Senator Sanders

VA Clinic This afternoon marks the grand opening of a new veterans health clinic in Newport, Vt., operated by the White River Junction VA hospital. Sen. Bernie Sanders will be at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. A member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs committee, Sanders pushed for the community-based outpatient clinic after hearing from Northeast Kingdom veterans, Fox 44 reported. VIDEO

‘Things Stink' "The unemployment rate is much, much too high. The middle class continues to collapse. Let's not forget at the end of the Bush era we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. Are we doing better than that now? We are. Are we doing good enough? No, we are not. You have to put things in perspective," Sen. Bernie Sanders told Neil Cavuto on Fox News. VIDEO

International

U.K. Fines Goldman Sachs The U.K.'s Financial Services Authority said Thursday that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to pay a fine of £17.5 million ($27.1 million) for failing to make disclosures about trader Fabrice Tourre, the London-based trader at Goldman who was accused of fraud in an April lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission, The Wall Street Journal reported. LINK

National

Obama on Koran Controversy President Obama urged a Florida pastor Thursday to call off a plan to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11, warning that such a "stunt" would amount to a "recruitment bonanza for al-Qaeda" and would endanger Americans. Obama added his voice to a chorus of criticism of the proposed Koran-burning in an interview broadcast Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America." LINK

Health Care Pushed by a dramatic increase in the number of Americans who will get insurance under the new healthcare law, total U.S. medical spending will continue to gallop upward, consuming nearly 20 percent of the economy by 2019, according to a new government estimate. But because new savings in the law offset most of the cost of extending insurance to more people, the nation's total healthcare bill is not expected to be substantially larger than it would have been without the overhaul, the Los Angeles Times reported. LINK

White House Shakeup The expected departure of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to run for mayor of Chicago is likely to mark the beginning of a wider White House shake-up, officials said Wednesday, one aimed at helping the administration regain its footing in the aftermath of anticipated Democratic losses in the midterm elections, according to The Washington Post. LINK

Torture Case Tossed A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that former prisoners of the C.I.A. could not sue over their alleged torture in overseas prisons because such a lawsuit might expose secret government information. The sharply divided ruling was a major victory for the Obama administration's efforts to advance a sweeping view of executive secrecy powers, The New York Times reported. LINK

Vermont

Guard to Iraq The nation's formal combat stage has ended, but more Vermont National Guard troops are heading to Iraq to help with the United States' transition to a support mission. Sixty-six members of the Vermont National Guard's 126th Aviation (Air Ambulance) will be honored at a deployment ceremony Friday as they start their one-year mission, The Burlington Free Press reported. LINK

 
Maple Fraud Officials at the Agency of Agriculture say Log Cabin's "All Natural Syrup" is masquerading as the real thing. Rep. Peter Welch joined the fight Wednesday, saying the "all natural" claim "appears to violate FDA labeling rules." The congressman sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration asking it to investigate, the Vermont Press Bureau reported. LINK

Teachers Strike Winooski teachers plan to go on strike next week if a contract is not reached with the school board. Contract negotiations with the school board began a year ago, but fell apart over differences involving salary and how much teachers should pay for health insurance, Vermont Public Radio reported. LINK