A mostly white audience jeered as a group of black Saint Michael's College basketball players took a knee Saturday for the national anthem before an exhibition game with the University of Vermont.

Spectators shouted "stand up" and loudly booed as half a dozen athletes kneeled as the song played. The protest mimics that carried out by National Football League players who have sought to bring attention to racial injustice and oppression of black Americans by refusing to stand during the anthem. No UVM players appeared to kneel.

Not everyone in the crowd at UVM's Patrick Gym was critical, video footage from the scene shows. Some audience members clapped as the players kneeled, and yelled out in support of their right to protest. St. Michael's basketball coach Josh Meyer, who is white, took a knee, as did at least two other members of the coaching staff.

Vermont Superior Court Judge David Fenster made no decision Friday in a high-profile case that touches on campus safety and free speech rights.

Fenster said he needed time to further study the legal arguments made by the prosecution and defense to decide if there is probable cause to bring a disorderly conduct charge against Wesley Richter. The part-time University of Vermont student was overheard October 1 in a campus library talking on his cellphone, allegedly making threatening and disparaging remarks about African Americans.

Richter was cited to appear in court on the charges October 5, at which time his lawyer Ben Luna argued that there is no probable cause and that the charge should be dismissed.

Friday's hearing was to determine whether the case should go forward.

Richter sat impassively and did not speak during the 40-minute hearing in a Burlington courtroom as Luna argued that there was no threat. Furthermore, anything Richter said was protected speech under the First Amendment and the misdemeanor charge should be dropped, Luna said.

"Your honor, this case not only criminalizes speech, it criminalizes a telephone conversation between my client ... and his mother. My client was having a telephone conversation with his mother," Luna emphasized to the judge.

Richter's conversation in a library computer lab presented no imminent threat to anyone, Luna continued. The state's case is "predicated on hearsay. The hearsay in this case is unreliable," Luna said.

Assistant state's attorney Ryan Richards disagreed, and argued that Richter was making "extremely inflammatory statements" in a public place, which rose to the threshold of a threat under the state's disorderly conduct statute.

Richter's remarks were "so likely to cause panic" that they were akin to shouting "fire" in a crowded movie theater, which case law has held is not protected speech, Richards said.

Luna insisted, meanwhile, that the person who overheard the conversation, UVM student Colby Thompson, did not call 911 or immediately react — proof that it didn't seem like a grave threat. Thompson sent an email to a UVM staffer hours later, a delay that suggests it wasn't an urgent concern, Luna said.

"Colby Thompson basically yawned when he overheard what my client said," Luna said in characterizing the response.

Although Luna quoted from a police affidavit when it supported his argument, he asked the judge at the outset to prohibit the prosecution from doing the same because the document has not been publicly released. But both sides referred to it often. What Richter is alleged to have said was not divulged Friday.

Under Vermont law, a judge must find probable cause before an affidavit is made public, according to Fenster and the attorneys.
About six UVM students attended the hearing and said they supported the charge against Richter.

"I would at least like to see other people be less willing to make statements like this around campus. That's something at the bare minimum that I'd want,'' said Cat Lawrence, an 18-year-old first-year student from New York City.

UVM initially told the campus community that an unidentified person had made a threat against African Americans. For Lawrence, as a person of color, the warning was "terrifying," she said.

"Imagine walking around campus knowing someone said this," Lawrence said.

Rachel Goldstein, 22, a senior from New Jersey, also attended the hearing and said she wants charges filed against Richter.

"We want the law to come down on him," she said. "We want to send a strong message that this won't fly on our campus."

Retail outlets should be charging sales tax on products made from the hemp-extract cannabidiol, the Vermont Department of Taxes said in a recent ruling.

Ceres Natural Remedies, a CBD retailer with locations in Burlington and Brattleboro, queried the tax department about the issue after some initial confusion.

“We wanted to make sure we were doing everything in accordance with the law,” David Mickenberg, a lawyer representing Ceres, told Seven Days.

As a result, Mickenberg said the Ceres store will charge 7 percent state and local sales tax on its over-the-counter CBD products, which include pills, salves and patches designed to offer pain and anxiety relief.

Ceres was initially charging sales tax but paused after numerous complaints from customers who said that other retailers were not charging sales tax, according to Mickenberg. The company then sought the guidance of the Tax Department, he said.

