New England News

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.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has named Sharon Palmer, the longtime teachers' union president, his new commissioner of the Department of Labor.

Malloy, who announced the appointment on Tuesday, said he reached out to Palmer in recent weeks to fill the job held previously by former union president Glenn Marshall. He called her "a tireless advocate for working people from all walks of life."

The 68-year-old Palmer has been president of the Connecticut chapter of the American Federation of Teachers since 2003. The union represents 28,000 teachers and other employees in the state.