Those are recycling programs built around a system of deposits and refunds, aimed at reducing litter and protecting the environment. But when it comes to old aluminum, it's not just environmentalists who want to see more recycling; there's a real business case to be made for it, too. WNPR’s Patrick Skahill reports. There’s a thriving scene on YouTube where woodworkers, metalworkers and other “makers” provide a step-by-step guide to their process. In Waterford, Maine a maker named Gardner Waldeier — who calls himself “Bus Huxley” — has been entertaining viewers with equal portions of Yankee ingenuity and video wizardry. Jon Kalish reports. Below: Gardner Waldeier demonstrates how to butcher a deer. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Jill Kaufman, Taylor Dobbs, Angela Evancie, Jon Kalish, Patrick Skahill Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and DIY videos to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, a political reporter’s history of the New Hampshire primary. Plus, we follow scientists who are recreating ancient forests, tracking the effects of climate change on moose, and fighting to keep funding for weird-sounding research. And we hear the story of a soccer team that’s leveling the playing field for kids of all backgrounds. You can stream the entire episode by clicking play on the embedded media player above or listen to the embedded SoundCloud files below for individual reports.  Give Me Primary, or Give Me Death New Hampshire’s near-religious devotion to the democratic process has surfaced on our show before – most recently last month when the state plowed forward with Town Meeting Day, despite the mid-march blizzard that swept the region. But the Granite State’s political fervor reaches it’s height during its first-in-the-nation presidential primary. Just take a look at this headline-making tweet from the 2016 race: Photo-@pgrossmith: A woman calmly eats breakfast at Blake’s in Manchester as @CarlyFiorina campaigned today. #fitn pic.twitter.com/LiakOK6oRI — UnionLeader.com (@UnionLeader) February 8, 2016 Our guest, long-time political reporter Scott Conroy, followed the often absurd 2016 campaign up and down New Hampshire for a year and a half leading up to the primary. His new book,  Vote First or Die chronicles the pancake breakfasts, ice cream socials and frigid walks to knock on doors – all hallmarks of the retail politics that presidential hopefuls still have to engage in during the primary season. Engineering Forests, Tracking Fading Moose In this area of Jericho Research Forest in Vermont, most trees are about 150 years old. This makes for a rather homogeneous forest with fewer opportunities for wildlife habitat. Photo by Kathleen Masterson for VPR. In the northeast U.S., there is less than 1 percent of old growth forest left. A new University of Vermont study finds that harvesting trees in a way that mimics ancient forests not only restore critical habitat but also stores a surprising amount of carbon. Researchers created this tip-up mound by pulling over this tree with a cable. A downed tree offers a number of habitat niches for small mammals, insects, and invertebrates. Photo by Kathleen Masterson for VPR For a forest to be considered “old growth,” it must grow largely undisturbed, usually for several centuries. These ancient forests help foster biodiversity of plants, animal, and even fungi — and can help mitigate flooding. University of Vermont ecologist Bill Keeton wanted to see if he could take a “middle-aged” New England forest and “nudge” the forest ecosystem into old-growth conditions. Vermont Public Radio reporter Kathleen Masterson went to take a look. The 1990s were a good time to be a moose in New Hampshire. The animals could take advantage of a perfect mix of young and mature forest, and plenty of food. At its peak, the statewide population reached 7,400. But given the lush habitat, scientists wondered why the moose population wasn't growing faster. Today, there are only about 3,400 moose in New Hampshire, and the same steep decline is being reported in neighboring Vermont and Maine. The culprit? A nasty tick whose proliferation is brought on by climate change. We speak with Kristine Rines, a wildlife biologist with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Rines is leading a four-year study to learn more about how weather changes and forest management practices affect the moose population. In Defense of Weird Science and Affordable Soccer The national March for Science on April 22, and the many satellite events around New England marked a departure for many scientists. Until recently, they didn't consider political activism a part of their jobs. But over the past few years, a growing number of researchers have faced political attacks about their work, and many say it’s time to come out swinging. New England Public Radio's Karen Brown visited one scientist who's