Things You Need to Know: Wording of L/A Merger Question Confusing to Some Voters

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

Zone forecast from Maine.gov

The Augusta Planning Board supports the idea of the Augusta Farmers Market using the old church on the corner of State and Oak as a winter home. Centralmaine.com reports they will make the recommendation to the city council.

State lawmakers voted to delay the voter approved ranked choice voting in Maine until 2021. According to WABI if the lawmakers can't solve the law's constitutional issues, it would be repealed. That has supporters of the law upset.

A Winslow woman has lost to her fight to keep her two dogs alive. WABI reports the dog were to be put down by court order. Maine Supreme Court denied the appeal.

The question to merge Lewiston and Auburn is on the ballot.  According to the Sun Journal some early voters are not seeing it.  The city clerks point out it is there. It uses the word 'consolidation' and not merger.

A few hundred people turned out for the Waterville Mayoral Debate last night. According to Centralmaine.com  the three running had a change to share their views.

Coastal Counties Workforce is suing Gov LePage saying it's a violation of federal law by rejecting federal workforce training funds. Centralmaine.com reports the group says that is rejecting $8M for programs for workforce training to unemployed and underemployed Mainers.

From the Associated Press:

The National Weather Service says much-needed rain that's on the way will help to reduce the fire danger across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Meteorologist Eric Schwibs in Gray, Maine, says the rain will begin on Tuesday and up to 3 inches could fall before it ends by Thursday morning. That will help with a spate of wildfires across the region.

Groups fighting to give terminally ill people the right to physician-assisted suicide in Maine are launching a petition drive to force a statewide referendum on the issue. The Bangor Daily News reports that Westport Island resident Valerie Lynn Lovelace is spearheading a push to enact the Maine Death with Dignity Act. The act would allow certain adults to request a prescription for the purpose of ending their lives.

Maine's two U.S. senators say the U.S. Department of Agriculture is awarding $100,000 to a Buxton seaweed harvesting and processing company. The senators say the money is going to VitaminSea to fund a concept study for larger scale commercialization of its seaweed products. VitaminSea harvests seaweed to create health products such as nutritional supplements, plant fertilizers and skin care products.

Police say the leg of a 4-year-old child was severed by the bucket of a front-end loader at a gravel pit in Maine. They say the child was with his grandfather, who was working at the family's gravel pit with the front-end loader at the time.

Maine State Police say a driver flipped his pickup truck end over end while trying to find a lighter he had dropped. Police say 29-year-old Ryan Lowell, of Limeston, was driving on Route 161 in Woodland in Aroostook County on Monday night when he became distracted searching for the lighter. Lowell was taken to a hospital for injuries that were not considered life-threatening.

A steadily building rift in the Republican Party was dramatized in senatorial critiques of Donald Trump's presidency Tuesday. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, with whom Trump has been feuding for weeks, declared that Trump "debases our nation" with constant untruths and name-calling. Sen. Jeff flake of Arizona announced that he'd decided not to seek re-election, saying he wouldn't be "complicit" with Trump stewardship of national affairs.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake's decision to bow out of a re-election fight could spur a rush of other Republican candidates who hope to take on his only announced challenger in the 2018 Arizona primary. The freshman senator's decision came after months of statements where he said he expected a tough primary and general election race but believed he could win.

A month ago, Iraq's Kurds celebrated their symbolic vote for independence as a historic step toward their decades-old dream of statehood. But instead of moving forward with negotiations toward a smooth divorce from Baghdad, Kurdish politicians have been humiliated with the loss of their most important oil-producing city, Kirkuk. That has squeezed an already ailing economy and dashing hopes of an independent state.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has been given a second five-year term as leader of the ruling Communist Party. Xi was returned to the post of secretary general following the first meeting Wednesday of the new Central Committee that was elected at the party's twice-a-decade national congress on Tuesday. The party already elevated Xi's status to China's most powerful ruler in decades by inserting his name and dogma into the party's constitution alongside past leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

Police are trying to calm occasional flare-ups of tension among mourners who've waited under the hot sun to enter the cordoned-off area in Bangkok where elaborate ceremonies and processions for King Bhumibol Adulyadej's (POO-mee-pon AH-dun-yaa-det) funeral will take place. There have been accusations of queue jumping and sharp exchanges between some of the black-clad mourners, many of whom have endured heat and tropical downpours for at least a day as they waited to enter.