PORTLAND (AP) — Maine’s largest environmental advocacy organization is holding its fifth annual coldwater ocean plunge to raise money in the name of global warming. The Natural Resources Council of Maine is expecting about 200 people for its Polar Bear Plunge, held at noon today at Portland’s East End Beach. The event raises money and […]

BIDDEFORD (AP) — Biddeford officials say a controversial industrial trash incinerator is closing down this week following 25 years of complaints about odor, pollution and truck traffic. When the Maine Energy Recovery Co. plant shuts down for good, Mayor Alan Casavant says it will usher in a new era of economic development for the city. […]

HYANNIS, Mass. (AP) — The family of a 23-year-old Massachusetts man who disappeared 10 days ago in Maine has posted his obituary in a Cape Cod newspaper. The family of Prescott Wright of Barnstable wrote in the obituary in the Cape Cod Times on Sunday that he is “a lover of people” and a boat […]

BANGOR (AP) — Police are investigating the stabbing death of a man at a two-unit apartment house in Bangor, but nobody has been arrested. Police say the man was injured and taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center after officers were called to the Elm Street residence at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday. The man, whose name […]

PORTLAND (AP) — A 74-year-old Maine man will appear in court this week to face charges in the shooting deaths of two of his tenants inside their apartment after a possible dispute over where they parked their cars during a snowstorm, state police said. James Pak was arrested at about 10 p.m. Saturday after a […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is under observation at a New York hospital after being treated for a blood clot stemming from the concussion she sustained earlier this month. Clinton’s doctors discovered the clot Sunday while performing a follow-up exam, her spokesman, Philippe Reines, said. He would not elaborate on the […]

PENDLETON, Ore. (AP) — The stretch of rural Oregon interstate where a tour bus crashed through a guardrail and plummeted 100 feet down a steep embankment is so notorious that state transportation officials have published a specific advisory warning of its dangers. Nine people were killed and more than two dozen injured when the charter […]

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar will ring in 2013 with its first public New Year’s Eve countdown and a grand fireworks display in a celebration unprecedented in the former military-ruled country. Tonight’s outdoor party marks the latest, and perhaps most exuberant, example of the country’s emergence from decades of isolation. Thousands were expected to attend […]

NEW DELHI (AP) — The gang-rape and killing of a New Delhi student has set off an impassioned debate about what India needs to do to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. Protesters and politicians have called for tougher rape laws, major police reforms and a transformation in the way the entire nation treats […]