The State of Vermont says a newly formed Health Care Cooperative has serious financial problems and should not be given a license to offer insurance policies beginning next year. 

Under the Affordable Care Act, member owned Cooperatives can be licensed to sell health insurance policies on a state exchange beginning in 2014. To do so, they must receive both federal and state approval.

Hazelett Strip Casting is a Colchester company  that makes massive machines which help turn molten metal into rolls and sheets. Hazelett is clearly in the manufacturing business.   So is Sean Lawson who makes his award winning beer, Lawson’s Finest Liquids, in a brewery located next to his home.  The food production part of Vermont’s manufacturing sector, which includes Lawson's Finest, is having great success competing globally and contributing to Vermont’s economic growth.  

Earlier this month, Police and FBI agents invaded two spas in Bennington as part of an investigation into human trafficking and prostitution. Earlier this year, Senator Patrick Leahy added an amendment to the Violence Against Women Act to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.  In 2011, Vermont passed a law against human-trafficking and set up a Human Trafficking Taskforce. More than 500 victims of human trafficking were confirmed in the US between 2008 and 2010.

Wed 5/22/13 Noon & 7 pm  The number patients seeking treatment for heroin and prescription opiates in Vermont has risen significantly over the last few years. And the spin-off effects, like burglary, have also been in evidence in the state.

A North Bennington entrepreneur has won state and federal permits to generate electricity at a 200 year old dam site on the Walloomsac River.

The developer says it took four years, and a lot of dialogue and collaboration to design the project.

Bill Scully and his company Carbon Zero purchased the old Vermont Tissue Mill in North Bennington in 2008.

Invasive plants specialists say time is running out to easily remove Japanese Knotweed spread by Tropical Storm Irene.

Knotweed is an invasive plant that grows in thick patches along Vermont waterways, on roadsides, and in backyards.

The plants develop huge root systems that take years of repeated removal, and often pesticides, to destroy. Pieces break off easily and every fragment can develop into a new knotweed plant.

Some banks used to give away a toaster to those who opened a new account, but on Monday, Merchants Bank took the idea a step further by giving away the almost 150-year-old bank.

Officials at Merchants Bank had already announced in February that plans had been made to close branches in Bennington and North Bennington and replace them with a new site in Bennington. But while Merchants rented its space on Main Street in Bennington, it owned the building on Bank Street in North Bennington, leaving residents of the village wondering what would become of it.

The University of Vermont is getting a new provost from New York's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

David V. Rosowsky is currently the dean of engineering at RPI.

His appointment as provost at UVM was announced Monday.

Rosowsky will succeed interim Robert Low, who assumed the position after former provost Jane Knodell resigned.

The provost is the second highest ranking executive at the university after the president.

In his first year on the job Rosowsky will be making $375,000 a year, plus benefits.

The Vermont secretary of state's office says 150 years of judicial records from Caledonia County are now available for use by researchers.

Secretary of State Jim Condos says the State Archives and Records Administration recently completed processing Caledonia County court records from 1794 to 1945.

Orleans County court records were opened for research in July 2012 and Lamoille County court records will be completed this summer.

Vermont is getting $6.3 million in federal Homeland Security grants to help the state develop prevention and preparedness programs to respond to acts of terrorism and other catastrophic events.

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy says the grants will come from two Homeland Security programs.

A $3.4 million homeland security grant will help support the implementation of strategies to plan, organize, train and equip first-responder agencies who would be called upon in the event of an act of terrorism or other disasters.