WASHINGTON Congress’ defense hawks insist the military should be spared from automatic cuts triggered by the failure of the supercommittee to reach a deal on reducing the deficit. No way, says President Barack Obama, who Monday vowed to veto any effort to undo the roughly $1 trillion in across-the-board cuts, half from domestic programs and […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Targeting Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail, President Barack Obama is heading to New Hampshire, a political battleground, to begin a year-end push to extend payroll tax cuts. During a speech today at a Manchester high school, the president was to argue that a failure to extend the tax […]

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two NATO service members were killed in southern Afghanistan where foreign forces are trying to hold territory they gained after routing insurgents from their strongholds, the coalition said today. One service member died in an insurgent attack and the other was killed in a roadside bombing. No other details were disclosed […]

Police shoot man near Occupy Houston camp HOUSTON (AP) — A police officer has shot and wounded a man witnesses say threatened people with a gun near a park where Occupy Houston protesters are encamped. The incident happened about 5 p.m. Monday in Tranquility Park in downtown Houston. Police spokesman John Cannon said the officer […]

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts back from the International Space Station touched down safely in the snow-covered steppes of Kazakhstan early today morning. NASA astronaut Michael Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa of Japan’s JAXA space agency landed at the break of dawn some 90 kilometers (56 miles) […]

NEW YORK The suspect had little money to speak of, was unable to pay his cellphone bill and scrounged for money to buy the drill bits that court papers said he needed to make his pipe bombs. He apparently needed a place to build the devices, and initially had trouble drilling the small holes that […]

4 rural post offices spared from cuts BELFAST ( AP) — Four rural post offices in Maine won’t become victims of the postal service’s financial woes. A U.S. Postal Service official said Monday that the branches in West Forks, Stoneham, Topsfield and Matinicus have been taken off the agency’s possible closure list after a review […]

AUGUSTA (AP) — Ethics commission staff members want the attorney general to investigate a freshman legislator’s campaign spending, which an audit found included falsified receipts and false expenditure claims. That recommendation, along with findings from audits in two other 2010 legislative races, will go before the Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices on Nov. […]

AUGUSTA With a possibility of $1 trillion in across-the-board federal spending cuts looming on the horizon, a revenue official in Maine said Monday it’s much too early to say what ripple effects those deficitreduction efforts would have in the state that’s facing its own economic challenges. “Probably a thousand different scenarios” could evolve, Michael Allen, […]

BATH — The following cases were closed in Sagadahoc County Superior Court between May 1 and May 31. Eric W. Abdo, 29, of Syracuse, N.Y., Aug. 7, 2010, domestic violence assault, dismissed, pleaded to another charge; domestic violence criminal threatening, $500, jail five days. Justin L. Baker, 20, of Woolwich, Oct. 8, 2009, unlawful possession […]