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Trace amounts of a radioactive element found in fish near the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant have now been found in bass in an opposite corner of the state, apparently clearing the plant of any tie to the contamination, a state health official said. Initial testing took place after Entergy Corp.'s Vermont Yankee, located in the southeastern town of Vernon, reported in 2010 that radioactive material had leaked into nearby groundwater. Low levels of Strontium-90, an isotope produced by nuclear reactions, were found in fish caught in August where groundwater from the plant runs into the Connecticut River, state authorities...

LAS VEGAS — Newt Gingrich is wooing NASCAR voters. As he charts a possible course to the Republican nomination, aides say Gingrich will paint frontrunner Mitt Romney as the candidate of the PGA golf tour while the former House speaker pursues the blue collar mantle of Dale Earnhardt. It’s a strategy that exploits the class warfare Gingrich professes to oppose. Still, it could pay dividends once the GOP race again swings South. Gingrich sees delegate-rich Texas as a firewall in April. But he must slog through more than 30 contests before that....

Congressional support for controversial online piracy legislation eroded dramatically on Wednesday in the face of an unprecedented online protest supported by tech titans such as Google, Wikipedia and Facebook. Several key senators withdrew their support from the Senate's Protect IP Act (PIPA), including Tea Party favorite Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), an elected member of his party's leadership. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who leads the Senate GOP's campaign team, said the legislation should be put on hold, while Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a sponsor and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, retreated from the...

After a Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance at Burlington’s City Hall Contois Auditorium Monday, about a dozen demonstrators marched on the TD Bank branch just down the street to protest the bank’s opening on the holiday. The marchers briefly gathered in front of the bank, then tried to enter. Moments after the group arrived, Patrick Brown, director of the Burlington Multicultural Resource Center, said he would hand leaflets to bank tellers protesting the bank’s hours Monday. The leaflet read: “Dear TD Bank, you are defying the King holiday. Shame, Shame, Shame. This is a racist act. Shame, Shame, Shame.

WATERVILLE, Maine — The search for 20-month-old Ayla Reynolds continued on Monday as the Maine Warden Service, state and local police investigators and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents combed the area to find the girl who was last seen Friday in her father’s home on Violette Avenue. The warden service began searching the surface and banks of Messalonskee Stream by plane, boat and foot on Monday, expanding the search area from the weekend, Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey said during a press conference Monday afternoon. “It was logical considering [the stream’s] proximity to Violette Ave.,” Massey said, adding that the...

This year politics as usual gave way to a new normal. Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, who held the Vermont’s chief post for eight years, stepped down, and Democrat Peter Shumlin seized the reins of state government. The new governor campaigned on policy reforms in health care, energy and economic development. He also pledged to pursue fiscally conservative policies. With the help of the Democratic leadership and an overwhelming majority of party faithful in both the House of Representatives and the Senate,Shumlin easilymustered the support he needed from lawmakers in his first four months in office to make goodon those...

Vermont fraternity chapter closed indefinitely over rape surveyLISA RATHKE - Staff Writer 9:53 a.m. EST, December 17, 2011 MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A University of Vermont fraternity whose members are accused of circulating a survey that asked who they would like to rape has been closed indefinitely. The national Sigma Phi Epsilon made the announcement Friday after an internal investigation and lengthy discussions with the university in Burlington. "Without suggesting that every member had knowledge of this questionnaire, the questions asked in the document are deplorable and absolutely inconsistent with our values," said Brian Warren, executive director of the national...

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A University of Vermont fraternity has been suspended while school officials, national organization leaders and police investigate allegations that a survey was circulated among members asking them who they would like to rape.

MONTPELIER, Vt. - The two Mexican farmworkers were nervous. Seated in a pickup truck whose driver had been stopped for speeding on a Vermont highway, they didn't know what to expect from the state trooper. They'd heard of other farmworkers being detained or deported in the largely white state, whose $560 million dairy industry relies on Mexican farmhands like them. But one of the men also had been in a similar stop in New York and didn't get bothered.

MIDDLESEX, Vt. (AP) — The Vermont Human Rights Commission says the two farmworkers stopped in September by a state police trooper who turned out to be illegal immigrants may have been victims of racial discrimination.

