This week’s crop was looking a little thin until I visited The Manchester Journal’s website and found not one, not two, but three stories worthy of note. One of them was actually published on September 4, and I managed to miss it last time. But it remains relevant, and The Journal has since published a meaningful follow-up.

The Journal is one of three southern Vermont newspapers owned by Paul Belogour, an international financier type who originally hails from Belarus, one of the most corrupt and press-unfriendly dictatorships this side of Kim Jong Un. His 2021 acquisition of The Journal, The Bennington Banner and The Brattleboro Reformer raised many an eyebrow at the time, including mine. So far his stewardship seems to be fairly benign, at least by contemporary oligarchical standards. (Although I doubt that The Reformer will be doing any more overviews of Belogour’s wide-ranging acquisitions like it did before he bought the papers.) And this week, at least, one of his outlets occupies the top spot in Vermont’s incredible shrinking news pantheon.

ICE detainee whisked out of state. The Journal’s Cherise Forbes and Michael Albans were first to report that Davona Williams, the Manchester resident seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last month, had been secretly moved to the North Lake Processing Center in rural Michigan. This story ought to reverberate in Montpelier’s corridors of power; last spring, when leading lawmakers were looking to limit Vermont’s cooperation slash complicity in the ICE crackdown, the Scott administration successfully argued that people detained in Vermont were better off in Vermont prisons than elsewhere. Huh, turns out that ICE can move people around willy-nilly no matter where they live or where they were first detained. Which puts us back on the “complicity” side of the ledger.

There’s also a fascinating little Vermont connection with the North Lake facility itself, but that’s beyond the remit of this post.

A detainee’s family struggles with uncertainty and fear. The same two reporters, their bylines reversed this time, produced a really thorough, devastating account of the aftermath of an ICE detention. They interviewed Williams’ boyfriend Nigel Briscoe, who talked of witnessing Williams’ arrest and the difficulties he’s had in getting any information about her status. And while the reporters were there, Williams called Briscoe, and they conducted a very brief interview. It was just outstanding reporting that showed how Trump’s crackdown does tremendous damage to everyone it touches.

Made me wonder why Digger, or any other “major” outlet, haven’t bothered to do the same. This isn’t just a local story; it shines a harsh spotlight on state and federal policy. Guys?

The depth of Vermont’s housing crisis. We’re not done with The Manchester Journal just yet. It also published a piece by my GNAT-TV acquaintance Andrew Mckeever reporting on setbacks for two proposed housing developments in Manchester. Both would provide sorely-needed affordable housing in a hugely unaffordable community, and it’s now unclear if either of them will ever be built. It’s a story I’ve seen over and over again across the state, and it makes me wonder if we will ever come close to solving this crisis. Strike that: It makes me think we won’t.

Local school officials try to pre-empt the education reform effort. Patrick Bilow of The News & Citizen (well, the story also appeared in The Stowe Reporter) tells of local school leaders seeking to enact a merger their voters once dissolved. Seven years ago, the Stowe and Elmore-Morristown school boards decided to merge. Four years ago, their voters rejected the move. Now, the boards are pursuing the idea afresh, because they fear that statewide school consolidation will produce an even worse result. They’ve sent a nonbinding resolution to the state’s could-only-have-been-named-by-bureaucrats School District Redistricting Task Force, asking it to merge the two districts. To them, it’s the least bad outcome. Which illustrates the potential for confusion and anger next year, when the Legislature tries to draw new district boundaries for the entire state. Buckle your seat belts, folks.

Chronicling Vermont’s covered bridges. Phill Gatenby is a native of England who moved from Florida to Vermont a bit more than a year ago, and quickly became enchanted with our covered bridges. Now, a lot of people make a hobby of visiting every covered bridge they can find. (I used to take such trips with my late mother.) Gatenby took it a big step further; he went to his local community and spent weeks learning to shoot videos, and then he launched a series of thorough, respectful portraits of each bridge. His story is told by Tim Calabro of The White River Valley Herald; it was reposted over the weekend by VTDigger, but please give The Herald your click.

Gatenby has visited more than one-third of Vermont’s 100 covered bridges; as far as I can tell, he’s up to 37 episodes so far, which is an impressive pace for a guy with a full-time job that isn’t in media production. The latest episode covers the Cilley Bridge in Tunbridge. Gatenby begins each video with his approach, shooting through the windshield of his car. The opening scene of his second video, of the Creamery Bridge in Brattleboro, is simply a work of art: He’s driving in wintertime, and the bridge slowly makes its appearance through the falling snow.

A Shelburne community fixture gets a fitting remembrance. Those who drive down Shelburne Road are aware that the area surrounding the Dutch Mill Diner is a construction zone. The old motel is gone, and new housing is being built. The plan involves a new access street, and the developers asked the Bissonette family for input on naming the street. As The Shelburne News’ Briana Brady reports, the street will be called James Way in honor of the late Jamie Bissonnette, who founded the diner in 1968 and operated it until his death last winter.

“My dad was selfless,” Jamie’s son Michael told Brady. “He did everything for everyone else. Didn’t ask for a lot of credit, had a lot of fun doing it.” Michael was seven years old when the Dutch Mill opened; he now runs the operation. And every day when he shows up to work, he’ll see a small reminder of his dad on the nearby street sign.