Midday Report: June 1, 2007

Senator Patrick Leahy and Congressman Peter Welch are completing a week-long fact-finding tour of the Middle East; Starbucks hopes to open a coffee store in Rutland at North Main Street and Woodstock Avenue, while a few miles south developers hope to break ground on a Best Buy and Barnes and Noble Book Store in an 80,000 square foot shopping center called Rutland Commons; there will be a memorial service tomorrow afternoon in Essex Junction for Frederick Allen, who died this week and whose handcrafted pitchforks and rakes were famous at the Champlain Valley Fair’s early implements display.