Green State Gardener, another Burlington outlet that sells CBD products, has been charging sales tax on such items and will continue to do so, according to general manager Kelsy Raap.

There could be more landings next year on the helicopter pad at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.

Hospital executives are in contract negotiations to expand air ambulance service in 2018 through a collaboration with DHART, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Advanced Response Team. The deal could be completed within the month, according to Eileen Whalen, president and chief operating officer of UVM Medical Center.

The new service would focus on interhospital transport of critically ill patients in UVM's service area, which includes Massena, N.Y. — a three-hour drive from Burlington. That same journey takes about 35 minutes through the air, according to Whalen.

Updated at 1:05 p.m.

Former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Sue Minter has landed a job as president and CEO of Special Olympics Vermont.

The Waterbury Center resident, who lost the governor’s race last November to Republican Phil Scott, announced the news Thursday morning on her Facebook page.

“So excited to be launching my next adventure and joining the amazing team of Special Olympics Vermont!” she wrote. “I look forward to being a part of an international movement that grows pride, self esteem and health for Special Olympic athletes and families, and builds diversity and inclusion in our communities.”

Updated on September 26, 2017.

The Vermont Department of Public Safety on Friday approved a license for the state's fifth medical marijuana operation, which plans to open dispensaries in Bennington and St. Albans.

PhytoScience Institute, led by University of Vermont professor William Cats-Baril, beat out four other applicants vying for a state license. For the last two years, the Waterbury-based Institute has offered consulting services and conducted testing and research on marijuana products.

While Gov. Phil Scott vetoed the Vermont legislature’s attempt to legalize marijuana last session, he did sign a bill that allows for a fifth state medical marijuana dispensary license.* The legislation also permits each of the five licensees to operate a satellite location.

Peter Shumlin told a group of Harvard University scholars Tuesday that he didn’t have the political capital to pass single-payer health care in Vermont.

The three-term Democratic former Vermont governor revisited his signature political failure during a live-streamed interview with Harvard public health professor John McDonough.

“Was that a policy decision or was that a political decision, do you think?” asked McDonough, referring to Shumlin’s decision to pull the plug on single-payer.

“They’re always both,” Shumlin responded. “There was no way I was gonna get the votes in either the House or the Senate to pass the single-payer plan that I wanted to pass ... I had Progressive senators coming to me saying, ‘What if we just slowed down?’”

New data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that 71,329 Vermonters lived below the federal poverty line in 2016 — roughly 10,000 more than in 2015. Vermont was the only state to see a statistically significant increase in its poverty rate, from 10.2 percent in 2015 to 11.9 percent in 2016.

But according to Ashley Edwards, chief of the Census Bureau's poverty statistics branch, the latest figures may represent a return to the norm, rather than a new trend. The state's 2016 poverty rate mirrors those from 2012 through 2014.

"If you look at the past five-year period, it actually looks like the 2015 period might be an outlier," Edwards said. "So although this reflects an increase, it's not statistically different than some of those earlier years."

Vermont continues to do better than most states. Only nine had lower poverty rates than Vermont in 2016, according to Edwards. Neighboring New Hampshire had the lowest, at 7.3 percent. Mississippi had the highest, at 20.8 percent.

The owners of Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person who tagged one of their supplier's barns with racist and anti-Semitic graffiti.

An Andersonville Farm employee on Friday morning found a swastika, the Nazi "SS" symbol, a racial slur and the words "#get out" spray painted on a hoop barn at the West Glover dairy, which produces milk for Jasper Hill's famed Bayley Hazen Blue cheese.

Mateo Kehler, head cheesemaker and cofounder of the award-winning Jasper Hill Farm, posted a photo of the vandalism Monday on the cheese company's Facebook page, announcing the reward and deploring the incident.

The University Mall will welcome a new tenant this fall — the South Burlington Community Library.

The South Burlington City Council on Tuesday approved a three-year lease for the library to take over an empty retail space in the mall at a cost of $45,000 per year.

It's meant to be a stopgap arrangement as city officials work to raise funds and plan for a new five-story public building intended to house both city hall and the library.

City officials hope to open the mall space in mid-November in a storefront next to the Bon-Ton department store, on the north side of the building near the parking garage.