LONDON ( AP) — Prince Charles led ceremonies today to mark the 200th birthday of novelist Charles Dickens — a writer as popular today as he was during his lifetime. The heir to the British throne laid a wreath on the writer’s grave in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner, in front of an audience containing dozens […]

AUGUSTA (AP) — So-called tax zapper computer programs that help tax cheats in Maine would be banned under a bill up for legislative review. The Taxation Committee on Tuesday afternoon holds a hearing on Rep. Seth Berry’s bill, which is aimed at software programs that falsify electronic sales records so businesses can underreport the totals […]

PORTLAND (AP) — President Barack Obama is coming to Maine next month to raise money. The Maine Democratic Party confirmed that the president is planning to pay a visit to the Portland area on March 30. Spokeswoman Lizzy Reinholt says he’s expected to attend a pair of fundraisers.

PORTLAND One of the first encampments inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement is well on its way to being dismantled, though Portland officials decided Monday to allow campers another four days to remove 16 tents that remained on Monday. Demonstrators who touted their tent city in Lincoln Park as the oldest remaining Occupy style […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration wants to spend just over half a billion dollars on Alzheimer’s research next year, hoping to battle back against what could become the defining disease of the aging babyboom generation. Not all the spending must wait for approval from Congress: Under the plan being announced today, the National Institutes […]

GOLDEN, Colo. ( AP) — Mitt Romney hopes his presidential campaign hasn’t ignored Rick Santorum’s aggressive attacks for too long, as caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota today could reshuffle the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Santorum largely bypassed Florida and Nevada to blanket the two caucus states with criticism of Romney and lay the […]

LOS ANGELES The entire staff at a Los Angeles elementary school is being removed while authorities investigate horrific allegations of sexual abuse by two of the school’s teachers, one of whom is accused of blindfolding children, taping their mouths and photographing them in a classroom. Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy said Monday […]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Looking for a promising career in a lousy economy? A new study suggests you’re apt to find it in apps — the services and tools built to run on smartphones, computer tablets and Facebook’s online social network. The demand for applications for everything ranging from games to quantum physics has created […]

GRAHAM, Wash. Josh Powell painted himself as a tortured man, ridiculed without reason in the disappearance of his wife, steadfastly insisting he was innocent until the end. Yet the investigation and autopsy reports released late Monday show the acts of a violent man who meticulously planned the double murder suicide of himself and his two […]

DIXFIELD ( AP) — The owner of a Maine home heating oil delivery company says he has received at least $100,000 in donations since his company was mentioned in a New York Times article about people struggling to keep their homes warm. Ike Libby of Hometown Energy in Dixfield says he’s spent almost all his […]