Two weeks, two controversial speakers.

Middlebury College welcomed infamous National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden to campus via a live video feed Thursday for a discussion on mass surveillance. The talk followed a disastrous in-person appearance by controversial author Charles Murray on March 2.

Professor Allison Stanger, who was confronted by a crowd of people and injured after moderating the Murray lecture, returned to campus to question Snowden. She wore a neck brace and dark sunglasses throughout the two-hour event. She told a reporter she’s been slow to recover from what she has described as a harrowing ordeal. Security officers blanketed the event, including one security guard who shadowed Stanger as she walked around Wilson Hall inside the McCullough Student Center, where the event was held.

Stanger made a lighthearted reference to the Murray appearance when a student asked how the college got in touch with Snowden.

“I had nothing to do with this, just like I had nothing to do with the Charles Murray event,” Stanger told the crowd, to knowing laughs.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) made a rare swing through Vermont Thursday, stopping in St. Johnsbury, White River Junction, Brattleboro and Springfield. Everywhere he went, he was met with packed venues and almost entirely enthusiastic audiences.

The day began with a student assembly at the St. Johnsbury Academy, where Sanders announced that he would be back in the spring to speak at the school's commencement. He gave a stripped-down version of his stump speech with a focus on education, and then took questions for a good half an hour. Many of the questions were about education or the future of work, as the high schoolers face a future of college debt and shrinking opportunities.

The most engaging moment came when a student, who's probably an avid reader of Ayn Rand, stepped to the microphone and asked the senator why redistribution of wealth is a good thing. Why, he said, "shouldn't society not allow people to earn what they earn, and not redistribute wealth at all?"

Sanders complimented the student for "being a brave guy because he knows my views." He then asked the student, "Who pays for your education?"

"Um, I guess technically the state," the student replied.

Sanders: "Who is the state?"

Student: "The taxpayers."

Sanders: "Well, why should a guy who's 50 years old and never had kids, or his kids are grown up, why should he pay for your education? Why the hell should I pay for your education?"

He went on to state his own views on wealth, equity and the importance of a strong society — without belittling the student in any way and acknowledging that many share his point of view.

It was a masterful moment from a guy with decades of experience handling crowds.

After the Academy, it was on to St. Johnsbury's Good Living Senior Center. On his way in, a preteen girl asked him to autograph her copy of his book, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In. As he complied, your reporter pulled out his smartphone and snapped a photo of the two. Afterward, I handed my phone to the girl so she could email the picture to herself. She could barely use the keyboard because her hands were shaking; she was in awe of the moment and spoke excitedly of "Instagramming it" for all her friends.
Glad to help, kiddo.

On to a packed room, where Sanders tailored his remarks to the mostly older audience. Health care, Medicare, Social Security, the insecure retirements of millions of Americans, the high cost of prescription drugs.

If there were any Trump supporters in the room, they were awfully darn quiet. The Sanders people, on the other hand, gave their hero a rapturous reception.

One man prefaced his question by saying, "You shouldn't be here." He paused. "You should be in the White House!"

The audience erupted.

After spending most of an hour with the group, Sanders headed for I-91 and a closed meeting with staff at the VA Medical Center in White River Junction. He then headed to a "press conference" at the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro.

"Press conference" is in quotes because, well, there was no opportunity to ask questions. Which, I'm given to understand, is generally a feature of such events.

He was there for a worthy purpose: the announcement of $300,000 in federal and state grants for Windham Grows, a first-in-Vermont "small business accelerator" — which provides encouragement and expertise to entrepreneurs and startup operators.

Windham Grows is an offshoot of the Strolling of the Heifers, a fixture in downtown Brattleboro and a cause that's near to Sanders' heart. He played a role in getting the Stroll off the ground, and he has attended every year — "except when he was running for president," said Stroll founder Orly Munzing.