urging colleagues to step up and make the case for continued federal funding, even when their research sounds strange. Cameron Rodrigues, 11, plays competitive soccer in Nashua, NH. Photo by Emily Corwin for NHPR Last year, Boston's Metro South Under-15 girls soccer team became champions in the New England Premiership Soccer League. Playing on club soccer teams like that can get attention from college recruiters. But those clubs also charge players’ families around $1500 per child, per year. New Hampshire Public Radio's Emily Corwin has a story about a soccer club in Nashua, New Hampshire, with a different approach to high-level sports – one that's all about leveling the playing field. Introducing: West Mass Here’s an update on what we’re calling the Connecticut River Valley region in Massachusetts. In February the Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts announced a rebrand for the area formerly known as the Pioneer Valley. The new name, “West Mass,” was released with a promotional video. But “West Mass” took a beating on social media. One Youtube commenter put it this way: “It’s nice that even in these divisive times, we can all come together and agree that this is very bad.” So last week, the organizations behind the rebranding announced that they're putting “West Mass” on pause. They're asking for feedback from both inside and outside the region- in the form of an online survey where you can vote for “West Mass,” or “Western Mass.” (“Pioneer Valley” is not an option!) If you missed our segment where we analyzed “West Mass” and other New England branding campaigns with Connecticut state historian Walt Woodward, that's definitely worth a listen. Find it in Episode 31, or listen right here: About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Kathleen Masterson, Karen Brown, Emily Corwin Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and place branding ideas to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been directed to begin detaining and deporting all unauthorized immigrants. We’ve talked about sanctuary cities, but what about jurisdictions where law enforcement does report to ICE? We look at the very different approaches taken by Vermont and New Hampshire. Later, we visit the front lines of a border war between competing casino developments. Plus, we meet New England’s other NEXT. What Roles Are States Playing in Immigration Enforcement? A case in front of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court this past week could determine how much local law enforcement is able to cooperate with federal immigration officials. We've been covering stories like this in so-called sanctuary cities, but this case applies to entire states. The court will decide whether local law enforcement officers are authorized to detain a person solely at the request of ICE. WBUR’s Shannon Dooling has been following the case. A woman lies motionless in her bunk at the Strafford County Jail in Dover, NH. This part of the jail is designated for women detained by ICE who face no criminal charges, only federal immigration violations. Photo by Emily Corwin for NHPR The directive from the Trump White House to immigration enforcement to begin detaining and deporting all unauthorized immigrants has stirred up a series of legal questions around our region. The new policy marks a change from Obama-era directives, which directed agents to prioritize deporting individuals convicted of serious crimes. But how do immigration agents find undocumented but otherwise law-abiding immigrants? It turns out there are big differences between states, including in neighboring Vermont and New Hampshire. We speak with with New Hampshire Public Radio’s Emily Corwin and Vermont Public Radio’s Kathleen Masterson. Is a Casino the Answer to Springfield’s Woes? “Springfield, Massachusetts” and “resort casino” aren't words you expect to see in the same sentence. But if you live in the area, you've been hearing about a casino coming to town for years. On three blocks in the city's struggling downtown, MGM Resorts is building that casino with a hotel, movie theater, skating rink, and other amenities, set to open in fall 2018. An artist rendering of the MGM Springfield resort casino, with hotel rotunda in front view. The original plan included a glass skyscraper. Image courtesy of MGM Springfield. Construction began two years ago, but the political groundwork was laid back in 2011, with two separate events. That June, two tornadoes ripped through the area, causing 17 miles of damage, including right in the heart of downtown. Officials there wondered what to do to rebuild. Then, in the fall of that year, hoping to recapture some of the gambling dollars that had been leaving Massachusetts for years, the legislature passed the Expanding Gaming Act, allowing for three casinos to be built, including one in the western part of the state. After a lengthy