Newscast: Monday, February 18, 2013, 7:34 a.m.

Crowd-funding has taken off. Kickstarter is the best known crowd-funding site, but there are hundreds of online platforms like it. They enable entrepreneurs, artists and others to pitch an idea for a project and collect donations to finance it. But the day is coming when crowd-funding will be targeted to investors as well as donors. In Vermont some say it could bolster efforts to help small businesses and non-profits. Chittenden County appears to be keeping nonviolent criminals from returning to crime. A measure to bar Vermont public employees convicted of certain crimes from collecting their retirement pensions appears to be gaining support.