Senator Sanders

Strolling of the Heifers Thousands of people are expected to watch about 140 cows walk down Main Street in Brattleboro today. Parade founder Orly Munzing said The Stroll raised thousands of dollars that have funded education, support for farmers and work programs for disadvantaged youth.  The organization also caught the attention of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who secured an $89,000 federal grant that is helping to pay for a program this summer that will bring at risk youth to area farms to work, according to the Brattleboro Reformer. LINK

Health Care “I am a Bernie Sanders Democrat. The progressive ideals and principals of the independent Senator from Vermont are the ideals and principals I'd like to see at the core of the Democratic Party…Could you imagine instead of one lone Senator advocating a single payer system, we had other Senators fighting on behalf of a single payer system? You know, a system that is supported by a majority of Americans, a system that would be both more just and freeing for millions of Americans & businesses,” Pinko Elephant blogged on Daily Kos. LINK

Town Meetings Sen. Sanders railed against Wall Street greed, the decline of middle-class living standards and a lack of an adequate government social-safety net as he met last weekend with voters in Stowe, according to the Stowe Reporter. “Unless we begin to stand up at the grassroots level and demand … changes, we are not going to get them,” Sanders told a crowd gathered at the Crossing Restaurant in Richford, the St. Albans Messenger reported on Friday. LINK and LINK

Forest Funds More than $5 million in federal funding will go to Vermont’s Green Mountain National Forest and nearby towns for projects ranging from road upgrades to waterway improvements. Vermont’s Congressional Delegation – Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Congressman Peter Welch. –said the U.S. Forest Service will invest $5.3 million in economic stimulus funds, according to The Burlington Free Press. LINK

International

Couple Accused of Spying for Cuba A former State Department official with top-secret security clearance and his wife have been charged with spying for Cuba over the past three decades, passing information by shortwave radio and correspondence exchanged in local grocery stores, according to The Washington Post. LINK

National

Intelligence Pick Bows Out President Obama's pick for intelligence chief at the Homeland Security Department withdrew from consideration Friday amid questions about his role in the CIA's interrogations of suspected terrorists, according to The Associated Press. LINK

Digital TV Millions of households will lose television reception next week when broadcasters around the nation shut off their analog signals and complete their conversion to digital programming. The New York Times reported. LINK

Vermont

State Layoffs A judge denied the state employee union’s request Friday to halt the layoffs of about 80 state workers and dismissed their case, just hours before those layoffs took effect, The Burlington Free Press reported. LINK

Hung Out to Dry Vermont now has a "right to dry" law that bars condominium associations and housing complex owners from banning the use of clotheslines to dry clothing. The provision, tucked into an energy bill passed by the Legislature in its recent session, was hailed at the Statehouse, with supporters saying dryers can use 15 percent of a household's electricity consumption, The Associated Press reported. LINK