WOBURN, Mass. (AP) — A Maine man has pleaded guilty to being drunk when he struck and killed a Massachusetts state highway engineer in 2010. Jeremy Gardner of Bridgton, Maine, is scheduled to be sentenced today after pleading guilty Monday in Middlesex Superior Court to charges including vehicular homicide, driving under the influence of liquor […]

PORTLAND ( AP) — A Maine man who was wounded in a shootout with U. S. marshals and made the news again by circumventing jail security to have a tryst with a female inmate has pleaded guilty. Arien L’Italien of Biddeford pleaded guilty Monday to assaulting a federal officer, being a felon in possession of […]

AUGUSTA (AP) — Mainers have watched as the early blast of summer weather last week hastened ice- out on lakes. Now, park rangers on the Allagash Wilderness Waterway are reporting deteriorating ice and snow conditions on the headwater lakes of the northern Maine river and nearby trails. Rangers have stopped traveling on the ice in […]

SHERMAN (AP) — Authorities say about 200 pigs died in a fire at an eastern Maine farm that may have been started by an electrical malfunction. Sherman Fire Chief Todd Hayes says no one was injured in the blaze reported by farmer Sam Sides at about 11:15 p.m. Sunday. Sides says he got up late […]

MACHIAS (AP) — Federal agricultural officials say Maine’s 2011 wild blueberry harvest was 83.1 million pounds, up just slightly from the previous year. The good news for farmers in 2011, however, was that prices for those blueberries jumped significantly from 61 cents per pound in 2010 to 85 cents per pound last year. That made […]

AUGUSTA (AP) — A reallife hamburglar struck a Maine McDonald’s last weekend. Police say a young man, emulating the McDonald’s mascot known for purloining patties, ran between a car and the takeout window at the Augusta restaurant at about 6 p.m. on Sunday as an employee handed a bag of food to a driver. A […]

KINGFIELD ( AP) — Authorities have charged five people in connection with what police called a methamphetamine lab that was discovered after a mobile home fire in Kingfield last month. Police say Seth Hinkley of Strong; Joshua Bartlett of New Portland; David Coffren of Kingfield; Charity Haines Christopher of Farmington; and Isaac Moody of West […]

BANGOR (AP) — Police in Bangor say they’re looking for a man who raided a locker room during a charity fundraiser musical at the high school over the weekend. Police on Monday released video surveillance of the man who went into the locker room on Sunday during the Rotary Club of Bangor’s seventh annual Music […]

AUGUSTA ( AP) — Gov. Paul LePage is asking lawmakers to pass a bill that would repeal a 2008 law that extended the right to unionize to nearly 300 child care providers, even though they are not state workers. Maine Today Media reports the Republican governor’s legal counsel told lawmakers Monday it’s not fair that […]

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is taking up the key question in the challenge to President Barack Obama’s historic health care overhaul: Can the government force people to carry insurance or pay a penalty? The justices hear extended arguments on that topic today. It’s the linchpin of the law’s aim to get medical insurance to an […]