process, Springfield won that bid. MGM got the contract, and broke ground in March 2015. But Connecticut's two federally-recognized Indian tribes, long the beneficiaries of those Massachusetts customers, got worried about losing their market share. Connecticut officials were also concerned, since through a tribal gaming compact the state receives 25 percent of the gaming revenue at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. So the the Mohegans and Mashantucket Pequots formed a partnership with Connecticut’s help to build a new casino in the Hartford metro area. The vacant Showcase Cinemas in East Windsor, Connecticut is the site where Connecticut’s Mohengan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes want to build a casino, 14 miles south of MGM Springfield. Photo by Henry Epp for NEPR This February, the tribes announced they had chosen a site off Interstate 91 in East Windsor — just 14 miles south of the MGM casino in Springfield. East Windsor is on board, but the tribes need a new law to allow them to operate the casino. And proposals are currently tied up in the state legislature. Whether the East Windsor casino goes forward or not, the big question for the city of Springfield is whether the massive development will give the city the economic boost it sorely needs. We visit the MGM construction site and chat with MGM Springfield president Mike Mathis, as well as city councilor and casino booster Melvin Edwards. For a more critical perspective, we sit down with Mike Dobbs, managing editor of the local newspaper The Reminder, who has been covering the Springfield project over the years; and WNPR business editor Harriet Jones, who covers the Connecticut casino proposal. The Other NEXT John Dankosky interviews host Elaine Bourhan on the set of New England’s Xtrordinary Talent at the studios of Focus Springfield. Photo courtesy of Focus Springfield Just northwest of the casino site, a friendly storefront houses the local cable access TV station, Focus Springfield. MGM now owns the building, and Focus is getting evicted. They have to move by November. It just so happens that one of the shows that tapes there is also called NEXT. In their case, it stands for “New England’s Xtrodinary Talent.” (In our case, if you’ve been wondering, it doesn’t stand for anything.) Host Elaine Bourhan, who goes by Elaine B, is a local musician who also scouts talent for the show. We speak with her about some of her favorite guests on the program. Below: interviews and a performance by Western Massachusetts locals Charles Neville and son Khalif Neville on New England’s Xtrodinary Talent. While we were on set, Elaine also interviewed us! We’ll let you know when that’s posted. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Shanoon Dooling, Emily Corwin, Kathleen Masterson, Michael Dobbs, Harriet Jones Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and hidden talents to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we have updates from the front lines of the battle over immigration policy. An African immigrant tries to cross into Quebec, nearly freezing to death in the process, and a Syrian family just barely skirts a travel ban to come to Connecticut. We also try and answer two tricky questions: Why is Vermont so very white, and whatever happened to Boston’s Black renaissance? Plus, the climate’s getting warmer. Can we start our seedlings yet? Members of the Boston Unit of the Federal Theater Project. A program of the New Deal, the FTP supplied federal funding to provide relief to professional artists during the Great Depression. Photo courtesy of the Mason/Quarles Collection for Black Bostonians and the Politics of Culture 1920 -1940 Frozen Out This sign marks the Canadian side of the border at one rural area where many people are crossing illegally into Canada. Photo by Kathleen Masterson for NENC Many recent immigrants living in the U.S. are scared that their claims for asylum won’t have a fair hearing by the Trump administration. Hundreds  are fleeing to Canada. As we’ve reported, many migrants are heading straight to illegal border crossings, knowingly walking into arrest, for a chance to make their claims in Canada. This week, we have the story of a man who was turned away at an official border checkpoint, but tried to make it into Canada anyway, with disastrous consequences. From Vermont Public Radio, Kathleen Masterson reports. If the last few months has been confusing and concerning to those seeking asylum here, it's also thrown the process of resettling refugees into chaos. Courts have twice blocked the administration’s executive orders imposing a travel ban on visitors from a group of majority Muslim countries. The judge’s orders — at least temporarily — lift a cap on refugees. Mona’s tea service was one of the only non-essential items she was able to pack when she left Jordan last month. She serves tea and brownies to guests in her new apartment. Photo by Kaari Pitkin for WNYC The Connecticut-based nonprofit resettlement group IRIS said this week that new refugee arrivals are being booked, at least through April 28, although that's subject to change. WNYC reporter Kaari Pitkin has been following the story of one family that just arrived in Connecticut. Read and listen to more immigration stories from the New England News Collaborative series Facing Change. And if you’re in the area, join us Monday for our next discussion of what makes a sanctuary city at Gateway Community College in New Haven, Connecticut, moderated by NEXT host John Dankosky and WSHU reporter Cassandra Basler.  