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The state employees union and administration officials agree that there's a staffing crisis in Vermont's prisons. They're not on the same page when it comes to how to solve it.

Vermont lawmakers are considering postponing or even eliminating some of their key spending priorities as they attempt to gird next year’s state budget against potentially drastic cuts in federal funding.

That’s as the state recognition law faces increasingly vocal criticism from the only two federally recognized Western Abenaki Nations, which say Vermont has legitimized people who haven’t adequately demonstrated their Abenaki heritage.

Most of Lt. Gov. John Rodgers� job is presiding over the Vermont Senate. But that's not all Rodgers has been up to. Last month he was the only Republican to speak at a protest on the Statehouse lawn against the Trump administration, and he's testified to lawmakers in favor of cannabis reform laws.

Simply taxing second homes at a higher rate is not so simple, in part because Vermont currently has no system for categorizing vacation homes. But lawmakers are trying to change that � with the House's sweeping education reform bill.

"I don't believe we can live in chaos for the next three and a half years," Vermont's Republican governor said on Vermont Edition.

The legislation would make abortion medication accessible online, broaden which health care service advertising is regulated by consumer protection law, and add privacy options for providers of reproductive and gender-affirming care.

Developers are cheering the so-called CHIP program, which would finance infrastructure to support development, including in towns that weren’t able to take advantage of similar options in the past.

The proposed Burlington charter change would ban guns in businesses that serve alcohol. The final vote from the Senate is scheduled for Friday.

Rodgers, the only statewide official in the country who has a cannabis cultivator license, is urging his Senate colleagues to make some major changes to a cannabis bill that passed the House last month.