Top stories developing across the region at the noon hour:
The Vermont Legislature convened this morning in response to Governor Jim Douglas’s call for a budget bill that does not put the lawmakers into the middle of a labor dispute at the state colleges; three items – the state budget, a summer study on the state colleges, and a tax credit for an Ethan Allen plant – are now being considered by the Senate; a VPR poll shows Vermonters are divided on how they want to pay for health care, but they are certain how they don’t want it funded; Governor Douglas comments on the near-total lack of support for his health care funding plan; federal regulators are faulting the performance of some state and local governments in last month’s Vermont Yankee evacuation drill; this season’s maple crop was down by 18 percent.
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