A man named Shant Soghomonian was charged with setting a fire outside U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders' office in Burlington, Vermont. The incident caused minor damage, and no one was injured. The motive for the arson remains unclear. Sanders was not present at the office during the incident. Soghomonian faces a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. The case is being investigated by various law enforcement agencies in Vermont.
A fire deliberately set outside Sen. Bernie Sanders' office in Vermont caused minor damage, with the suspect spraying an accelerant on the office floor, igniting a significant fire. No injuries were reported, and investigations are ongoing. Vermont police are seeking a male suspect who fled the scene after starting the fire, leading to water damage in the building. The motive for the arson remains unknown, and authorities are coordinating with Capitol Police in the investigation.
Bernard Sanders (born September 8, 1941) is an American politician and activist who is the senior United States senator from Vermont. Sanders is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history but has a close relationship with the Democratic Party, having caucused with House and Senate Democrats for most of his congressional career and sought the party's presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020, coming second in both campaigns. He is often seen as a leader of the U.S. progressive movement.Born into a working-class Jewish family and raised in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, Sanders attended Brooklyn College before graduating from the University of Chicago in 1964. While a student, he was a protest organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the civil rights movement. After settling in Vermont in 1968, he ran unsuccessful third-party political campaigns in the early to mid-1970s. He was elected mayor of Burlington in 1981 as an independent and was reelected three times. He won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1990, representing Vermont's at-large congressional district, later co-founding the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He was a U.S. representative for 16 years before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006, notably becoming the first non-Republican elected to the seat in 152 years. Sanders was reelected to the Senate in 2012 and 2018. He chaired the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee from 2013 to 2015 and the Senate Budget Committee from 2021 to 2023. In January 2023, he became chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and the senior senator and dean of the Vermont congressional delegation upon Patrick Leahy's retirement from the Senate.Sanders was a major candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020, receiving the second most votes in each. Despite initially low expectations, his 2016 campaign generated significant grassroots enthusiasm and funding from small-dollar donors, carrying him to victory against eventual nominee Hillary Clinton in 23 primaries and caucuses before he conceded in July. In 2020, his strong showing in early primaries and caucuses made him the front-runner in a historically large field of Democratic candidates. In April 2020, Sanders conceded the nomination to Joe Biden, who had won a series of decisive victories as the field narrowed. He supported both Clinton and Biden in their respective general election campaigns against Donald Trump. He has since emerged as a close ally of Biden.Sanders is credited with influencing a leftward shift in the Democratic Party after his 2016 presidential campaign. An advocate of progressive policies, he is known for his opposition to economic inequality and neoliberalism, and support for workers' self-management. On domestic policy, he supports labor rights, universal and single-payer healthcare, paid parental leave, tuition-free tertiary education, an ambitious Green New Deal to create jobs addressing climate change, and worker control of production through cooperatives, unions, and democratic public enterprises. On foreign policy, he supports reducing military spending, pursuing more diplomacy and international cooperation, and putting greater emphasis on labor rights and environmental concerns when negotiating international trade agreements. Sanders supports workplace democracy, and has praised elements of the Nordic model. Some have compared and contrasted his politics to left-wing populism and the New Deal policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In the 2016 presidential campaign, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders sought the Democratic Party's nomination in a field of six major candidates and was the runner up with 46% of the pledged delegates behind former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who won the contest with 54%. Sanders, the junior United States senator and former Representative from Vermont, began with an informal announcement on April 30, 2015, and a formal announcement that he planned to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States on May 26, 2015, in Burlington, Vermont. Sanders had been considered a potential candidate for president since at least September 2014. Though he had previously run as an independent, he routinely caucused with the Democratic Party, as many of his views align with Democrats. Running as a Democrat made it easier to participate in debates and get his name on state ballots.Sanders's chief competitor for the nomination was Hillary Clinton, a former secretary of state. Sanders drew large crowds to his speaking events and his populist and progressive politics won him particular support among Americans under 40. He performed strongly with white voters, but consistently trailed Clinton by 30 or more percentage points among black voters; polls showed a close race among Hispanic voters.Sanders focused on income and wealth inequality, which he argued is eroding the American middle class, and on campaign finance reform. Unlike most other major presidential candidates, Sanders eschewed an unlimited super PAC, instead choosing to receive most of his funding from direct individual campaign donations. In September 2015, The New York Times reported that the campaign had received one million individual donations, becoming the first in 2015 to reach that threshold. Sanders raised $20,000,000 in the month of January 2016, $5,000,000 more than Clinton during the same time period, with an average donation of $27. Sanders frequently mentioned this $27 figure on the campaign trail as proof of his grassroots support.Following the final primary election (the District of Columbia's, on June 14), Clinton became the presumptive Democratic nominee. Sanders did then endorse Clinton, and said he would work with her to defeat the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump. On June 16, Sanders gave a live online speech to his supporters, saying, "The political revolution continues".On July 12, Sanders officially endorsed Clinton at a unity rally with her in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.On July 22, 2016, various emails stolen by one or more hackers operating under the pseudonym "Guccifer 2.0" from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the governing body of the Democratic Party, were leaked and published, revealing bias against the Sanders campaign on the part of the committee and its chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Schultz subsequently resigned as DNC chair and was replaced by Donna Brazile, who was also implicated in the leaks and apologized to Sanders and his supporters. In the Democratic National Convention roll-call vote on July 26, 2016, Sanders received 1,865 votes (39% of the vote), which consisted of 1,848 pledged delegates won in primary and caucus contests (46% of the total) and 17 superdelegates (4%). After the roll call, Sanders put forward a motion to formally nominate Clinton, which passed by voice vote. Although Sanders lost, he and the political movement his campaign created succeeded in moving the Democratic Party platform as a whole to the left, including support for a $15 minimum wage, marijuana legalization, the abolition of capital punishment, and criminal justice reform.
FILE - Daniel Banyai, the owner of Slate Ridge, speaks to supporters, April 17, 2021, in West Pawlet, Vt., during a Second Amendment Day Picnic. Banyai, the owner of a former firearms training center in Vermont, was arrested on Wednesday, March 20, 2024 in Pawlet, Vermont, state police said. (AP Photo/Wilson Ring, File) The owner of a firearms training center in Vermont who was ordered arrested by a judge in December in a long-running legal battle with a town has been taken into custody after a struggle and now faces charges of resisting arrest and aggravated assault, authorities said. Daniel Banyai is expected to be arraigned Thursday.
The Vermont Legislature is moving forward with a bill that would require major fossil fuel companies to contribute to climate change adaptation projects in the state after experiencing extreme weather events; other states like Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York are considering similar measures. Critics, including Governor Phil Scott, warn of potential costly legal battles for the small state, with differing opinions among lawmakers on the financial implications compared to large fossil fuel corporations.
NPR
Yahoo! News
AP News
CBS News
NY Post
Washington Post
Yahoo! News
NBC
PANORA
Wikipedia
Wikipedia
PANORA
PANORA