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Rhode Island is receiving $58 million in federal funds to assist in the creation of a new online market for health insurance. The money will help the state establish its health benefit exchange, one of the requirements contained within the federal Affordable Care Act. Rhode Island is the first state to receive this type of funding, which is intended for states that are farther along in planning their exchanges. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the grant Tuesday. Gov. Lincoln Chafee (CHAY'-fee) says the funding shows the state is making progress toward creating an affordable, accessible...

When Patricia Billings fired a handgun at an intruder reportedly breaking through her bedroom window in Rutland Town last week, the legal ramifications were probably the furthest thing from her mind. “No one thinks of self-defense law when they’re in a dangerous incident,” said Michele Martinez Campbell, an associate professor at Vermont Law School. “When you’re in harm’s way, you do what you have to do.” In Billings’ case, police say the 49-year-old fired three rounds from a handgun at a man trying to enter her home on Tuesday. The intruder fled the property on Quarterline Road leaving behind no...

The man who shot himself at an Occupy protest camp in downtown Burlington, Vermont, this week was 35 years old, homeless and had briefly trained to be in the Army, police said on Friday. Joshua Pfenning apparently shot himself in the head inside a tent at the encampment in City Hall Park on Thursday afternoon and later died at a city hospital, Burlington Police Chief Michael Schirling said in a statement. After the shooting, police banned camping at the park because of safety concerns. Police have stopped short of calling Pfenning's death suicide, but have said witnesses indicated the shooting...

BURLINGTON, VT (WPTZ/CNN) - Vermont's governor has released a new immigration policy for state police, which is being dubbed the "look the other way" policy. Gov. Peter Shumlin says state troopers should not try to arrest people just for being in the U.S. illegally. Back in September, a state trooper made a routine traffic stop and asked one of the passengers his immigration status. He suspected that person of being an illegal immigrant and called Customs and Borders Patrol, who arrested the man. The arrest sparked protests from the migrant worker community, who says the trooper should never have asked...

SEATTLE- The U.S. Border Patrol has quietly stopped its controversial practice of routinely searching buses, trains and airports for illegal immigrants at transportation hubs along the northern border and in the U.S. interior, preventing agents from using what had long been an effective tool for tracking down people here illegally. ... The situation is similar in upstate New York... instead of checking buses or trains, agents have spent shifts sitting in their vehicles gazing out at Lake Erie and Lake Ontario..."They're already bored," the agent said. "You grab the paper every day and you go do the crossword."

Senators from maple syrup-producing states are seeking a law to make selling the fake stuff a punishable offense. Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, proposed legislation Thursday to make selling fraudulent maple syrup a felony. The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is called the Maple Agriculture Protection and Law Enforcement (MAPLE) Act. Leahy stated in a press release that he is alarmed at the increasing number of people and businesses claiming to sell Vermont maple syrup but actually selling something "that is not maple syrup at all." "This is fraud, plain and simple, and it undermines...

Six senators introduced legislation that would make selling fake maple syrup a felony offense that can lead to fines and up to five years in prison. The Maple Agriculture Protection and Law Enforcement (MAPLE) is a response to what chief sponsor Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and others say is the increasing practice of cheating Vermont, upstate New York and other maple syrup regions by selling inferior, fake syrup. "I have been alarmed by the growing number of individuals and businesses claiming to sell genuine Vermont maple syrup when they are in fact selling an inferior product that is not maple...

The Obama administration is taking steps to extend new federal protections to a list of imperiled animals and plants that reads like a manifest for Noah's Ark - from the melodic golden-winged warbler and slow-moving gopher tortoise, to the slimy American eel and tiny Texas kangaroo rat. ... With a Friday deadline to act on more than 700 pending cases, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service already has issued decisions advancing more than 500 species toward potential new protections under the Endangered Species Act... Patrick Parenteau, an environmental lawprofessor at the University of Vermont. "They are moving through this large...

Ben & Jerry's latest ice cream creation -- "Schweddy Balls" -- doesn't agree with the tastes of at least one national conservative group. "The vulgar new flavor has turned something as innocent as ice cream into something repulsive," read a statement released by One Million Moms, a division of the Mississippi-based American Family Association. "Not exactly what you want a child asking for at the supermarket."

<p>When Navy Lt. Gary Ross and his partner were searching for a place to get married, they settled on a site in Vermont, in part because the state is in the Eastern time zone.</p> <p>That way, the two men were able to recite their vows before family and friends at the first possible moment after the formal repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Just after midnight Tuesday, the partners of 11 years were married.</p>

DUXBURY, Vt. (AP) - When Navy Lt. Gary Ross and his partner were searching for a place to get married, they settled on a site in Vermont, in part because the state is in the Eastern time zone. That way, the two men were able to recite their vows before family and friends at the first possible moment after the formal repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Just after midnight Tuesday, the partners of 11 years were married.

