Incumbent David Zuckerman defeated a former aide to retired Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy to win the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor Tuesday.

Zuckerman won with just over 60% of the vote over Thomas Renner, the deputy mayor of Winooski

Zuckerman has held office for the past two years. His victory tonight kept alive a near-decade long streak of Democrats holding the office.

The last time a Republican won the office was back in 2014, when Phil Scott won a third term before becoming Vermont Governor in 2017.

Click here for the full results of the Vermont State Primary.

On the Republican side, John Rodgers defeated Gregory Thayer for the lieutenant governor nomination.

Rodgers, who is from the state’s conservative Northeast Kingdom and served as a Democrat in the state House and the state Senate for a combined 16 years. In 2018, he ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor as a write-in candidate.

Scott had endorsed Rodgers for the nomination over Thayer, an accountant from Rutland who chaired of the local Republican Party. He was a delegate at the Milwaukee convention in July and attended the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, demonstrating in favor of overturning Donald Trump’s defeat in the presidential election.

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This week marks three years since the Taliban captured Kabul and the U.S.-backed government fell in Afghanistan.

In the aftermath, anyone associated with the former Afghan government faces threats to their safety. Under Taliban rule, women’s rights to education, work, freedom of movement and representation are also incredibly restricted.

According to the Vermont branch of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), about 600 of the Afghans who have fled have resettled in Vermont.

At a press event held in Burlington on Monday, Amila Merdzanovic, USCRI Vermont field office director, said that every one of those people still have friends and family in Afghanistan.

“I would like all of us to take a moment and sit in silence,” Merdzanovic told attendees, “and remember those who are left behind in hope that they can be reunited with their families.”

As evacuations from Afghanistan continue — in some cases, aided by a retired Vermont judge — Vermont advocates are calling on the government to give green cards to Afghans who supported the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

Many who’ve already fled their home country for the United States did so under “humanitarian parole,” which does not provide a path to lawful immigration status.

Among the Afghans now living in Vermont are two of that country’s judges: Hamida Punjshiri and Anisa Rasooli. Punjshiri, who arrived only two weeks ago, is one of the senior members of the Afghan judiciary. Rasooli is the first woman to be nominated to the Afghan Supreme Court.

Rasooli said at the event Monday through an interpreter that Afghan judges are in serious danger, especially from the freed prisoners for whom they passed sentences. In some instances, she said, those freed prisoners are now high-ranking officials with the Taliban.

Rasooli called for the U.S. government to help evacuate the judges remaining in Afghanistan.

That kind of federal support, according to retired Vermont judge Patricia Whalen, was nowhere to be found following the Taliban takeover in 2021.

Whalen served both as a family court magistrate in Vermont as well as an international judge in the war crimes chamber in Sarajevo. She also was the director of the Vermont Afghan Women Judges Judicial Education project, a cross-cultural program that hosted dozens of Afghanistan’s judges in Vermont from 2004 and 2014.

And after one of those judges who visited Vermont was assassinated in 2021, Whalen says she and other judges across the world formed a committee dedicated to the security of Afghanistan’s women judges.

“No one wanted to leave Afghanistan, but they did say at one point … that if Kabul did fall, if the Taliban came back, would we help them evacuate? And of course, we said ‘Yes,’” Whalen said on Monday. “But like, trust me, we had no idea how to do that. I mean, absolutely no idea.”

Then the Taliban did capture Kabul. And Whalen said no one from the U.S. government was stepping in to get the judges out.

“The exception to this was Sen. Leahy’s office, who really helped us right from day one,” she said. “But mostly, to be honest, it was more encouragement.”

A 2022 U.S. State Department review of its actions during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul shows systematic breakdowns limiting its response to the crisis, including a “significant backlog in the Afghan SIV [Special Immigration Visas] process” under the Trump administration. That’s as the department commended the work its staff did to evacuate 125,000 people in two weeks.

To get out Afghanistan’s women judges, Whalen said she worked from her kitchen table and over the internet with her judicial colleagues. They raised money for 24/7 interpretation, set up a hotline and coordinated evacuations for 215 of the 254 judges — plus family members — who requested help.

“That’s over 1,000 people,” Whalen said. “We still have 39 judges in Afghanistan, and we will get them out.”

The remaining women judges in Afghanistan, she said, are surviving by living in hiding.

“There’s just a lot of really psychological damage that’s being currently done, and the longer they’re there, there’s more damage,” Whalen said.

