WASHINGTON (AP) — A Maryland man has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of a Washington, D.C., actress and yoga teacher who went missing on Christmas. Tricia McCauley, 46, who was found dead in her car Monday, was strangled by a ligature and suffered blunt force trauma, the Metropolitan Police Department said Tuesday […]

WASHINGTON — Piers Sellers, a climate scientist and former astronaut who gained fame late in life for his eloquent commentary about the earth’s fragility and his own cancer diagnosis, has died. He was 61.  Sellers died Friday morning in Houston of pancreatic cancer, NASA said in a statement. Sellers shared his astronaut’s perspective on climate […]

WASHINGTON  (AP)— U.S.-Russian talks on their separate fights against the Islamic State group are becoming more productive and more frequent, American officials said, with both sides trading information in real time and even outlining some of their strategic objectives in the months ahead. The progress dispels the notion that ties between the former Cold War […]

EAST BOOTHBAY (AP) – The executive director of Maine oceanography center Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences has died at age 58. Graham Shimmield led Bigelow Laboratory for about nine years. Officials with the lab say he transformed the facility by developing a new marine research and education campus in East Boothbay. Bigelow has almost doubled in size since Shimmield took over leadership. He […]

PORTLAND, (AP) — A national organization that advocates for Muslim civil rights is calling for state and federal investigations of vandalism that targeted a halal market in Portland. Police in Portland were looking on Tuesday for someone suspected of using a baseball bat to smash six windows at Ahram Halal Market in the city. Police […]

AUGUSTA (AP) — The Maine Office of Tourism, Ski Maine Association and Maine Snowmobile Association are collaborating to provide weekly reports on snow conditions across the state. The reports on visitmaine.com will be posted each Wednesday starting in January. Phil Savignano, senior tourism officer, says it’s important for people to know that there’s always snow somewhere in […]

AUGUSTA (AP) — Dozens of sparsely populated areas across Maine have won special protections that could pose a hurdle to companies looking to build wind power turbines in some of the state’s windiest areas. The designations come years after Maine under Democratic Gov. John Baldacci set an ambitious target of 3,000 megawatts of wind energy […]

AUGUSTA (AP) — State regulators have formally approved $13.4 million in contracts to bail out struggling biomass companies in Aroostook, Penobscot and Washington counties. The Maine legislature this year passed a law to supplement the prices that the companies get for selling electricity on the regional grid for up to two years. The $13.4 million […]