Things You Need to Know Today: Min Wage Goes Up Jan 7th

Here are the things you need to  know today......

Tim Horton's on Upper Main Street in Waterville is closed. According to centrlamaine.com a signs on the door say the location is closed. According to centrlmaine.com the closest Tim Horton's now is in Clinton.

Minimum wage workers get a raise this week. According to WGME because of the passage of the statewide referendum , Maine's minimum wage will go from $7.50 an hour to $9 an hour on Saturday, January 7. Tipped workers will also get a raise to $5 an hour on January 7.

From the Associated Press:

Legislators are heading to Augusta to tackle the state's opioid crisis, school funding and November referendums while negotiating a relationship with the governor that has been strained in recent years. Legislative leaders already appear at odds with GOP Gov. Paul LePage over a proposed secure psychiatric facility in Augusta. Democratic House Speaker Sara Gideon _ who called for LePage's resignation in August _ is calling for a focus on what unites all Mainers.

Police say a man who threatened to kill his sister and mother with a gun has been arrested in Phippsburg, Maine, following a seven-hour standoff with police. Police say the women escaped shortly before 6 p.m. Sunday and called the Sagadahoc County sheriff's office. Negotiators were able to get the man to surrender shortly after 1 a.m. Monday. No one was hurt.

The Maine Department of Public Safety says 2016 was relatively safe when it came to homicides, fire fatalities and highways deaths in the state. Spokesman Steve McCausland says the state ended the year with 16 homicides, far below the average of 25. He says "luck and fate" prevented it from being worst.

A powerful storm system has left a trail of damage over several states. But in Alabama, it cost four people their lives when a tree fell on their mobile home in the town of Rehobeth. In Houston County, emergency officials have told residents to stay inside and wait until morning to assess the damage. In Georgia, some of the heaviest rains are expected overnight.

House Republicans have voted to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics, the independent body created to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers. The proposal calls for placing the office under control of the House Ethics Committee, and that has prompted an outcry from Democrats and government watchdog groups. The proposed change is part of a rules package that the full House will vote on Tuesday.

A state-run Chinese tabloid says President-elect Donald Trump is "pandering to 'irresponsible' attitudes," after Trump accused China of not stepping in to curtail the North Korean nuclear program. The Global Times newspaper says Pyongyang's nuclear program "stokes the anxieties of some Americans" who blame China rather than looking inward. Trump tweeted Monday that China "won't help with North Korea."

Things got a little backed up when the processing system for U.S. Customs and Border Protection experienced an outage Monday. The delays were at various airports. In Atlanta, Customs officials say the system was down for about an hour in the late afternoon. U.S. Customs says its officers continued to process international travelers during the outage using "alternative procedures."

The United Nations says violence claimed the lives of more than 6,800 Iraqis last year. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, known as UNAMI, says at least 6,878 Iraqis were killed in 2016, and another 12,388 civilians were wounded. Those figures don't include casualties in Iraq's western Anbar province during the months of May, July, August and December. UNAMI stresses that its figures are the "absolute minimum."