Sanders gave a longer version of his stump speech with the familiar talking points — wealth inequality, health care as a human right, free college tuition, the "obscene" cost of prescription drugs, the scourge of the Citizens United decision, the need for a $15 per hour minimum wage. And he slammed the "weakness" of the Democratic party for allowing people like Donald Trump and Paul Ryan to gain power.
After his speech, Sanders was given a tote bag full of local food products. Then, several other speakers took the microphone to talk about Windham Grows.

Sanders left before the event ended — he had another meeting to get to.

His final event of the day was a full-bore town meeting at the Riverside Middle School in Springfield. The room was packed, and the audience boisterous. They got The Full Bernie — everything from health care to tax policy to education to climate change to what he called the worst aspect of the Trump administration: its "intentional decision to divide us, getting one group to hate another."

He also provided a fair bit of encouragement.

"The views you hold are not fringe," he said. "They are the majority views of the American people."

He continued, "This is no time for despair. Now is the time to be as smart and creative as you can be. We can win if we are gutsy and smart and willing to engage in the political process in a way we've never done before."

For a reporter who'd been following Sanders all day, the talking points were familiar. But he gave them the same emphasis and spirit in Springfield as he did ten hours earlier in St. Johnsbury. The man is a trooper, and he can sure work an audience.

He was not, however, available to the press. We got a two-minute encounter after the school assembly and that was about it. Sanders had a tight schedule and he rushed from event to event. No time for ink-stained wretches, nor even for their electronic colleagues.

But hey, at least he was in Vermont for an entire day, and held four public events in three cities. He didn't talk to us, but he made a couple thousand people very happy.

During his run for president and much of its aftermath, Sanders has been largely absent from these parts. One has to wonder if Thursday's whirlwind will turn out to be the opening sally of his as-yet-unofficial run for reelection in 2018.

He heard nothing all day to discourage the idea.

Jeering and chanting Middlebury College students disrupted a planned talk Thursday afternoon by controversial author and lecturer Charles Murray.

Murray is the author of the 1994 book The Bell Curve, which sought to link social inequality to genetics.

As he took the stage in Wilson Hall, students booed, rose and turned their backs to the stage before reading a statement in unison. Students broke into chants of "Hey hey, ho ho, Charles Murray has got to go," and "Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Charles Murray go away!"

Members of Vermont’s legal community are taking issue with a Burlington City Council candidate’s assertion that Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George discriminated against him when she fired him late last month.

The candidate, Abdullah Sall, plans to file a lawsuit against George, who dismissed him shortly after she took office. Sall’s attorney, John Franco, said his client — a black Muslim immigrant from Liberia — “was subject to different treatment than other people in the office who did not share those qualities.”

“That’s just so absurd. Just absolutely absurd,” countered Stacy Graczyk, who served as a deputy state’s attorney from March 2013 until September 2016 and worked with both Sall and George. "If anything, I think all of those things are an asset. As you know, Vermont is ridiculously white. All those things were great to have in an office. You want diversity.”

Graczyk said Sall was not a good fit for the job, which is “sort of like the front line.” Her former colleagues gave Sall many chances, Graczyk said, but after a while, “it was becoming a concern."

Two other members of the Chittenden County legal community — who spoke on condition of anonymity — backed up Graczyk’s story, arguing that Sall’s job performance was lacking.

The Pride Center of Vermont will host a town hall meeting on trans issues Thursday in response to a deepening controversy over the name of a gay bar planned for Winooski.

The proposed name, Mister Sister, generated a raft of critical comments over the weekend from people on Facebook who said the name is a slur for trans women.

The debate opened a rift in the LGBTQ community partly because the owner of the proposed bar, Craig McGaughan, is a gay man who has so far refused to change the planned name or meet with the leader of the Pride Center.

McGaughan announced Friday on Facebook that he would close his wine bar at 45 Main Street, Oak45, on Tuesday and would then reopen soon as the area's only gay bar. Burlington's 135 Pearl closed in 2006.

