BIDDEFORD

Holland will be sentenced Feb. 7 in brothers’ murders

A sentencing date has been scheduled for Rory Holland, the 55-year-old Biddeford man convicted of murder for fatally shooting two brothers during a late-night confrontation in front of his house.

The Journal Tribune reported that Holland will be sentenced Feb. 7 in Bangor. He faces 25 years to life in prison.

Holland was convicted in November in the slayings of 19-year-old Gage Green and his 21-year-old brother, Derek, on June 30, 2009.

PORTLAND

Food Network show looking to rescue failing restaurants

Portland-area restaurants that have seen the recession take a big bite out of their business may be able to get a little help from the Food Network.

The new Food Network show “Restaurant: Impossible” is casting in the Portland area for failing restaurants that are at risk of closing.

Restaurants that are chosen must be willing to overhaul their menu, decor and theme in just two days, with the help of celebrity chef Robert Irvine.

According to associate producer Justin Leonard, the show is looking for full-service restaurants with owners who have strong, outgoing personalities. Being a family-run business is a plus.

Applications are available online at www.RestaurantImpossible.com.

The second season of “Restaurant: Impossible” begins Jan. 19 at 10 p.m.

AUGUSTA

SMCC president retiring in July after eight years

Southern Maine Community College President James Ortiz will retire at the end of July, the president of the Maine Community College System announced Friday.

System President John Fitzsimmons praised Ortiz’s leadership of SMCC and his commitment to the college and its students since he took the job in February 2002.

“Southern Maine Community College has thrived under Jim Ortiz’s leadership, growing from 2,850 students to over 7,000 students,” Fitzsimmons said in a news release. “Those of us who have had the good fortune to work with him will miss him, and we wish him all good things in his retirement.”

Under Ortiz, the college became a comprehensive community college. It was also the fastest growing community college in New England, growing 146 percent from 2002 to last fall. Over the past several years, Ortiz has laid the groundwork for SMCC’s new midcoast campus at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station.

Before coming to SMCC, Ortiz served as vice president of academic and student affairs at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston.

A national search for a new president at SMCC will begin immediately, Fitzsimmons said. A search committee of SMCC community representatives will be appointed.

Dennis King, a member of the system’s board of trustees and chief executive officer of Spring Harbor Hospital in Westbrook, will head the committee. A new president will be selected by June.

MACHIAS

Sheriff requests information about MDEA’s investigation

The Washington County sheriff is asking the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency for details of an investigation into allegations that one or more of his deputies may have misused money intended to buy illegal drugs.

Sheriff Donnie Smith announced Thursday at a meeting of county commissioners that he had filed the Freedom of Access request into the allegations with the state’s drug agency.

Smith says he is seeking information about an agency investigation into whether one or more of Smith’s deputies may have taken or misappropriated $3,000 while on assignment with the drug agency. The money is supposed to be used for drug purchases aimed at setting up dealers for arrest.

In the past five years, three Washington County deputies have been assigned to the drug agency.

The Bangor Daily News reported that Smith said at least two felonies may have been committed.

BRENTWOOD, N.H.

Police say Maine man killed self before sex assault trial

Officials say a Maine man found dead the day he was to go to trial on charges of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in New Hampshire committed suicide.

Police in Bridgton, Maine, say officers were called to the home of 65-year-old Roger Goode on Monday morning, and found him dead.

Goode had been scheduled to go on trial Monday in Brentwood on 11 charges stemming from the sexual assault in 2009. He was arrested last January in a Hampstead parking lot where he had thought he was going to meet a teenage girl.

He had been free on bail.

Hampstead police Lt. John Frazier told the Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence, Mass., that Goode’s death denied police and prosecutors the chance to convict him of the crimes he had been charged with.