Newscast: Wednesday, December 19, 2012, 5:50 p.m.

VT Senator Patrick Leahy has decided not to become the chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. State health officials say turnout was strong at a series of clinics today to vaccinate people against whooping cough. FEMA has rejected buyouts for 33 VT properties damaged by last year’s flooding. Beetles have been released in two communities in Southern Vermont in an effort to spread “hemlock wooly adeljid.”