GRAY (AP) — A rare February thunderstorm is the latest wacky weather this winter, with strong gusts knocking out power to more than 16,000 homes and businesses in Maine. Flashes of lightning and powerful thunderclaps swept across the state Thursday morning. The February thunderstorm warnings were the first issued by the National Weather Service in […]

LEWISTON (AP) — Police in Maine have filed a criminal complaint against the woman they say abandoned her dog outside a Lewiston animal shelter days before it was struck and killed by a car. The Portland Press Herald reports that 21-year-old Sarah Vye faces a misdemeanor count of animal cruelty. Police say she left the […]

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — The sponsor of a Maine bill about rape victims’ rights says the proposal would make it easier for victims to strip their attackers of parental rights to children conceived as a result of rape. Sen. Bill Diamond, a Windham Democrat, has proposed the law change. Current Maine law says a man […]

MILLINOCKET (AP) — A Maine man has been charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of an infant last year. Authorities arrested 33- year-old Jessee Mackin of Millinocket on Wednesday night after a jury indicted him in the death of 6-month-old Larry Lord Jr. The child was the son of Mackin’s girlfriend. He died […]

WASHINGTON Marco Rubio unleashed a campaign’s worth of harsh criticism on Donald Trump in the final Republican debate before Tuesday’s crucial primaries. The problem may be that it took 10 debates and three Trump victories to get Rubio fired up. Rubio, along with most of the other GOP presidential candidates, has treated Trump with kid-gloves […]

HESSTON, Kan. A gunman armed with an “assault-style” weapon drove through a south-central Kansas town, taking shots at people, before storming the factory where he worked. Authorities said he killed three people and wounded 14 before being shot dead by an officer. All the dead were shot Thursday inside Excel Industries, a plant in Hesston […]

CLEVELAND Surgeons in Cleveland say they have performed the nation’s first uterus transplant, a new frontier that aims to give women who lack wombs a chance at pregnancy. In a statement Thursday, the Cleveland Clinic said the nine-hour surgery was performed a day earlier on a 26-year-old woman, using a uterus from a deceased donor. […]

FORT WORTH, Texas A person has been detained after a suspicious package found at the main gate of a naval air station in Fort Worth prompted a lock down of that gate. Officials at Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base said in a statement the package was discovered by a Naval Security Force […]

WASHINGTON The U.S. military has launched a newly aggressive campaign of cyberattacks against Islamic State militants, targeting the group’s abilities to use social media and the Internet to recruit fighters and inspire followers, U.S. officials told The Associated Press. The surge of computer based military operations by U.S. Cyber Command began shortly after Defense Secretary […]

TEHRAN, Iran Iranians were voting Friday in parliamentary elections, the country’s first since its landmark nuclear deal with world powers last summer. The vote is seen as a referendum on the policies of moderate President Hassan Rouhani, credited with bringing about the deal that curbed Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of crippling […]