Shumlin Says State Policy Is To "Look The Other Way" POSTED: 8:27 am EDT September 16, 2011 UPDATED: 11:00 am EDT September 16, 2011 Gov. Peter Shumlin clarified his position Thursday after ordering an immediate investigation into State Police handling of a routine traffic stop on I-89 earlier in the week, one that sparked protest and the detention of two migrant farm workers from Mexico. Read more: http://www.wptz.com/video/29203802/detail.html#ixzz1Y8HQrAAS

Shumlin Tells Cops to "Look the Other Way" on Illegals Vermont Governor Calls Illegal Immigration 'essential' to VT POSTED: 7:06 pm EDT September 15, 2011 UPDATED: 8:48 pm EDT September 15, 2011 MONTPELIER, Vt. -- Gov. Peter Shumlin clarified his position Thursday after ordering an immediate investigation into State Police handling of a routine traffic stop on I-89 earlier in the week, one that sparked protest and the detention of two migrant farm workers from Mexico. Shumlin said "look the other way as much as we can" is Vermont policy on undocumented farm workers who play a critical role in...

ST. JOHNSBURY, Vt. (AP) — The federal government is planning to return 130 antique guns seized from a St. Johnsbury gun dealer who once owned firearm that was later used in a Boston killing.

Unfortunately, many Americans have become inured to the trampling of freedom of association. You can work your fingers to the bone starting a business, and the government becomes a partner that contributes nothing but extracts much. It not only shares your profits and regulates you to death, but, more to the point here, dictates whom you must serve and the bases on which you may hire and fire people. And woe betide he who doesn't bow before Leviathan. A recent example of this is the Wildflower Inn, a Vermont B&B. After devout Catholic owners Jim and Mary O'Reilly refused to...

The southern half of the state has been ravaged by flooding following TS Irene on Sunday. The main road north-south in the area (US route 7) is out. The main road east-west (US route 4) is also out. The back roads as you can imagine are just as bad. Food and water must be airlifted by the national guard since some towns can now only be reached by air or ATV. People are also unable to feed their cattle and horses. Crops are gone and kids are unable to start their school year. A 17 year old boy from Brattleboro...

Almost a dozen New England towns were rendered virtual islands Monday as floodwaters from the remnants of Hurricane Irene reshaped parts of Vermont and upstate New York, turning placid rivers into raging torrents and some streets into treacherous mud bogs. Hundreds of roads remained closed, dozens of bridges were gone and entire towns were cut off from assistance in the worst flooding some areas have seen in a century. A day earlier, Irene dumped up to 11 inches on parts of Vermont and more than 13 inches on some areas of New York — a deluge that quickly overwhelmed waterways,...

The Marshfield Dam operated by Green Mountain Power is in jeopardy of overflowing. Because of that, officials at GMP are preparing to possibly release water from the dam. That is expected to cause the Winooski River to rise significantly. "We are very aware of the potential flooding of the Winooski River throughout its entire system, and we understand that if we release the water that will increase flooding. However, if the dam were to fail that would be a huge amount of water and that would just be not acceptable. We are needing to make sure that we take all...

Tips for Communicating in an Emergency by: Jamie Barnett, Chief, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau August 27th, 2011 I want to share some important emergency information to you for during the storm so that you and your family stay safe.Recommended Practices for All Users It is important for consumers to keep in mind that during an emergency, many more people are trying to use their wireless and wireline telephones at the same time when compared to normal calling activity. When more people try to call at the same time, the increased calling volume may create network congestion. Limit...

Anyone else feel that?

I haven’t been to the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, VT, but it sounds like a beautiful place. A glimpse at their website shows a near-definitive New England setting of clapboard buildings with panoramic views of rolling, tree-covered hills and blossoming meadows. And families. Wildflower Inn was voted Best Family Resort by Yankee magazine last year, and the word “family” pops up repeatedly on the website and in the Inn’s brochures. Clearly, that’s the favored clientele, although the Inn’s owners allow that their place is also ideal for romantic weekends. The Inn used to offer its facilities for weddings, too. Not...

