BRUNSWICK — The to-do list on Nick Dentico’s refrigerator has two tasks: — Make stuff — Do things It’s that ethic that transforms the 30-year-old Dentico’s Jordan Avenue apartment almost weekly into “the Bombshelter,” a Brunswick DIY concert venue. DIY stands for “do it yourself.” But the term carries with it more than a preference for […]

BRUNSWICK — A veto announced Thursday by Gov. Paul LePage denies Maine’s nonprofit performing arts organizations exemption from sales tax, which hits Brunswick harder than much of the state. In the case of the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the veto means $12,000 in sales tax it would not have paid with the governor’s signature on LD […]

VATICAN CITY ( AP) — Pope Benedict XVI named 22 new cardinals today, including prelates in such key posts as New York and Hong Kong and a large number of Italians holding major Vatican positions. Cardinals are the pope’s top advisers, the elite group of churchmen who will eventually elect Benedict’s successor. Of the 22, […]

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A dog that was feared dead after he was swept away in a weekend avalanche that killed his owner showed up four days later at the Montana motel where his owners had stayed the night before going backcountry skiing. Search and rescue team member Bill Whittle said he was “positive” that […]

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The memorial site of Auschwitz-Birkenau says it saw more than 1.4 million visitors in 2011, a record high for the former death camp. The figure released today underlines how the death and labor complex that Nazi Germany built in occupied southern Poland during World War II has become one of Europe’s […]

DAMASCUS ( AP) — An explosion ripped through a busy intersection in the Syrian capital today, hitting a police bus and killing at least 11 people and possibly many more in an attack that left pools of blood in the streets and marked the second deadly attack in the capital in as many weeks, Syrian […]

MIAMI ( AP) — NASA is questioning whether Apollo 13 commander James Lovell has the right to sell a 70-page checklist from the flight that includes his handwritten calculations crucial in guiding the damaged spacecraft back to Earth. The document was sold by Heritage Auctions in November for more than $388,000, some 15 times its […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — A burst of hiring in December pushed the unemployment rate to its lowest level in nearly three years, giving the economy a boost at the end of 2011. The Labor Department said today that employers added a net 200,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent, the lowest […]

MANCHESTER, N.H. Mobilizing against Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney as too timid and too moderate, the rest of the GOP field is exhorting Republicans to do themselves a favor and nominate a more conservative standard-bearer who has a better chance of holding up against President Barack Obama. “The only way Republicans lose is if we […]