Khalil Anwari, who is among the Afghans now living in Vermont and is a program manager for USCRI, said at the event Monday there’s legislation that can ease the immigration process. It’s called the Afghan Adjustment Act, and would give green cards to people who supported the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

“Thousands of Afghans who were evacuated to the U.S. are living in legal limbo,” Anwari said. “Their future is uncertain, their ability to plan for tomorrow constrained by a lack of permanent status.”

He added that these are people who risked their lives alongside the American forces in Afghanistan.

“They deserve our gratitude, but more so they deserve the security of knowing that they have a place in the U.S., a place where they can build their lives and contribute to the, to their communities,” Anwari said.

He also advocated for the Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act and the Refugee Protection Act on Monday. Those bills would, among other things, shorten the waiting period for work authorization for asylees and cap the minimum number of refugees admitted into the U.S. in a given year to 125,000.

Anwari said these policies are about allowing refugees and immigrants to the United States to better rebuild their lives here — including contributing to the economy and social fabric of communities. This is something that Vermonters have supported generously in the past, according to Anwari and the other speakers at Monday’s event.

“A saying, an anecdote from the Afghan culture, it says, قطره، قطره دریا میشود, which roughly translates into, maybe, ‘Drop by drop a river is formed,’” Anwari said. “I have seen the embodiment of that saying in the actions and the collective actions of Vermonters.”

He added that while Vermont is a small state, it’s a strong thought leader in the country.

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CARMEL, Ind., Aug. 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NeurAxis, Inc. (“NeurAxis,” or the “Company”) (NYSE American: NRXS), a medical technology company commercializing neuromodulation therapies addressing chronic and debilitating conditions in children and adults, today announced medical policy coverage for Percutaneous Electrical Nerve Field Stimulation (PENFS), for Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of Vermont Medical Members, effective 10/1/2024. This medical policy will bring our national total coverage for PENFS to roughly 23 million, with more decisions from major payers still pending.

IB-Stim™ is a non-surgical device that sends gentle electrical impulses into cranial nerve bundles in the ear. NeurAxis’ PENFS technology is FDA-cleared for functional abdominal pain associated with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in adolescents 11-18 years old. There are currently no FDA-approved drug therapies for children with abdominal pain-related disorders of the gut-brain interaction. The current medical treatments, which are off-label drugs, can often have serious side effects, and most lack scientific evidence of efficacy.

“We are excited regarding the coverage expansion in the state of Vermont, home to the renowned University of Vermont Children’s Hospital,” said Brian Carrico, President and Chief Executive Officer of NeurAxis. “We continue to make progress on our commercialization strategy goals for IB-Stim by increasing payer coverage to drive market adoption of our technology. We are on track to achieve our stated goal of having medical policy coverage for at least 50 million lives by the end of 2024, which will set the stage for a significant revenue ramp in late 2024 and into 2025,” Mr. Carrico concluded.

About NeurAxis, Inc.
NeurAxis, Inc., is a medical technology company focused on neuromodulation therapies to address chronic and debilitating conditions in children and adults. NeurAxis is dedicated to advancing science and leveraging evidence-based medicine to drive adoption of its IB-Stim™ therapy, which is its proprietary Percutaneous Electrical Nerve Field Stimulation (PENFS) technology, by the medical, scientific, and patient communities. IB-Stim™ is FDA cleared for functional abdominal pain associated with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in adolescents 11-18 years old. Additional clinical trials of PENFS in multiple pediatric and adult conditions with large unmet healthcare needs are underway. For more information, please visit http://neuraxis.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s current assumptions and expectations of future events and trends, which affect or may affect the Company’s business, strategy, operations or financial performance, and actual results and other events may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements due to numerous risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified. There are a number of important factors that could cause actual results, developments, business decisions or other events to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements in this press release. These factors include, among other things, the conditions in the U.S. and global economy, the trading price and volatility of the Company’s stock, public health issues or other events, the Company’s compliance with applicable laws, the results of the Company’s clinical trials and perceptions thereof, the results of submissions to the FDA, the results of the shareholder vote to enable the issuance of the Preferred Stock, and factors described in the Risk Factors section of NeurAxis’s public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Because forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and, except to the extent required by applicable law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise these statements, whether as a result of any new information, future events and developments or otherwise.

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Contacts:

Company
NeurAxis, Inc.
info@neuraxis.com

Investor Relations
Lytham Partners
Ben Shamsian
646-829-9701
shamsian@lythampartners.com