Howard Dean: Bush camp will ‘take Perry out’ By Daniel Strauss - 08/17/11 01:59 PM ET Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean predicted that prominent political supporters of former President George W. Bush will throw a critical blow to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) presidential campaign. “The Bush people don’t fool around, as you know,” Dean said Tuesday night on MSNBC. “You can say a lot of things about Bush’s presidency and his failures as president, but one thing nobody should say [anything] bad about [is] his political team. They know what they’re doing, and they are ruthless, and...

The drunken JetBlue passenger who treated a sleeping 11-year-old girl like his personal potty was booted today from the US Ski Team, officials said. Robert "Sandy" Vietze, of Warren, Vt., was detained by police at Kennedy Airport on Wednesday morning after arriving on a red-eye flight from Portland, Ore. U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association Executive Vice President of Athletics Luke Bodensteiner emailed a statement Friday to The Associated Press, saying he had been dismissed from the team for conduct violations. Vietze, 18, had been among the 75 most elite skiers in the nation -- but he may have blown his...

A month after Daniel Fogel resigned as president of the University of Vermont, a top school fundraiser has also left amid an investigation into his affair with Foley's wife. Michael Schultz, an associate vice president for development at the school in Burlington, Vermont, accepted a severance package and departed on Wednesday, a university spokesman said on Thursday. The school's board of trustees conducted a review of the relationship between Schultz and Rachel Kahn-Fogel, the president's wife and a volunteer in the fundraising office. Schultz, who earned a doctorate after writing a dissertation on the proper role of a university president's...

Three Democrats have introduced a federal bill that would require online retailers such as Amazon.com to collect states' sales taxes. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill) and Representatives John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) call their proposal that was introduced July 29 the Main Street Fairness Act. Amazon.com, which has been fighting individual states – including California – over efforts to require online retailers to collect state and local sales tax, is supporting the bill, according to a letter to Durbin from Amazon.com Vice President for Global Public Policy Paul Misener.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a radio interview that he's thinking about trying to encourage somebody to run against President Obama in a primary election, claiming the president has drifted toward Republican positions because "no one will stand up to him." Republicans hardly feel that Obama is on their side. House Speaker John Boehner, after splitting off from White House-led debt talks, said Sunday that they are almost "from two different planets." But Sanders, an Independent, said Friday that the president is not living up to his campaign commitments on issues like Social Security -- reflecting a concern among...

Last week, we wrote about how Rep. Anna Eshoo (whose district covers much of Silicon Valley) is apparently so incredibly out of touch on what PROTECT IP is about (despite it having a huge impact on the economy of her district) that she thought it was really about immigration. We were willing to chalk it up to a busy staffer sending out the wrong form letter, but there's growing evidence that our elected officials simply don't know what PROTECT IP is about at all. David Segal from Demand Progress was kind enough to pass on that they've been watching the...

A federal judge said Monday he would not order that Vermont's only nuclear plant be allowed to remain open while a lawsuit to determine its long-term future plays out. The state is moving to close the Vermont Yankee plant, with both the governor and the state Senate on record as wanting it to close when its initial 40-year license expires next March. The plant's owner, New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., got a 20-year license extension for Vermont Yankee from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and filed a lawsuit arguing that the federal action pre-empts the state's effort to close the plant....

Sanders: Obama proposal would impoverish 250,000By Erik Wasson - 07/09/11 04:33 PM ET The Social Security Administration estimates that a proposal floated by the Obama administration would put 245,000 people into poverty, according to an analysis released by liberal senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Saturday. That level of impact would be felt by 2050 if a proposal to change the way inflation is measured is adopted, Sanders announced. The change to the way SSA would calculate the Consumer Price Index has been floated in debt ceiling talks between Congress and the White House. The White House has suggested revising CPI...

Some states offer attractive tax benefits for retirees. Then there are these ten tax hells, which have earned a place on our "do not live here for your second act" list either because of higher-than-average taxes across the board or because of policies that don't exempt much retirement income from state taxation. More from Kiplinger.com: For retirees living on a fixed income, high income taxes, burdensome real estate taxes and hefty sales taxes on daily purchases can really eat into a nest egg. Choosing to relocate to — or stay put in — a state with a low overall tax...

