LYMAN

Man charged with assaulting officer and resisting arrest

A Lyman man was taken into custody Tuesday night and charged with assault on a police officer for allegedly resisting arrest.

Deputies from the York County Sheriff’s Department were investigating a theft complaint at a home in Lyman when they determined that 24-year-old Kenneth Huff Jr. was wanted by Biddeford police on an outstanding warrant charging failure to pay fines.

Huff started to fight with a deputy when the officer tried to take him into custody, police said. He was subdued and taken to the York County Jail, where he was charged with refusing to submit to arrest, assault on a police officer and disorderly conduct.

Huff appeared in court Wednesday, where a judge set his bail at $200 cash. Huff also will be required to sign a contract of conditions for his release.

SOUTH PORTLAND

Red Claws to share holiday with youths at Long Creek

The Maine Red Claws basketball team is planning to spend Thanksgiving with youths at Long Creek Youth Development Center.

Long Creek’s basketball team, the A.R. Gould School Bears, will greet the players around noon before sitting down for a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

The Red Claws have visited Long Creek several times over the past two years. Jana Spaulding, the Red Claws’ director of public and community relations, said the players have made an impact on young people living there. She said the youths have made an impact on the team, too.

“The players are away from home and don’t have a typical Thanksgiving,” Spaulding said. “They can certainly relate to not being with their families, as these kids can.”

After the Thanksgiving meal, the Red Claws will board a bus and head south for the team’s first game on Friday in Springfield, Mass.

WATERBORO

Police recover 50 laptops stolen from high school

The York County Sheriff’s Department has recovered 50 Apple laptop computers that were stolen from Massabesic High School earlier this week.

Sheriff Maurice Ouellette said he would not say where the computers were found because that information is part of the ongoing investigation.

No one has been arrested for the thefts.

Ouellette said the computers did not appear to be damaged. The laptops had been placed inside two, large plastic tubs with covers.

The computers were removed from the high school in Waterboro sometime early Tuesday morning. The sheriff said the thief or thieves pried open a window to gain entrance to the school.

“This was stuff that kids used to study with that’s something I take personally,” Ouellette said.

Investigators were led to where the stolen computers had been stashed by a person who had seen media reports about the theft and contacted authorities. The computers are valued at $60,000.

BANGOR

Joseph Sewall, former president of state Senate, dies at 89

Joseph Sewall, former Republican president of the Maine Senate and a longtime businessman and civic leader, has died. He was 89.

Sewall died Wednesday at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

Born and raised in Old Town, Sewall took over the James W. Sewall Co., a forestry and surveying business started by his grandfather and great-uncle, after serving in the Navy during World War II. He retired in 2001.

He was elected to the Maine Senate in 1967 and served as Senate president from 1975-82, making him one of Maine’s longest-serving Senate presidents.

He also served on a number of commission and boards, including the Maine Maritime Academy board of trustees for more than 20 years.

YORK

Police seek help in hunt for suspect in bank robbery

York police are asking for the public’s help in locating the man who robbed the Savings Bank of Maine Wednesday morning.

Police say a masked man told a teller he had a gun, though he did not show one, demanded money and left on foot with an undisclosed amount of cash.

The suspect is described as white, 5-foot 8-inches tall, medium build, 35 to 45 years old, with a couple days growth of facial hair. He was wearing a black watch cap with eye holes cut into it pulled down over his face, a dark blue hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans and black gloves.

Witnesses said the man appeared bow-legged.

Police ask that anyone in the area of Meadowbroook Plaza on Route 1 at 10 a.m. who saw a man fitting the robber’s description contact police at 363-4444.

AUGUSTA

Group opposes permit for wind energy project

A citizens’ group is challenging a state permit allowing construction of the Saddleback Ridge Wind project in western Maine.

Friends of Maine’s Mountains has filed an appeal with the state opposing the permit issued by the Department of Environmental Protection.

Patriot Renewables of Boston received a DEP permit to build a dozen wind turbines in Carthage, Dixfield and Canton.

Friends of Maine’s Mountains says the towers would mar the scenery from nearby Mount Blue State Park. The group also has concerns about noise and the process for granting the permit.

CONWAY, N.H.

Local man wins $1 million in Tri-State lottery game

A 72-year-old Conway, N.H., man has won more than $1 million in the Tri-State Weekly Grand Extra lottery game.

Christopher Brown was given a check Tuesday at the Shaw’s supermarket where he bought the ticket for the Nov. 11 game.

He told WMUR-TV he couldn’t believe his eyes when he checked the winning numbers.

The retired hospital worker has bought a new car and is thinking of taking a road trip, but he said he plans to be smart with his winnings.

The lottery will pay him $1,000 per week, before taxes, for the next 20 years.

Brown said that he’s going to keep playing his lucky numbers, figuring that he just might win big again.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H.

Fitness club worker receives thanks for saving man’s life

A 65-year-old New Hampshire man who went into cardiac arrest and collapsed while on a fitness club treadmill is thanking the worker who saved his life.

John Foster of Rye told the Portsmouth Herald he’s grateful Whitni Hendley was working on Nov. 15 at the Planet Fitness club in Portsmouth. The 22-year-old Hendley came to his aid after he stopped breathing. She used a defibrillator and CPR on Foster to help him regain a pulse. The York Beach, Maine, resident visited him in the hospital Tuesday.

Dr. Robert Helm at Portsmouth Regional Hospital said Foster had a congenital bicuspid aortic valve. That means the valve only had two flaps to control blood flow from the heart. There normally are three. Foster is recovering after undergoing surgery last week.

AMHERST, Mass.

Lynn Margulis, influential scientist, dies at age 73

Evolutionary biologist, author and National Medal of Science winner Lynn Margulis has died.

The University of Massachusetts, where she was a professor of geosciences, says Margulis died at her home on Tuesday. She was 73.

Margulis was once married to astronomer Carl Sagan. But she was best known for her theory of symbiogenesis. That theory argues that inherited variation does not come from random mutations in genes but from long-lasting interaction between organisms.

She was also a strong proponent of the hypothesis that the earth acts as a living organism.

Margulis was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983 and received the National Medal of Science in 1999.

She was born in Chicago and enrolled at the University of Chicago when she was 14. 

— From staff and news services