PORTLAND (AP) — Fire officials are investigating a blaze at a vacant apartment building in Portland and they say at least one squatter appeared to be living there. The Portland Press Herald reports Deputy Fire Chief Robert Thompson says firefighters responded to a building on Sunday night and concluded the third floor of a building […]

AUGUSTA (AP) — A new law means yard sales in Augusta will soon no longer be allowed to last longer than three consecutive days. The Kennebec Journal reports the ordinance passed last week also states properties can’t have more than such sales a year. Items must be appropriately stored at the end of each yard […]

PORTLAND (AP) — Fishing regulators are looking to hire Maine fishermen to help study New England’s imperiled cold water shrimp population. The interstate Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Maine Department of Marine Resources say they plan to hire five shrimp trapping vessels to collect samples of Northern shrimp. The fishermen will also be […]

HODGDON (AP) — A police officer in Maine is recovering after her vehicle collided with an SUV in Hodgdon. Police say Houlton Police Officer Jasmine Cyr was on routine patrol traveling south on U.S. 1 in Hodgdon on Friday night. She turned into a business parking lot to turn around and head back north. As […]

OAKLAND, Calif. Some people managed to text loved ones goodbye and “I love you” before they died in an Oakland warehouse fire that claimed three dozen lives, officials said, as heartrending reports of victims’ last moments emerged from the most lethal building fire in the U.S. in more than a decade. Also Monday, the painful […]

SAN FRANCISCO The founder of a ramshackle Oakland artists’ colony where dozens of people burned to death saw himself as a kind of guru and loved to surround himself with followers but showed chilling disregard for their well-being, according to relatives, neighbors and acquaintances. Derick Ion Almena, 46, leased and operated the cluttered warehouse where […]

NEW YORK Mayor Bill de Blasio says he believes president-elect Donald Trump is to blame for a 35-percent increase in hate crime incidents over the past year in New York City. The Democratic mayor made the comments at a news conference called Monday in response to threats made against a Muslim New York Police Department […]

PHILADELPHIA A suburban Philadelphia judge settled one of two key pretrial issues in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial when he ruled on Monday that the jury could hear Cosby’s damaging testimony from a decade-old civil deposition. The defense had argued that Cosby only gave the testimony after being assured he would never be charged in […]

WASHINGTON Congress is quickening its pace toward adjourning late this week, marching toward a final vote on legislation boosting medical research and speeding drug approvals and readying a separate stopgap spending bill to prevent the government from shutting down this weekend. The temporary budget bill, scheduled to be unveiled today, would keep federal agencies functioning […]

BEIRUT The Syrian government and its ally Russia today issued stark warnings to rebels in besieged eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo, with Moscow’s top diplomat saying the rebels will be wiped out unless they stop fighting and leave the city. Damascus also said it rejects any cease-fire for Aleppo that does not include the departure of […]