The Deeper Dig

Vermont cities and towns are deciding whether to join broad-ranging national litigation against companies accused of fueling the opioid crisis. But as Vermonters weigh their options alongside towns across the country, the stakes for local governments aren’t totally clear.

Guests: Mark Latham (Vermont Law School), TJ Donovan (Vermont Attorney General), Stuart Hurd (Bennington Town Manager), David Allaire (Rutland City Mayor)

A legislative task force is thinking about how Vermont should regulate the development of artificial intelligence. But no matter what they decide, groups around the state are already integrating the technology into what they do.

Guests: Bruce Duncan (Terasem Movement Foundation), Grace Elletson (VTDigger), Bina48

While Vermont leaders tie themselves in knots trying to draw new people to the state, a group of Amish families has quietly left Pennsylvania and Ohio to build a new community in the Northeast Kingdom.

Guests: Molly Veysey (Old Stone House Museum), Dan McClure (Century 21 Farm & Forest), Anne Wallace Allen (VTDigger)

The Trump administration has announced a tentative deal with China that would delay new tariffs on imported goods. But one Vermont customs broker estimates that by the end of this year, businesses across the state will have already lost half a billion dollars due to the trade war.

Guests: Ben Clark (Ann Clark Cookie Cutters), Jake Holzscheiter (A.N. Deringer), Anne Wallace Allen (VTDigger).

The former U.S. diplomat and Vermont politician, who's worked with Kurdish populations for decades, says he’s perplexed by President Trump’s motivation to greenlight Turkish strikes in northern Syria.

We’ve known for a while that the state’s population is stagnating. But new data compiled by VTDigger shows us exactly where Vermonters are going — whether they’re leaving the state or migrating within its borders. Their reasons for moving, though, are harder to pin down.

Guests: Nate Hibler, Jill Mudgett (historian/researcher), Paul Costello (Vermont Council on Rural Development), Erin Petenko (VTDigger)

Cyber weaponry has dramatically changed the national security landscape, New York Times correspondent David Sanger said last week during a live interview in Manchester with VTDigger editor Anne Galloway. "We have decided that it is so useful that like the drone, it will be used all the time," he said. "But we don't really have a real sense yet of how we're going to use it."

Listen to the full program, courtesy of GNAT-TV.

As news of the dealings between President Trump and the Ukraine developed this week, Vermont's members of Congress — and its Republican governor — all spoke out in favor of an impeachment inquiry. What happens next is less clear.

The Ripton-based author and activist, whose organization is helping to plan this week's Global Climate Strike, says much has changed since his landmark debut,The End of Nature, was first published in 1989: “What was then a series of warnings is now a series of bulletins from the front lines of what feels more and more like a kind of war."

The first two F-35s in the Vermont Air National Guard’s new fleet of fighter jets are scheduled to arrive in Burlington by next Friday. But a coalition of protesters who have fought the basing for years continue to press the military to change course.