Updated at 2:07 p.m. on March 1, 2019.

Out on the ice of Shelburne Bay Thursday, past the fishing shanties and frozen-in-place moorings, a burned-out mass of metal resembled a leftover prop from the set of Mad Max: Fury Road.

It was no prop. But the refuse was, in a sense, futuristic: It was the remnants of a 2019 Tesla Model X that went up in flames Sunday on Lake Champlain.

Shelburne Fire Chief Jerry Ouimet said his department could do little when members responded around 8:15 p.m. that night. The blaze was hundreds of yards from the nearest access point at the Shelburne Bay Boat Ramp and, while the ice was thick, "It's nothing we're gonna throw a 50,000-pound fire truck on," he said.

Ouimet called in the Charlotte Fire Department, which responded with an ATV equipped with a portable pump and hose, but the electric-powered SUV was already beyond saving.

"There was no way we could get anything out there," Ouimet told Seven Days. "As a firefighter, I've never felt so helpless before."

The operator told police and firefighters that he'd been driving in South Burlington when he thought he hit a rock or big piece of ice on the road. The man stopped to check for damage and couldn't see anything, though he thought he smelled something "strange," according to Ouimet.
The driver, whose identity Ouimet did not know, then drove his Tesla onto the bay to go ice fishing. He was out of the car when he heard a hiss, and the $82,000 vehicle went up in flames.

The man had gotten a ride to shore by the time police and firefighters spoke with him, according to Ouimet.

"He seemed ... more in shock than anything," the fire chief said. "He was hoping we could do something, but when we told him it was out of our hands, he was a little distraught."

The U.S. Coast Guard also responded to the scene, according to Ouimet, and the authorities called the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department to report the incident. Ouimet said it'll be the driver's responsibility to get the husk of the car off the ice.

It was still out there Thursday morning, not far from where two ice fishermen had set up. Erick Wallace told Seven Days he'd assumed the burned mass was the remains of some kids' driftwood bonfire. Dave Steele said he'd heard about the car fire and was concerned that pollutants from it would leach into the lake.

The Shelburne police officer leading the probe has spoken with the owner, according to Sgt. Josh Flore, but the incident remains under investigation. To try to learn the cause of the fire, authorities will need to take a look at the burned shell of the car once it’s removed from the bay.

"There’s a lot that plays into this. When’s the last time you heard of someone driving a Tesla out on the lake?" Flore said. "I think everybody’s trying to figure out what happened. Unfortunately, we won’t have more of an idea until the car’s off the ice."

Flore declined to identify the owner, citing the incomplete report.

"Could the guy have been going ice fishing? Maybe, maybe not — who knows," Flore said. "And we won’t know the answer to that until the investigation is concluded and the officer can make a good, informed decision on the path he’ll take."

The incident has gotten attention online after someone posted about it on the Tesla Motors Club forum. The website Electrek later picked it up, as did Jalopnik and Popular Mechanics.

For good reason. Ouimet said the call was unique for his department.

"It was an interesting situation," he said. "That was a first for us."

The Vermont Senate advanced legislation Thursday that would raise the legal age for tobacco purchases, including e-cigarettes, to 21.

Sen. Debbie Ingram (D-Chittenden) said the bill was designed to reduce smoking rates, noting that most people don’t take up smoking after their 21st birthday.

“Only 5 percent of smokers smoking now started smoking after the age of 21,” Ingram said.

Less than five hours after he purchased a handgun last December, Andrew Black had died by suicide, his parents told the Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

In emotional testimony, Alyssa Black said that her 23-year-old son had appeared normal to clerks who had sold him a cup of coffee, a turkey sandwich, a Pepsi and a gun. In fact, she said, he’d been in the midst of a “fleeting, two-day-long self-pity fest” sparked by a social media post.

If only Andrew had been required to wait a certain period before buying the gun, father Rob Black told the committee, he would still be alive today.

The Essex family came to the Statehouse to advocate for legislation sponsored by Sen. Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden) that would require gun buyers to wait 48 hours between passing a background check and taking possession of a firearm. The bill would also require guns to be locked up when not in use.

In the months since they called for such a waiting period in Andrew’s obituary, the Essex family has been piecing together the final hours of his life, using social media history, receipts, background check information and recordings he made on his phone.

Updated on March 1, 2019.

Not so fast.

A group of six Queen City residents is appealing to the Supreme Court last week's Public Utility Commission decision to green light the sale of Burlington Telecom. The group members claim that the City of Burlington still owes its taxpayers $16.9 million "that was improperly invested in BT." The sale to Schurz Communications doesn't recoup all that money, the group contends.

In its 51-page decision, the PUC ruled that, while the group's claim had merit, the commission did not have the authority to force the city to pay up.