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. — Attorneys and witnesses have wrapped up the first day of a two-day hearing before a federal judge in Vermont over whether the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant can continue to operate while a protracted legal fight plays out over its future. Entergy witnesses told lawyers that if the plant is forced to shut temporarily, it will lose about $20 million a month in revenue and may shut down permanently rather than wait for the legal fight to be resolved. Entergy lawyer Kathleen Sullivan said Vermont lawmakers tried to hide that they had nuclear safety in mind when they...

This study comprehensively ranks the American states on their public policies that affect individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres. It updates, expands, and improves upon our inaugural 2009 Freedom in the 50 States study. For this new edition, we have added more policy variables (such as bans on trans fats and the audio recording of police, Massachusetts’s individual health-insurance mandate, and mandated family leave), improved existing measures (such as those for fiscal policies, workers’ compensation regulations, and asset-forfeiture rules), and developed specific policy prescriptions for each of the 50 states based on our data and a survey...

Vt. governor to sign mercury lamp recycling billMay 19, 2011 MONTPELIER, Vt.—Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin is going to signed a bill calling on manufacturers of light bulbs containing mercury to set up and pay for a recycling program for the bulbs. When Shumlin signs the bill Thursday, Vermont will become the third state in the country -- behind Maine and Washington -- to pass what's called a producer responsibility law for mercury-containing products. Lamps containing mercury, including compact fluorescent bulbs, are praised for saving energy. But mercury is a known nerve poison and is a cause of concern when released...

It is often said of Republican Mitt Romney that he won't be elected president because his signature achievement as Massachusetts governor was a universal-health-care measure. His success may have emboldened national Democrats to enact the widely reviled Obamacare program. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a possible Republican presidential contender in 2012, may benefit from the opposite effect — a statewide initiative Americans like. Gov. Daniels' latest triumph is the nation's most ambitious school-choice program, called the School Scholarship Act. The program enables parents of 7,500 elementary-school children in the first year, 15,000 in the second and an unlimited number in the...

While a vast swath of America's midsection braces for Mississippi River flooding, a small corner of the Northeast is quietly dealing with high-water headaches of its own. Gorged on snowmelt and incessant rain, normally placid Lake Champlain is overflowing, creeping into homes, businesses and neighborhoods in upstate New York and Vermont. In Vermont, the floodwaters threaten to swamp the two access roads leading to the island communities of Grand Isle County, home to about 7,500 people. While there have been no deaths and no mandatory evacuations, record-high lake levels have caused flooding in Burlington — the state's biggest city —...

Lake Champlain reached another record high Thursday, and there are fears the only roads on and off the Champlain Islands may have to shut down. The steadily rising water led Gov. Peter Shumlin to declare a state of emergency Thursday. The high water is now covering Route 2 in Milton near the causeway that connects to the Champlain Islands. Crews are working to keep the road passable and it remains open at this point, but if the water continues to rise, the state might be forced to close it down. Route 78 between Alburgh and Swanton is also in jeopardy...

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — The owners of Vermont's troubled nuclear plant sued state officials Monday to stop them from closing the plant down next year, setting up a court fight about who has jurisdiction — the state or federal nuclear regulators. Entergy Corp. has a new federal license in hand for the Vermont Yankee power plant, but state officials are vowing to shut it down next year. The company's federal lawsuit says Vermont's law giving it the power to block relicensing violates the Atomic Energy Act and the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. Vermont contends it has the power...

Apparently Democrats need a break from themselves every once in a while. The California Democratic Party announced Friday that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, will be the keynote speaker for its annual state convention April 29 to May 1 in Sacramento. Sanders may be an independent, but he's not of the moderate variety that term tends to conjure. He sits to the left of the Democratic Party and was dubbed "The Socialist Senator" in a 2007 New York Times Magazine profile. The state party said this marks the first time it has tapped an independent for its prime...

In the first-ever state ranking of peace in the United States, the Institute for Economics and Peace found that Maine was the most peaceful state in the country, while Louisiana came in last. The international think tank, which also issues an annual Global Peace Index, found that the United States is 8 percent more peaceful in 2009 than it was in 1995. The United States Peace Index defines "peace" as the "absence of violence." To determine the rankings, the index looked at factors including homicide rates, violent crimes, percentage of the population in jail, number of police officers and availability...

On Cenk Uygur's MSNBC show this evening, Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont who caucuses with the Dems, claimed that rich Americans "have not contributed one nickel to deficit reduction." Cenk of course failed to challenge Sander's certifiably silly assertion. View video here.