The event starts at 5:30 pm and is free and open to the public. Find out more. #VermontSoWhite A mural in a meeting room at the town offices in Hartford, Vermont portrays familiar images of the “typical” Vermonter. Photo by Angela Evancie for VPR Last week we learned about the tradition of town meeting in Vermont, where residents hash out their differences to pass a budget and come up with local laws. But one thing most town meeting attendees, and most Vermonters, have in common is skin color. As of the 2010 census, the state was over 95 percent white. The whiteness of northern New England states is a reality many of us take for granted. Not so Brave Little State, the podcast from Vermont Public Radio that digs deep to answer listeners' questions about the Green Mountain State. Their most recent episode takes up the question “Why is Vermont so overwhelmingly white, and how does that affect all of us?” We’re thrilled to welcome Brave Little State host Angela Evancie back to NEXT to discuss her findings. (We highly recommend you listen to Angela’s original podcast episode, too.) Black Bostonians From the Jazz Age to the New Deal A staging of the play “Antar of Araby” by Maud Cuney Hare, 1930. Courtesy of Thelma Thorton Wynn for Black Bostonians and the Politics of Culture 1920-1940. Today, African Americans make up about 28 percent of Boston's population. But in the 1920s and ’30s, they were only about three percent. Opportunities to gain political power were limited, but black Bostonians left their mark through the arts. It's a period that mirrored the Harlem Renaissance in New York, but had its own distinctly Boston flavor. This period had also been largely overlooked, until now. Our guest Lorraine Elena Roses is the author of the new book Black Bostonians and the Politics of Culture 1920 -1940. Is It Spring Yet? Those early hints of spring can call to a gardener like a siren song. Yet the urge to get one's seeds into dirt can be dangerous: most seedlings won't survive a single frost. To help with that, gardeners use 30-year averages that predict when the last frost will probably occur. The thing is, in New England, climate change has temperatures rising relatively quickly. That left New Hampshire Public Radio reporter Emily Corwin with a question. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Kathleen Masterson, Kaari Pitkin, Angela Evancie, and Rebecca Sananes Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and anecdotes to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With plenty of fresh powder on the ground, we look at how climate change is changing our region’s ski industry; and learn why the sport now comes with such a high price tag. We also hear about how Providence, Rhode Island is grappling with being a “sanctuary city.” And we get inside the unique, intensely democratic process that is a New England town meeting. A view from Bigrock Mountain Ski Area in Mars Hill, in northern Maine. Climate scientists say ski resorts in northern New England may benefit from an increase in visitors as climate change shortens the ski season to the south. Photo by Martin Cathrae via Flickr Upscale, Downhill The late-winter nor’easter that dumped snow across New England on Tuesday and Wednesday was a welcome sight to the region's ski areas, which have been seeing shortening ski seasons in the past decade, due to climate change. According to University of Waterloo climate scientist Daniel Scott, no ski area in southern New England will remain profitable after 2040. As Maine Public Radio’s Fred Bever reports, ski areas in northern New England could benefit. A hand-painted sign hangs on the wall at the Veterans Memorial Recreation Area in Franklin, New Hampshire. Photo courtesy of NHPR. Skiing is a pricey hobby. A lift ticket at Sugarloaf in Maine will run you $95. At Stowe in Vermont, it’s $124 for the day. Even at Ski Sundown, a small mountain in Connecticut, a ticket on a Saturday or Sunday costs $60. But at Veterans Memorial Ski Area in Franklin, New Hampshire, admission is just $20. Instead of a chair lift, there's a metal bar that goes behind the thighs, attached to a rope that pulls skiers up the 230-foot hill. Once upon a time, these no-frills ski areas were the rule in