After nearly losing his U.S. House seat in the 1994 election, Bernie Sanders did something he'd never done before: He hired a Washington, D.C., political consultant to help steer his 1996 reelection campaign.

The operative, Tad Devine, has worked in nearly every presidential contest since Jimmy Carter's 1980 reelection bid. He became a key player on Sanders' most important campaigns, returning in 2006 to help the Vermonter win an open seat in the U.S. Senate and a decade later to serve as a senior strategist and ad man for Sanders' 2016 presidential bid.

"He has the capacity to run a serious campaign for president," Devine told Seven Days in December 2013, predicting that Sanders would inspire hundreds of thousands of small-dollar donors to contribute a collective $50 million. By the time the New Hampshire primary rolled around, he'd raised twice that.

On Tuesday — a week after Sanders launched his second White House run — Devine and his two business partners, Mark Longabaugh and Julian Mulvey, announced that they were severing ties with the fledgling campaign. "We are leaving because we believe that Sen. Sanders deserves to have media consultants who share his creative vision for the campaign," they said in a written statement.

Michael Cohen told U.S. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) Wednesday that then-presidential candidate Donald Trump knew in advance of the July 2016 WikiLeaks release of internal emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee's computer system.

Welch, a member of the U.S. House Oversight Committee, got five minutes to question Cohen during a hearing that riveted the nation. Welch focused on the emails and Trump's foreknowledge of their release. Cohen testified that on July 18 or 19, 2016, he was in Trump's office when Trump's assistant said, "Roger is on line one."

She meant Roger Stone, longtime conservative operative and dirty trickster. Trump put the call on speakerphone, Cohen testified.

"[Stone] said, 'Mr. Trump, I just want to let you know that I just got off the phone with [WikiLeaks founder] Julian Assange, and in a couple of days there's going to be a massive dump of emails that's going to severely hurt the Clinton campaign,'" Cohen said.

Senate lawmakers advanced a proposal Tuesday that would ban campaign contributions made directly by corporations to political candidates or parties. Under the legislation, corporate money could still find its way into Vermont’s elections, but it would have to move through a political action committee first.

The Senate Government Operations Committee approved the bill in a 4–1 vote Tuesday afternoon, with only Sen. Brian Collamore (R-Rutland) opposing it. The full Senate is likely to take it up later this week.

The legislation would allow individuals, PACs and political parties to contribute directly to candidates and parties, but it would bar private companies, nonprofit organizations, trade associations and labor unions from doing so. Sen. Anthony Pollina (P/D-Washington) sponsored the legislation in an effort to limit corporate influence in politics and increase transparency in campaign financing.

When news broke last week that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft had been arrested and charged with two counts of solicitation of prostitution at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa, in Jupiter, Fla., I felt a strong sense of déjà vu.

On June 5, 2013, Seven Days published my story "Unhappy Endings: Inside Vermont's Asian Sex Market." The exposé followed months of undercover work involving a half dozen Chittenden County "massage parlors." Most of these establishments had been in business for years. They operated in plain sight, advertised online and in local newspapers, and were largely known to Vermont's law enforcement agencies. 

The Vermont Senate voted Tuesday to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024. If the House follows suit, the stage will be set for a veto showdown between the legislature and Gov. Phil Scott, who vetoed similar legislation last year.

The Senate passed the bill by voice vote Tuesday morning, but it appears to have support from a veto-proof majority. A procedural measure cleared the Senate last Friday on a vote of 19 to 8, with three supporters absent.

Scott and many legislative Republicans oppose the bill, arguing that increased payroll costs for businesses could lead to job cuts and price inflation. Proponents of the bill say it would boost the state’s economy by giving low-income Vermonters more money to spend, making up for the increased costs.

Before voting against the bill on the Senate floor Tuesday, Sen. Corey Parent (R-Franklin) pointed to a report from the legislative Joint Fiscal Office which found that job losses in the state could amount to 3,000 by 2040 as a result of the increased minimum wage. Legislative economists also found the proposal could shrink the state’s gross domestic product, Parent said.

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger has dipped into his political action committee's funds to advocate for yes votes on Town Meeting Day ballot items.

The group, Partnership for Burlington's Future, spent nearly $3,000 on mailers and online advertising to encourage voters to approve initiatives to expand the downtown improvement district, approve the budget, agree to permit reform, and eliminate the business personal property tax. That's according to campaign finance reports that were due on Saturday, the last deadline before the March 5 vote.

Two real estate developers, Dave Farrington and Ernie Pomerleau, each contributed $1,000 to the effort. Branding and marketing company Select Design gave $1,500.

Another PAC, Neighbors 4 a Better BTV, is also advocating for a 'yes' vote. Their efforts were not as well financed; the group spent $260.