SHELDON, Vt. — Vermont State Police are investigating a fire that left a Sheldon man dead.
Authorities say firefighters arriving at the home of 69-year-old Larry Gregoire on Sunday morning found heavy flames coming from an outbuilding. Authorities believe the fire spread from an outdoor wood boiler and that Gregoire had tried to enter the building to remove his truck and was overcome by heat and smoke.
The building and its contents were destroyed.
WORCESTER, Vt. — The Vermont Land Trust and the state of Vermont have finalized a deal to protect 6,500 acres of land in Worcester and Elmore.
The Vermont Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation has purchased conservation easements for two large parcels of forestland in what’s known as Worcester Woods.
The deal was completed with help of funding from the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Legacy Program.
The Land Trust says the Worcester Woods are part of an internationally significant wildlife corridor that connects the Green Mountains with forested lands that stretch to Nova Scotia in Canada.
MONTPELIER — Work on the 93-mile Lamoille Valley Rail Trail that will cross Vermont between Swanton and St. Johnsbury will be finished by the end of the year, according to state officials.
Joel Perrigo of the Vermont Agency of Transportation told lawmakers contractors have been chosen to complete construction of the remaining sections and all are due to wrap up this fall. Signs will be installed next year.
The Lamoille Valley Rail Trail is located on a rail line that was completed in 1877 and operated until the 1980s. In the 1990s the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers, the statewide snowmobile organization, proposed transforming the line, owned by the state, into a four-season recreation trail.
Two Burlington residents pleaded guilty to stealing an ATM containing about $23,000 in 2020, according to a press release from the Department of Justice.
Matthew Morgan and Ruebin Beard, both 52, were sentenced Friday in the U.S. District Court in Burlington following guilty pleas to a charge of bank larceny. Judge Christina Reiss sentenced Beard to 14 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. In November, Reiss sentenced Morgan to 20 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
The charges stem from the theft of an ATM from the University of Vermont campus in September 2020.
— Wire reports