New England, rather than the exception. So what happened? The team at New Hampshire Public Radio’s podcast Outside/In went to Franklin to figure out how skiing “got fancy.” For more fun on the slopes, listen to the full Outside/In episode, “Gnar Pow.” Whose Sanctuary is it Anyway? Guests at Rhode Island Public Radio’s “Policy and Pinot” discussion on March 9. From left: Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, immigration law professor Deborah Gonzalez, Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare, RI Republican National Committeewoman Lee An Sennick, and NEXT host John Dankosky. Photo by Kristen Gourlay for RIPR President Donald Trump has pledged to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities — jurisdictions that shield undocumented residents from federal immigration officials, mainly by refusing to comply with requests for local law enforcement to help enforce immigration law. Under Trump's January 25 executive order, these cities could lose federal funding. The president and his supporters say the order is an attempt to improve public safety. But advocates claim that people living in the United States without documentation are more often victims of crime. They say that when police cooperate with federal immigration officials, community trust is eroded. Earlier this month, NEXT host John Dankosky moderated a forum about sanctuary cities in Providence, Rhode Island; where Mayor Jorge Elorza, like other urban mayors, has voiced open opposition to the order. Elorza and other panelists debated where local law enforcement ends and federal law enforcement begins. Listen to the full event audio from Rhode Island Public Radio. Explore stories about immigration in New England from the New England News Collaborative series Facing Change. “We are the Government” This past Tuesday was Town Meeting Day in New Hampshire. And while some towns rescheduled because of the big winter storm, New Hampshire’s Secretary of State there said the law requires towns to hold their local elections on the second Tuesday in March, regardless of the weather. In Newmarket, school board candidates and many voters toughed it out. New Hampshire Public Radio's Jason Moon reports. Candidates and survivors braved the elements Tuesday in New Market, NH. Photo by Jason Moon for NHPR. While residents of towns like Newmarket cast ballots, other New England towns hold traditional town meetings. That’s when citizens gather in a church or school gym to debate, deliberate and ultimately vote on a budget, and other municipal business. Town meeting is a tradition unique to New England in the United States, and goes back to colonial times. But an increasing number of towns are giving up the public debate in favor of a ballot-based system. So, is the tradition worth preserving? On Vermont’s Town Meeting Day, Vermont Public Radio's Howard Weiss-Tisman sat in on a town meeting where the future of town meeting was up for debate. Meeting-goers in Tunbridge, Vermont cast paper ballots in a non-binding vote over whether to oppose a new residential development. Depending on town rules, votes can also be cast verbally or by a show of hands. Photo by Rebecca Sananes for VPR. So what’s so special about town meeting, and just how much power do attendees hold? For answers, we’re joined by Susan Clark, author of All Those in Favor: Rediscovering the Secrets of Town Meeting and Community, and Slow Democracy. Clark serves as moderator at her town meeting in Middlesex, Vermont. In Woodstock, NH, chickens in the road are no laughing matter. Photo by Angela N. via Flickr. And in Woodstock, New Hampshire, population 1,400, the main issue of town meeting this year was trespassing… by chickens. There's no state law regarding the caging of fowl in New Hampshire, and some residents’ chickens have been roaming onto neighbors' property, and even blocking traffic. How was the chicken fight resolved? No spoilers: you’ll just have to listen. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Fred Bever, Sam Evans-Brown, Maureen McMurray, Jimmy Gutierrez, Jason Moon, and Howard Weiss-Tisman Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Special thanks this week to Dekama Welch. Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and town meeting minutes to next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week: more stores from our series Facing Change, about shifting demographics in New England, and the impact of immigration. A reporter crosses the border to find those leaving the U.S. to seek asylum in Quebec, and we go to prep school to meet a pair of teenage refugees. We meet people trying to build political power in the region’s growing Muslim community, and visit a Spanish-language bookstore that’s open for just five more weeks. A Canadian police officer offers a hand to a migrant crossing the U.S.