Top stories developing across the region at the noon hour:
State government officials are moving quickly to implement the health care reform initiative passed this spring by the Legislature; during the last two weeks, several hundred Vermonters have been involved in a mock emergency exercise to test the state’s response to a possible outbreak of bird flu in chickens or a human influenza pandemic; a Vermont dairy farmer just back from a trip to West Africa says America’s current agriculture policies are crippling developing nations; the owner of the Grafton Village Cheese Company wants to open a new cheese factory in Brattleboro.