Pat Bradley

For all the debate in recent days around a recount in the Vermont Progressive Party's gubernatorial primary, party leaders say they want to keep their focus on winning more seats in the state House and Senate.

Party Chairwoman Martha Abbott appears to have won the Aug. 28 primary by one vote over write-in candidate Annette Smith, but Smith is seeking a recount.

Abbott responded to her apparent win by declining the nomination and saying she wants Progressive support to go for incumbent Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin.

The Progressive Party is a major party in Vermont, and the recent gubernatorial primary has resulted in a recount request from a write-in candidate and criticism from Republicans over how the state is handling the vote count.

The Vermont Public Interest Research Group has released its assessment of legislative votes over the past biennium.

The scorecard released by the advocacy group looks at votes on ten issues, including health care reform, clean energy and a fracking moratorium.  Vermont Public Interest Research Group Executive Director Paul Burns says it represents a range of their priority issues over the past two years.

The Burlington city council is going to consider asking voters in Vermont's largest city whether marijuana should be legalized and taxed.

Progressive Councilor Max Tracy says he is planning to ask the council next week to consider adding the non-binding referendum to the city's ballot in November.

He says the idea is not an endorsement of marijuana use nor a call for legislative action. Rather, he says it's a way to survey the opinion of voters on the issue.

Vermont State Police say two men killed in unrelated car crashes last weekend brings the total number of motor vehicle fatalities across the state this year to 57 — two more than last year's total.

Police said the 55 people killed on Vermont's roads last year was the lowest recorded number since 1944.

They said a record high of 161 deaths was reported in 1979.

Monday marked the end of the state police's Operation H.E.A.T., or High Enforcement Area Team, an initiative aimed at cracking down on dangerous driving. The effort started July 4.

The Vermont Department of Health has issued an emergency rule to further crack down on the sale of designer drugs known as bath salts.

Governor Peter Shumlin's office announced that the Health Department will expand the list of bath salt and compounds that are illegal to sell, make or possess in the state to include derivatives.  

Vermont officials this week announced a new round of grants that will move the state closer to a universal broadband network across the state.

A woman says a 6-week-old kitten hitched a ride on the outside of her vehicle as she drove about 100 miles over upstate New York roads.

Stacey Pulsifer tells the Press-Republican of Plattsburgh that she recently drove from her home in Plattsburgh to Elizabethtown in the Adirondacks, then back to her apartment. Along the way she stopped for coffee and heard meowing coming from her Jeep.

She asked two friends to help her search the vehicle. They finally found the kitten wedged behind a bumper and had to cut it free.

The state of Vermont is working with officials in St. Albans to sell the existing state office building and build a new state office building in the heart of the city's downtown.

If approved, the plan would bring 200 state workers closer to the downtown restaurants and shops, but it could also prompt the redevelopment of the existing state office building, putting it on the tax rolls, and additional downtown development.

The Vermont Health Department is planning to begin aerial spraying as part of a broader effort to control mosquitoes in an area of Rutland and Addison counties where two people were sickened, and one person died, from the state's first cases of Eastern Equine Encephalitis.

On Wednesday the Health Department identified the person who died as Richard Hollis Breen, an 87-year-old Brandon man.

The death certificate released by the Health Department said Breen had been sick with the disease for five days before his death Tuesday at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington.