Gov. Beverly Perdue will lead one of the Obama administration's five regional discussions on health reform.

Perdue, who was a hospital administrator and health consultant before entering politics, will lead a discussion in Greensboro on March 31st. Other sites will be in California, Iowa, Michigan and Vermont, Rob Christensen reports.

The announcement came on the day that President Obama held a health summit in Washington.

Details of the event will be announced later.

Julie Brill, an assistant attorney general from Vermont, is replacing newly-elected state Sen. Josh Stein as the state's top consumer watchdog.

Attorney General Roy Cooper has hired Brill to be the head of his Consumer Protection Division. She has been working in the Vermont Attorney General's Consumer Protection and Antitrust divisions since October 1991, Dan Kane reports.

Jennifer Canada, a spokeswoman for Cooper, said that Brill was instrumental in launching the Vermont office's litigation, legislative and regulatory strategies in a wide variety of consumer and business matters. They include privacy, credit reporting, financial services, tobacco, food, drugs and other health-related industries.

"Consumers are facing new threats from fraud and bad deals in the struggling economy, and we are pleased to bring one of the best consumer protection attorneys in the country to North Carolina," Cooper said in a statement.

Brill graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and received her law degree from New York University. She starts at the end of the month. Her salary has not yet been set.

Stein, a Raleigh Democrat, was the consumer protection chief under Cooper since February 2001.

John Edwards is getting the ice cream vote.

Edwards announced tonight that he has been endorsed by Ben & Jerry's co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, as well as a handful of other business, labor and political leaders from Vermont.

Cohen's support may be most helpful. He has agreed, according to the Edwards' campaign, to travel to New Hampshire on Jan. 5 to hand out free ice cream "and help build campaign momentum."

We'll assume they won't be serving their "Half Baked" flavor.