-Canada border near Champlain, New York. Photo by Kathleen Masterson for VPR Heading North At the Royal Canadian Mounted Police communications center in Montreal, technicians monitor live-camera screens of popular illegal border crossings. If people cross into Canada, command control can alert patrolling police. Photo by Kathleen Masterson for VPR The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are reporting surges in illegal crossings in Canada in recent months. Officials say Quebec has seen the highest influx of people seeking asylum, with many crossing in remote, snowy areas west of Lake Champlain. One illegal border crossing area has become so popular among immigrants seeking asylum that all taxis in Champlain, New York, know it by name: Roxham Road. Vermont Public Radio reporter Kathleen Masterson visited Roxham Road, and found migrants knowingly crossing into police arrest on the Canadian side. Back in Episode 21 we shared the story of the town of Rutland, Vermont, where, at the end of last year, residents were busily preparing for 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Ghena and Ayman Alsalloumi stand on the St. Johnsbury campus on a snowy January day. Their family is from Homs, Syria — a city torn apart by civil war. Photo by Ryan Caron King for NENC President Trump's immigration orders have thrown plans like that into doubt. But WSHU’s Cassandra Basler found one Vermont prep school that's trying their own approach to bring in those fleeing from the war: offering scholarships to refugees already living in the U.S. Cassandra followed teenagers Ayman and Ghena Alsalloumi from the Connecticut shoreline to the snowy north. Below, watch a video of Ayman and Ghena at St. Johnsbury Academy. A Time to Run for Office Somali refugee Deeqo Jibril is running for Boston City Council. Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR As more Muslim immigrants come to New England, they're pushing for a seat at the political table. As WBUR's Shannon Dooling found, a nonprofit based in Cambridge, Massachusetts is trying to jump-start the effort, encouraging Muslims across the country to run for political office. The group, called Jetpac, trains potential candidates regardless of party affiliation with the goal of increasing civic engagement within Muslim communities. On right, Portland city counselor Pious Ali, one of the first African-born Muslims to hold public office in Maine. Photo by Ryan Caron King for NENC In Portland, Maine, there's a Muslim politician who's already gained substantial political clout. A newly-elected city counselor, he’s working to get out the vote. Maine Public Radio’s Fred Bever introduces us to Pious Ali. Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong. Photo by Tom Hines, courtesy of Ocean Vuong. “I always had the sense that I was a perpetual trespasser, a guest. And in a way, we were.” – Ocean Vuong More than a million Vietnamese came to the U.S. as refugees in the years after their civil war ended. More than 65 thousand Vietnamese make New England home. Now another massive wave — dislocated Syrians — are seeking safety. It is unclear just how many will be allowed into the U.S. under the Trump administration. These two very different cultures share a common experience. New England Public Radio’s Jill Kaufman shares a profile of Ocean Vuong, a Vietnamese poet from Hartford, Connecticut who is reaching out to the new refugees. Fabric and Paper American Roots top stitcher Duaa Khalifa. Photo by Patty Wight for Maine Public In Portland Wednesday, Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree held a roundtable with business leaders to highlight the role of  immigration in Maine's economy. For the venue, Pingree chose a small made-in-the-U.S. clothing company called American Roots, which employs mostly immigrants. Maine Public Radio's Patty Wight visited in October 2016, when the company was about a year old. Artist Pablo Helguera said that despite continuing growth in the U.S. Latino population, access to books in Spanish is disappearing. That’s the impetus behind a traveling bookstore/art installation that’s making it’s temporary home in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood. WBUR’s Simón Rios paid a visit. Project Urbano Director Stella Aguirre McGregor standing in the middle of the current exhibition Librería Donceles, a participatory art project consisting of a traveling bookstore of more than 10,000 used books in Spanish. Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Kathleen Masterson, Cassandra Basler, Shannon Dooling, Fred Bever, Jill Kaufman, Patty Wight and Simón Rios Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon Get all the NEXT episodes. Find all of the stories from the New England News Collaborative’s Facing Change series. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and tell us how demographics are changing in your community at next@wnpr.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.