PORTLAND

After LaMontagne retires, deputy to be acting chief

City Manager Mark Rees announced Tuesday that Deputy Fire Chief Stephen Smith will serve as acting chief after Chief Frederick LaMontagne retires April 1.

Born and raised in Portland, Smith joined the Fire Department in 1975. He was promoted from captain to deputy chief in 2002, and became head of the department’s Hazardous Materials and Weapons of Mass Destruction Team in 2008.

LaMontagne announced in January that he will retire after 27 years with the department – 10 years as chief – to pursue new professional opportunities.

Qualified candidates for fire chief are encouraged to submit applications to the city by April 6.

YORK

Police say man found dead may have been despondent

Police say there does not appear to be anything criminal in the death of a man whose body was found Tuesday in the York River.

A York police officer was checking on a car parked near Rice’s Bridge at 3:30 a.m. and found footprints leading away from the car to the river, but none coming back, said Sgt. Martin Doherty.

The officer contacted police in Kittery, where the vehicle is registered. They checked the elderly man’s house and found a note indicating he was despondent, York police said.

The man’s body was recovered about 7:30 a.m. His name has not been released.

ROCKLAND

Man charged with plotting guns-for-drugs transactions

A Rockland man has been charged in what authorities say is a scheme to trade guns stolen in Maine for drugs from Massachusetts.

Maine Drug Enforcement Agency supervisor James Pease said Charles Dodge, 32, is charged with conspiracy to traffic in guns and conspiracy to violate drug laws. He is being held on unrelated charges. Police are looking for a second suspect.

Police say 10 to 15 handguns and one submachine gun reported stolen in Maine have been found in the hands of gang members in New Bedford, Mass. Police do not believe any of the weapons have been used in violent crimes.

SACO

CMP work to briefly close sections of Maine Turnpike

Sections of the Maine Turnpike will be subject to 20-minute nighttime closures this week because of power line construction.

The highway will be closed for short periods between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. through Saturday as Central Maine Power Co. installs electrical conductors near its new substation on Industrial Park Road and in the transmission corridor near Jenkins Road in Saco.

The installation is one of the last steps in the Saco Bay Transmission Reinforcement project. The work will allow CMP to energize the new substation this month.

CMP began construction last fall on the $30 million project to improve the capacity and reliability of the transmission system for Saco, Old Orchard Beach, Scarborough and Biddeford. The project, which is expected to be completed in the fall, includes new substations in Saco and Old Orchard Beach and improvements to the transmission line network.

AUGUSTA

Bank robber pleads guilty, given seven-year sentence

A Waterville man will spend seven years in prison for robbing a bank and making a bomb threat that forced the evacuation of a swath of Waterville’s downtown.

William Bruce Adamchak, 49, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Kennebec County Superior Court to robbery and terrorizing in the Nov. 7 incident. He was arrested by police, with the assistance of bystanders, within a half-hour of robbing a Waterville branch of Bank of America, still in possession of the $2,200 that he got from a teller, court records show.

Assistant District Attorney Paul Rucha said Adamchak gave a bank teller a deposit slip indicating he wanted cash and no die bags. The note also suggested he had a bomb.

A bank patron who saw what was happening followed the robber from the bank. When a police officer confronted Adamchak and he tried to flee, three men who were watching nearby blocked and held him, police said.

LePage program to identify areas friendly to business

The LePage administration has launched a program to encourage business development by tagging eligible Maine communities as business-friendly.

Gov. Paul LePage announced the Certified Business Friendly Community program Tuesday at the Blaine House. Communities meeting standards for business collaboration, licensing and permitting will get formal state recognition, including an “Open for Business” sign to be displayed. They’ll also get extra points in applying for community development block grants.

The Business Friendly effort is to make sure communities have the tools and environment they need to expand and create jobs, LePage said.

The first Business Friendly applications are due April 6, and those selected are expected to be announced in May. The program requires no additional state funding, LePage said.

DOVER, N.H.

Legislators call for widening bridge linking N.H., Maine

Now that work has started on replacing a bridge connecting New Hampshire and Maine, legislators are focusing on widening a second bridge between the states.

Last year, Maine and New Hampshire agreed to repair the Memorial Bridge, the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge and the Interstate 95 High Level Bridge.

Plans call for rehabilitating the Long Bridge on its existing trusses. But Foster’s Daily Democrat reported that the New Hampshire Division of Ports and Harbors has said that unless the center span is widened, new, larger vessels won’t pass under it.

Reps. David Campbell of Nashua and Dale Sprague of Somersworth are introducing a measure that says widening the span is necessary for the project to qualify for state funds.

NORWALK, Conn.

Police say molester violated probation during Maine visit

A former Connecticut gymnastics instructor convicted of fondling an 8-year-old student has been charged with violating his probation by visiting a gymnastics school in Maine.

Vincent Pozzuoli, 63, of Milford was arraigned Monday and ordered detained on $50,000 bail. He has been on probation since pleading guilty last year to groping the young boy at the Norwalk YMCA.

Police say Pozzuoli violated his probation recently when he lied about a trip to Maine, where he stayed with a friend whose home is attached to a gymnastics school in Topsham. Probation officials said the school was the one where Pozzuoli assaulted an 11-year-old boy in 1994.

ISLAND FALLS

Police seeking man in black who robbed bank and fled

Maine State Police are investigating a bank robbery in the Aroostook County town of Island Falls.

Troopers are looking for a man who robbed the Katahdin Trust Co. shortly before noon Tuesday.

uthorities said he did not show a weapon and was wearing all black when he demanded cash from a teller and fled with the money in a blue bag that he brought with him.

Police say only two bank tellers were in the building at the time. They believe the robber got away in a vehicle that he had parked between two potato houses near the bank.