Richmond neurologist Andy Solomon and his family had participated in marches in Washington, D.C. and Montpelier, called their elected officials, and tried to find as many ways as possible in recent weeks to protest President Donald Trump's administration.

They were contemplating what to do next when Solomon saw a report from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that left him aghast.

Fadwa Alaoui, a Moroccan-born Canadian citizen who is Muslim, her two children and an adult cousin were turned away at the border last week as they tried to go on a shopping trip to Burlington. Alaoui's parents live in Chicago, and she'd visited the U.S. on several occasions previously. But American border guards inspected her cellphone, quizzed her about Trump and her faith — and then wouldn't allow her in the country after waiting four hours to enter Highgate Springs, she told the CBC.

"He said, 'Do you practice? Which mosque do you go to?" she told the news outlet. "What is the name of the imam? How often do you go to the mosque? What kind of discussions do you hear in the mosque? Does the imam talk to you directly?'"

Gov. Phil Scott has chosen Rebecca Holcombe to stay on as his education secretary.

Holcombe, who was appointed by former governor Peter Shumlin, has led the agency since January 2014. She has company as a Shumlin holdover; Republicans have been critical of Scott for keeping a number of his Democratic predecessor’s appointees.

Holcombe’s appointment completes Scott’s cabinet. The governor selects an education secretary from three candidates submitted to him by the State Board of Education, which makes for a slower process. The state doesn’t disclose the unsuccessful applicants’ names.

So far during her tenure, Holcombe has overseen the ongoing school district mergers prompted by Act 46. Her new boss is proposing drastic and controversial changes to the state’s education funding system. His proposal — much of which has already been rejected by the legislature — would require school districts to level-fund their budgets and reallocate money from K-12 education to prekindergarten and higher education.

Chances are, unless you work at a school or took one of your precious vacation days, you got up this morning, dug your way out of 11-plus inches of fresh snow and went to work.

But if you are from out of state and were in Vermont to ski or snowmobile over the weekend, Gov. Phil Scott wants you to take a “powder day.”

He didn’t come out and say so, but the underlying presumption is that employers of out-of-state visitors are supposed to give them a bonus day off because it snowed in Vermont in winter.

“I’ve proclaimed Monday an official powder day,” Scott said in a statement issued Sunday night. “And, while I can’t grant official pardons out of state, I certainly hope all will be granted a ‘snow day’ pardon. Visitors can feel free to tell their boss Vermont’s governor asked them to stay.”

Vermonters, meanwhile, are not included in the “declaration.” So just keep toiling away at your job and ignore any thoughts of skiing through fresh powder.

The somewhat whimsical declaration was meant to draw attention to the fact that the skiing will be about as good today as Vermont has seen in two years, maybe longer.

The governor wants out-of-staters to stay, eat and buy another day’s lift ticket because that’d be good for Vermont’s economy. Never mind the economy of the state or province they came from.

It’s a curious suggestion from a governor who speaks often of the value of a strong work ethic.

City officials want to use a former Burlington College dorm as housing for the homeless.

The Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity would operate the “sober house” facility for at least 13 people at the Stone House on North Avenue. The building has been empty since February 2016, when the city took ownership as Burlington College struggled to stay afloat.

The college shut down for good months later and “the building was abandoned and subject to vandalism, break-ins and trespassing during the early summer of 2016,” according to a memo on the proposal that’s been submitted to the Burlington Board of Finance and City Council.

The city would give CVOEO use of the space for free under a proposed two-year lease. The Board of Finance was scheduled to discuss the proposal Monday evening at a meeting that has since been canceled and rescheduled for February 27. The plan would also require approval from the city council and zoning permits from the Development Review Board.

Legislative action began Friday on a bill that would bar local law enforcement agencies from taking an active role in President Donald Trump’s executive orders on immigration enforcement.

Gov. Phil Scott has rejected Trump’s request that state and local law enforcement assist in the federal crackdown. Senate bill 79 would bar local authorities from making their own arrangements with the feds.

The bill received its first hearing at a joint meeting of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, which heard largely positive testimony with a couple of caveats. No votes were taken; another hearing is scheduled for next week.

“This bill creates consistency and transparency,” said Attorney General T.J. Donovan. “It draws a bright line, complying with federal law while protecting the rights of Vermonters.” Donovan is a member of the governor’s civil rights cabinet, which formulated the legislation.

A pair of Northeast Kingdom lawmakers, Rep. Gary Viens (R-Newport) and Rep. Janssen Willhoit (R-St. Johnsbury), were concerned with the potential for harming relationships between local and federal agencies. In the Kingdom, Willhoit noted, local law enforcement is thin on the ground, and the Border Patrol is an invaluable partner. Viens and Willhoit were reassured by Public Safety Commissioner Tom Anderson.

“My overriding concern in examining this bill was to protect those partnerships,” Anderson said. “That’s why I attempted to draw it as narrowly as possible.”

Indeed, the bill is narrowly drawn. It addresses one very specific aspect of the Trump orders: the request for assistance from state and local law enforcement.
Even as lawmakers act, the limits of the state’s power have been on display at the Canadian border, where five Canadians of Moroccan descent have been denied entry into the U.S.

The current situation also brings to mind the Border Patrol’s claim that it can stop and search anyone within 100 miles of the Canadian border — an area that includes more than 90 percent of Vermont’s population. As recently as 2014, the Border Patrol mulled establishment of a permanent checkpoint on I-91 in the Upper Valley, where it had frequently set up temporary checkpoints.

