Fresh Air kids in Vermont
Roughly 500 inner city kids come to Vermont each summer as part of the Fresh Air Fund. The children live for two weeks with volunteer host families. Tuesday, a group of Fresh Air Fund kids visiting central Vermont got a taste of farm life. (Listen to the story online or read the transcript.) (VPR)
Book interview: Bubbles Ablaze
Neal Charnoff talks with Vermont novelist Sarah Strohmeyer about the recent adventures of her hairstylist and crime fighting heroine, Bubbles Yablonksi. (Listen to the interview online.) (VPR)
Supreme Court nomination
There may be a fight in the Vermont Senate when Governor Jim Douglas nominates a candidate to fill the vacancy on the Vermont Supreme Court. (Listen to the story online or read the transcript.) (VPR)
Medicare solvent through 2006
Vermont lawmakers on Tuesday got some good news on the state’s health care budget. A fiscal analyst says the state trust fund that covers the Medicaid program will be solvent through fiscal year 2006. A year ago, experts had predicted the program would be in the red. But then the federal government stepped in to help. (Listen to the story online or read the transcript.) (VPR)
Dean expands field offices
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean’s campaign for president has gained momentum from recent fundraising success. Campaign Manager Joe Trippi says the Dean campaign may establish a more formal presence in Western states. (AP)
Powerball ticket sales
Powerball sales are nearly triple what state officials had projected for the lottery’s first week in Vermont. Ticket sales reached $672,000 Tuesday. (AP)
Covered bridges restoration
Four Vermont covered bridges are getting some help from the federal government. Two million dollars will be used to help restore covered bridges in Weathersfield, Tunbridge, Thetford and Salisbury. (AP)
Bennington College gift
Bennington College is being promised two million dollars from the husband of a former English professor who taught at the school for 34 years. Thomas Foster of Bennington is giving the money to fulfill the wishes of his late wife, Catharine “Kit” Osgood Foster. (AP)
James Most sentenced
A Manchester pediatrician was sentenced to perform community service Tuesday in connection with last fall’s death of pedestrian Richard Hall in Newfane. Doctor James Most will spend 75 hours treating indigent people in his practice after pleading no contest to driving too fast and consuming an unsafe quantity of alcohol. (AP)
Huntington Gorge death
Police are investigating the death of a 40-year-old woman whose body was pulled from the Huntington Gorge Tuesday. Police say the body of Jennifer Levine of Colchester was recovered from the gorge at about 10:00 a.m. Tuesday. (AP)
Fenced in frogs
Frogs in a wetland near Lake Champlain are going to be fenced in. Crews from the Vermont Transportation Agency and the Fish and Wildlife Department say a fence along U.S. Route 2 in the Sandbar Wildlife Management Area helped small frogs stay out of busy traffic lanes last year. (AP)