Here are the top stories at 7:30 a.m.:
Congressman Peter Welch is critical of a plan that would protect telephone companies from lawsuits if they allowed federal wiretaps without a proper court order; the Vermont Labor Department says the slowing national and regional economies helped drive up the state’s unemployment rate by three tenths of one percent in January; Roofs on about a dozen buildings around Vermont have collapsed this winter under the weight of ice and snow.