Updated at 6:01 p.m.

Abdullah Sall, a former legal assistant in the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s Office, plans to file an employment discrimination lawsuit against his former boss, newly appointed State’s Attorney Sarah George, his lawyer told Seven Days on Tuesday. The lawyer, John Franco, alleged that Sall faced “disparate treatment” in the office because he is a Muslim immigrant from Liberia.

In an interview with Seven Days earlier this month, George confirmed that she had let Sall go, but she declined to elaborate on her reasoning. Reached again Tuesday, she said she “cannot comment on specifics” of what she called “a personnel matter.”

“I would say that any time an employer has to make a decision, it’s guided by performance, the needs of the office and the law,” she said. “And I followed those principles when making my decision.”

Sall is currently running for the South District seat on the Burlington City Council. The independent is facing off against longtime incumbent Democratic Councilor Joan Shannon and Progressive challenger Charles Simpson.

In an interview Tuesday, Sall alleged that his firing may have been motivated by a desire to “undermine [his] campaign.” He did not offer evidence supporting that assertion.

Updated at 3:45 p.m.

The rumor mill was right.

Vail Resorts is buying Vermont's most iconic ski area, Stowe Mountain Resort, from the American International Group, the two sides announced Tuesday.

The Colorado-based company will pay $50 million for the Mt. Mansfield ski area, which began as a Depression-era trail cutting project and became known as a luxury winter resort.

“We’re thrilled to add Stowe Mountain Resort to our family of world-class mountain resorts. With the investments in both mountain infrastructure and base area facilities that AIG has made over the years, Stowe Mountain Resort has become the premier, high-end resort for East Coast skiers and snowboarders," said Vail chairman and CEO Rob Katz. "We look forward to working with AIG to continue enhancing the guest experience and to ensure the resort’s long-term success.”

The purchase includes "base area skier services (food and beverage, retail and rental, lift ticket offices and ski and snowboard school facilities) at Mount Mansfield and Spruce Peak,” Vail said in a statement. Other related facilities — including the Stowe Mountain Lodge, Stowe Mountain Club and Stowe Country Club — will remain in AIG’s hands.

Eight suited officials, including representatives from the Vermont National Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Burlington International Airport, spent two hours Thursday evening answering community questions about noise lines and mitigation, FAA protocol, and home buyout rules.

The officials hoped the question-and-answer session would relieve rising tensions as a controversial home buyout program proceeds around the airport in South Burlington. In September, the airport announced 39 new home buyouts. More than 100 homes have been bought since the program began in 1997.

Montpelier assistant city manager Jessie Baker is leaving one city hall for another. She’ll start a new job March 13 as city manager of Winooski.

Both cities are small riverside communities, but Winooski is undergoing a major downtown redevelopment. That was one of the attractions for Baker.

“Winooski is an incredibly vibrant, growing community,” she told Seven Days Monday.

Baker will earn a base salary of $97,000 annually in Winooski, a step up from her current pay of $80,000 a year.

She’s worked as Montpelier assistant city manager for almost four years, and before that she worked for the city of Somerville, Mass.

The chair of the Shelburne selectboard and two other members dropped their effort to oust fellow selectman Josh Dein at a packed meeting Friday night.

With lawyers hovering, both sides hashed out a compromise agreement in executive session. The pact allows Dein to stay on the five-member board as long as he agrees not to vote on matters related to a controversial Vermont Railway salt shed.

Dein had questioned the town's mounting legal bills in its bid to fight the rail facility, which opened last year despite the town's opposition. His three critics on the board, meanwhile, alleged that Dein publicly shared confidential legal strategies surrounding the issue.

Dein's opponents on the board — who include chair Gary von Stange, John Kerr and Colleen Parker — also said he behaved in a threatening and disruptive manner by raising his voice and pounding his fist at meetings. Dein denied those allegations.