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Hall-Dale Middle School has found black mold has been found in one of two rooms closed off last month.  According to Centralmaine.com now district officials are taking steps to remove it. Air testing found nothing, but still it needs removal and will take place this summer.

Hockey is coming back to Portland in 2018. The arrival of an ECHL hockey team. According to WCSH, the ECHL team coming to Maine is relocating from Anchorage, Alaska.

An apartment fire has left 9 homeless in Waterville and all the tenants made it out safely. WABI says the fire marshals will investigate a cause.

Maine has been granted another extension on the Real ID Act. Centralmaine.com says this will let Mainers continue to use non-compliant ID cards until October. Maine’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles needs to start using facial recognition technology and scan documents such as birth certificates when Mainers apply for ID’s to then be stored in a federal database.

From the Associated Press:

A Republican lawmaker is asking Gov. Paul LePage to use his executive power to let lawmakers carry concealed weapons in the Maine Statehouse. Rep. Richard Cebra wrote a letter to LePage after a gunman opened fire on Republican lawmakers during a baseball practice in Washington, D.C. WGME-TV reports that the legislator from Naples wrote that he and others feel defenseless at a time of "increased possibility that elected officials may become targets."

Maine budget negotiators have failed to reach a compromise, and Gov. Paul LePage urged Republicans to hold out for a better deal. The Republican governor said lawmakers were using the specter of a state government shutdown "to pass an irresponsible budget that increases taxes and increases spending."

Hundreds of police officers will gather to pay tribute to an officer who suffered fatal injuries while searching for a missing canoeist on a river in Maine. The memorial honoring Nathan Desjardins will be held Friday in Augusta. The 20-year-old Fryeburg officer suffered a head injury when the boat he was riding in hit a submerged object May 27 during a river rescue. The body of the missing canoeist was recovered four days later. Desjardins died June 6 at a hospital in Lewiston.

The University of Maine is hosting an art exhibit called "The Art of Climate Science" featuring works by faculty, staff and students at its Climate Change Institute. The work will be on display from Friday to Sept. 29 at UMaine's Hutchinson Center in Belfast. The university says the exhibit includes 88 photographs and works of art of "landscapes, environments and methods researchers use to understand the past, current and future of Earth's climate system."

The Obama administration's end-of-term wind-down of the American military commitment in Afghanistan is being reversed. Confirmation of an escalating involvement in the drawn-out conflict comes in a revelation by a Trump administration official that the Pentagon will send almost 4,000 additional U.S. forces there. Washington has been striving to break the stalemate. The deployment will be the largest of American manpower under Donald Trump's young presidency.

President Donald Trump is delivering on a campaign promise to significantly alter, if not abrogate, the Obama administration's diplomatic opening to longtime foe Cuba. According to the White House, Trump is set to revise U.S. policy with the aim of cutting off the flow of American cash to Cuba's military and security services. But he'll apparently leave intact the restoration of diplomatic relations with Havana and allow U.S. airlines and cruise ships to continue servicing the island.

Officials say a Tennessee homeowner held two escaped inmates wanted in the slaying of two prison guards at gunpoint until authorities could arrive and arrest them. Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Bill Miller said late Thursday that the homeowner caught Donnie Rowe and Ricky Dubose trying to steal his vehicle.

Doctors say the Louisiana congressman wounded during Wednesday's attack by a gunman on a baseball practice session remains in critical condition but has shown improvement. MedStar Washington Hospital Center says Rep. Steve Scalise, who was shot in the left hip, had surgery Thursday related to his internal injuries and a broken bone in his leg.

When asked what's important to them, North Koreans might talk about working hard, or doing well at sports, or having a big family, but leader Kim Jong Un is never far from the conversation. An AP photographer tries to get her North Korean subjects to open up as much as is possible in an authoritarian country with no tolerance for dissent and great distrust of foreigners. When she asks, "What is your motto?" their answers reflect both their lives and their government.

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