Here are the top stories at the noon hour.
So far, Vermonters seem to have coped pretty well with this week’s oppressively hot weather; Vermont’s fourteen hospitals are asking the state for double digit budget increases; the “help wanted” sign is out again at IBM in Essex Junction, but not for huge numbers of new hires; the Vermont Tourism and Marketing Department, and he says the evidence for a link between gasoline and tourism is much more tenuous than the link between weather and tourism.