Pat Bradley

A former Vermont state trooper charged with falsifying his time sheets says he's writing a check out to the state after being told the payroll office over-credited him in calculating his final paycheck.

Former Sgt. Jim Deeghan told the Burlington Free Press he'll be sending the amount back and won't contest it now, but maybe later.

Deeghan added that he has not seen all the evidence that state police say they have. He said he'd like to talk more about it, but he can't.

The state payroll office says it over-credited Deeghan by $964 in calculating his final check.

During a visit to the Bombardier Transportation rail car manufacturing plant in Plattsburgh Thursday, New York Senator Charles Schumer called for the extension of a tax credit for businesses that hire veterans.

New York Senator Charles Schumer was in Plattsburgh Thursday afternoon, calling for the renewal of a tax credit for businesses that hire veterans.

New York’s senior Senator stopped by Bombardier Transportation in Plattsburgh, a manufacturer of rail cars, to tour the plant and discuss the importance of extending the “Returning Heroes and Wounded Warriors Tax Credit”.   Schumer says Congressional gridlock is stalling the tax credit’s renewal.

Federal prosecutors in a Vermont court say a cell phone used by a Virginia businessman moved from Virginia to New York while a woman and her daughter were fleeing the country so the woman could avoid sharing custody of the child with her former lesbian partner in Vermont.

A 95-year-old Vermont woman has been recognized for designing a monument 71 years ago for which she never got credit.

Marion Guild was recently honored by town officials in Middlebury for her work on a 1941 monument to Emma Hart Willard, who gave the earliest known collegiate instruction for women there.

The Vermont Health Department says cases of whooping cough are increasing in the state.

The state says there have been 201 confirmed cases this year, with 68 of them reported from June 1 through Aug. 8. No deaths have been reported.

Three infants have been hospitalized with confirmed or probable whooping cough, also called pertussis, since June 1.

New York Senator Charles Schumer was in Plattsburgh Thursday afternoon, calling for the renewal of a tax credit for businesses that hire veterans.

The Vermont Public Service Board has  rejected an appeal by the AARP for a $21 million ratepayer refund in the wake of the merger of the state's two largest utilities.

A new report assesses the visitation policies of acute care hospitals across New York.

The report: “Sick, Scared and Separated from Loved Ones” scored the flexibility and amount of visiting hours and the website information about visitation at the hospitals.  St Peter’s Hospital in Albany ranked highest overall. St Peter’s Health Partners Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer Kathy Brodbeck.

The report found  that eleven hospital websites posted information on a patient’s right to choose their visitors.

The Vermont Public Service Board has once again rejected arguments that ratepayers should get a $21 million refund when the state's two largest utilities merged.

Vermont Public Radio reports the board this week upheld a key provision of its June order that allowed Green Mountain Power to merge with Central Vermont Public Service Corporation.

The deal was panned by the consumer group AARP, which had raised an alarm over a payback provision for extra money CVPS customers were ordered to pay the company a decade ago to pull it back from the brink of bankruptcy.