PORTLAND (AP) — Income taxes are going down while the sales tax expands to a number of new products as a budget compromise by state lawmakers takes effect with the new year. The top income tax rate falls from 7.95 percent to 7.15 percent under a twoyear, $6.7 billion budget approved by lawmakers and signed […]

FARMINGTON (AP) — A man has been sentenced to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to bludgeoning his grandmother to death with a hammer in December 2014. Dana Craney Jr. changed his plea Monday in Franklin County District Court after reaching an agreement with the attorney general’s office. Police say Craney fatally beat 67-year-old […]

FARMINGTON (AP) — A judge has set bail at $75,000 for the man accused of drunken driving in the fatal hit-and-run of a pedestrian in Farmington last week. The Sun Journal reports 25-year-old Tommy Clark made his first appearance in court Monday. He faces charges of aggravated DUI and leaving the scene of an accident. […]

PORTLAND (AP) — Officials say a fisherman required rescue by the Coast Guard after he suffered an injury to his hand in waters off the eastern coast of Maine. The Portland Press Herald reports Nathan Murphy, a crewman aboard the 35-foot fishing vessel Latta II, was transported Monday to the mainland by a 45-foot motor […]

CHELSEA (AP) — Police say three people were seriously injured following a head-on crash between two pickup trucks along state Route 9 in Kennebec County. The Kennebec Journal reports the trucks collided in Chelsea around 6 p.m. Monday close to the Randolph town line. Sheriff Ryan Reardon says both vehicles, a 1986 Ford pickup and […]

CARRABASSETT VALLEY (AP) — Maine’s Sugarloaf ski area has completed the $800,000 upgrade of a chairlift that rolled backward last season, injuring seven skiers. The updated King Pine lift reopened on Monday at Sugarloaf. Resort officials say the quad lift features a redesigned gear box and the latest electronic, braking, and anti-rollback technology. The towers […]