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.

Vermont's attorney general says Vermont homeowners have gotten $14.7 million in foreclosure relief benefits as part of a state-federal settlement with the country's five largest mortgages servicers.

Attorney General William Sorrell says the benefits help Vermonters who have faced foreclosure, and who had problems with the companies that serviced their loans, such as delays and lost paperwork.

Sorrell's office says 257 Vermont borrowers benefited from some type of relief, which on average was about $57,000 per borrower.

The organization helping Vermont prepare for the federal health care reform has hired groups to help people navigate the system.

Vermont Health Connect announced Tuesday it had awarded $2 million in grants to organizations that will provide in-person enrollment assistance for health care coverage.

The organizations will manage people who will be trained and certified to provide direct assistance to individuals, families and small businesses.

Documents filed by the U.S. Attorney's office allege three men had a role in the 2010 abduction and killing of a Sheffield grandmother.

The three, who are related, are in federal or state custody on charges unrelated to the killing of 78-year-old Mary "Pat" O'Hagan. No one has been charged in her death.

Hagan disappeared from her home in September 2010. Her body was found nearly a month later by hunters in a remote area 10 miles away.

Vermont has nearly 1,900 cemeteries - some large and well manicured - others, small, tucked-away family plots.  They’re the final resting places for luminaries like Ethan Allen, Robert Frost and Calvin Coolidge.  But Vermont also has cemeteries for paupers and criminals - and officials in Rutland say they’re part of history too.

Tom Giffin is Rutland City’s cemetery commissioner and president of the Vermont Old Cemetery Association.

Giffin lifts the metal latch of a gate and enters an odd little plot of land tucked behind Rutland’s prison near Otter Creak.