A pair of concerns went unanswered at the S.79 hearing.

Rep. Selene Colburn (P-Burlington) noted that the bill gives the governor sole authority to block a federal and local agreement, but what about the reverse? “Could the governor mandate that a local jurisdiction should enter into a federal agreement?” she inquired.

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Sears (D-Bennington), the primary sponsor of S.79, indicated that the question would be addressed when the bill undergoes “mark-up,” the fine-tuning process that occurs before a committee vote.

The other concern came from a pair of county sheriffs — Roger Marcoux Jr. of Lamoille and Bill Bohnyak of Orange. They pointed to a section of S.79 that barred local agencies from creating databases that might be used by the feds in immigration enforcement, and questioned whether it was at odds with a state requirement that local law enforcement collect race-based data on traffic stops.

That mandate was part of an effort to limit bias in law enforcement. Marcoux and Bohnyak mulled the “unintended consequence” of the requirement. “We could be inadvertently setting up a registry with the race data,” Marcoux noted.

Bohnyak sees S.79 as an opportunity to overturn the mandate. “I was against collecting the data, I was forced to do it and I did it,” he said. “And now, when they start pushing with the immigration, they say, ‘Stop, we’re not going to create [databases for the feds].’ So let’s just not do it at all.”

Marcoux favors the race data initiative, but he says there’s a potential conflict with S.79. Members of the two committees promised to consider their concerns.

Aside from the questions from Colburn and the sheriffs, there was broad consensus among committee members that the bill will move forward quickly. Members of both parties agree on the merits of S.79 as, if nothing else, a symbolic stand against what Scott has called “federal overreach.”

It’s likely to become law before too long, and it may have precious little impact. Marcoux noted that there’s little interest among his colleagues in helping federal authorities; they have more than enough on their own plates.

A routine budget hearing before a Senate committee Thursday was sidelined by one seemingly intractable problem: what to do about the state’s troubled, creaky, under-resourced mental health care system. All those assembled were in agreement on one point: none of them have any idea how to fix the damn thing.

Human Services Secretary Al Gobeille provided testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee on his agency’s fiscal year 2018 budget and got all the way to the seventh chart in his prepared presentation before the hearing stalled.

The chart showed trends in state funding for “Designated Agencies and Specialized Service Agencies,” which are nonprofit organizations that provide mental health, substance abuse and disability-related services under contract with the state of Vermont. They are generally referred to as “designated agencies.”

It was hard not to notice the contrast.

The Statehouse's iconic Cedar Creek Room, redolent with the heritage of official Vermont, its walls dotted with portraits of dead white men, was filled Thursday morning with Vermonters of color — advocating for legislation but also wishing simply to be recognized.

"We are invisible," said Sha'an Mouliert of St. Johnsbury. "One of our missions is to ensure that our elected representatives can no longer not see us, can no longer not represent us. We are part of your constituency."

Or, in a phrase oft-repeated during a press conference, "I am Vermont too," a statement that people of color are Vermonters every bit as much as the flintiest son of Ethan Allen. "I Am Vermont Too" is the title of a related photo exhibit in the Statehouse cafeteria, featuring Vermonters of color holding handwritten messages revealing some of the small indignities they suffer in daily life, like strangers touching their curly hair or marveling at their ability to speak English.

Updated at 12:45 p.m., February 10, 2017, with a statement from Rebecca Kelley.

Gov. Phil Scott’s administration came out Thursday firmly against a marijuana legalization bill that has sparked interest in the House.

“We oppose this bill,” Vermont State Police Major Glenn Hall told the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning.

“We,” as it turns out, extends beyond the state police to the governor and his administration.

“We speak with one voice,” said Public Safety Commissioner Tom Anderson. “That’s what the governor stands for also.”

Hall's comments represent a shift from Scott's own. The newly elected Republican governor has not embraced legalization, but he hasn’t explicitly come out against it either.

Last week, Scott said, "I didn't say, 'Never.' I said, 'Not now,'" adding that he'd prefer legislators focus on economic issues. He also said that highway safety and protecting youths remain concerns.

Vermont’s governor, legislative leaders and attorney general are all singing the same tune: The state will not help the federal government carry out a new immigration order. Nor will it aid the feds in creating any kind of registries about Vermonters.

That’s the gist of a bill unveiled Thursday that both the House and Senate will start considering Friday.

It comes in response to executive orders from President Donald Trump. The orders are so wide-ranging that Vermont officials don’t know what to anticipate.

“Vermont will not be complacent, nor will Vermont be complicit in this federal overreach,” said Attorney General T.J. Donovan.

More people died of opiate overdoses in Vermont in 2016 than any other year, according to a Vermont Department of Health report released Wednesday.

The preliminary report shows that 105 people died from opiate overdoses, up from 75 in 2015. The finding, revealed by Barbara Cimaglio, deputy health commissioner, on Vermont Public Radio's "Vermont Edition" on Wednesday, confirmed Seven Days' recent report that opiates claimed a record number of Vermonters last year.

Cimaglio said that overdoses on prescription drugs such as oxycodone fell in 2016, continuing a recent trend. But heroin, which has widely varying levels of potency, and fentanyl, an opiate that can be 50 times as potent as heroin, are killing more people than ever before.

Fentanyl, a prescription drug that is also manufactured illicitly, was involved in 50 overdoses in 2016 — up from 29 in 2015 and 18 in 2014.