Pat Bradley

A proposed $32 million rail spur in Vermont has been put on hold indefinitely.

The 3.3-mile rail spur in Middlebury would be used to alleviate truck traffic between marble processor Omya's quarry and its calcium carbonate plant in Pittsford.

The Rutland Herald reports Omya plant manager Jim Stewart said given the sluggish economy and the cost of the project, the company and Vermont Rail Systems are not pursuing it.

Republican attorney general candidate Jack McMullen says he is going to focus his campaign and the attorney general's office more on fighting crime.

He says Attorney General Bill Sorrell has focused his efforts on consumer protection and civil matters.

McMullen held a press conference on Wednesday in the yard of a Burlington homeowner whose neighborhood has seen a rash of drug-related property crimes.

Sorrell won the Democratic nomination in a close primary with challenger T.J. Donovan.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has proposed changing how they deal with navigable waters across the country under the Clean Water Act.  But the New York Farm Bureau is raising red flags saying the agency is attempting to expand their authority without appropriate public input.

A 3-year-old black cat in Vermont that was shot in the chest with an arrow has made a full recovery.

Missy the cat was brought from Windsor to the Small Animal Veterinary Emergency Services hospital in Lebanon, N.H., the night of Aug. 14 and underwent emergency surgery.

The Eagle Times reports the arrow had entered the cat's chest and punctured a lung. It perforated several organs. Veterinarians removed it.

The cat was recently returned to her owner.

Police are investigating what happened as a deliberate act of animal cruelty.

Malcolm W. Browne, a former Associated Press correspondent who snapped a photo of a Buddhist monk's self-immolation that shocked the Kennedy White House into a re-evaluation of its Vietnam policy, has died. He was 81.

His wife, Le Lieu, says Browne died Monday night at a hospital in New Hampshire, not far from their home in Thetford, Vt. He had Parkinson's disease for more than a decade.

Browne was the only foreign journalist at the scene when an elderly monk was doused in aviation fuel in Saigon in June 1963 and set himself aflame.

A former student of a Vermont military college is scheduled to be sentenced for driving drunk in a crash that killed one Norwich University student and critically injured three others last fall.

Derek Seber has agreed to serve 2 1/2-years in prison as part of a five- to 15-year sentence. He will be sentenced on Tuesday.

Seber was driving drunk when he crashed his car packed with seven passengers returning to school from an off-campus party on Oct. 2. The crash killed Norwich freshman, 18-year-old Renee Robbins, of Kentwood, Mich.

Secretary of State Jim Condos says turnout is light as Vermonters head to the polls for the state's primary election.

Condos estimates between 8 and 10 percent of Vermont's registered voters will go to the polls Tuesday.

He attributes the light turnout to the lack of high-profile contests.

The interest that has drawn the most outside interest is the Democratic race for attorney general.

Chittenden County State's Attorney T.J. Donovan is challenging incumbent William Sorrell.

Tropical Storm Irene caused damage or destroyed countless homes and businesses as rivers and streams became raging torrents. In Vermont, over 500 miles of state roads were damaged and 34 state highway bridges had to be rebuilt . Over 3000 local roads, culverts and bridges were damaged or destroyed. Towns were completely isolated and supplies were helicoptered to residents.  On this one year anniversary of the storm people in northern New York and Vermont are still rebuilding and many still need help.

Governor Peter Shumlin says Vermont has become a national leader in how to respond to natural disasters and there's little he'd change about the state's handling of flooding after Hurricane Irene.

Shumlin tells The Associated Press that forming partnerships among state agencies, state and local governments and the private sector were keys to Vermont's success in recovering from the storm and the subsequent flooding.

Vermont state officials say the cloud of uncertainty surrounding federal funding for Vermont's recovery from Tropical Storm Irene has grown thicker with the departures of two top officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding says the state has been working for months with FEMA officials over the complicated issues of how much Vermont will be reimbursed for the destruction of the Vermont State Hospital and much of the surrounding state office complex in Waterbury.