Since 2006, Vermont has laid out more than $18 million for a Department of Motor Vehicles computer system that barely works. The system was once touted as a state-of-the art solution. Instead, the state is largely relying on a 40-year system that lacks the ability to provide the immediacy needed in the world of driver records and auto registrations.

The prospect of paying more big damage awards to victims of long-ago priest sexual abuse will put the state's Roman Catholic diocese out of business and violate constitutional protections regarding religious freedom, the diocese is claiming in papers on file at U.S. District Court in Burlington.

Of all the notable features of the University of Vermont's newly refurbished Aiken Center — the wood trim milled from local trees, the automated fresh-air supply, the solarium — perhaps the most unusual is a showcase-in the-making, right off the front entrance: the wastewater treatment facility.

After scraping by on handyman jobs for a year, Bert Qintana figured he'd have to leave his wife and teenage son at their home near Taos, N.M., and find work elsewhere.

AUGUSTA, Maine — The Medicaid program in Maine is short of money, and conservative Governor Paul LePage has a blunt proposal for solving the problem — drop people from the rolls.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood hires lots of outside lawyers. They make a great deal of money for the state, and for themselves. Not everyone is happy with that situation.