Things You Need to Know Today: Levine’s Building Coming Down for new Hotel

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

An Auburn woman sitting on her porch scared off a clown in the back seat of a vehicle pointed his finger at her and mouthed the word ‘bang’ . According to the Sun Journal she then picked her legal 9mm and said ‘Back at ya, clown’ and the clown car sped away.

The old Levine's building in downtown Waterville is coming down. According to centralmaine.com there will be a hotel built on the site.

Police are still looking for an Augusta couple in connection to the 3 year old who went missing earlier this week but was dropped off at the Augusta Police Station the same day. According to centralmaine.com they are considered persons of interest in the case.

From the Associated Press:

Northern Maine is going to be experiencing peak fall colors this Columbus Day weekend. The weekly report from the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry projects peak foliage conditions this weekend in northern and northwestern Maine, stretching from Houlton north to Fort Kent and Millinocket west to Bethel.  Maine’s fall foliage reports from Maine.gov.

The National Weather Service says the latest forecast for Hurricane Matthew has it traveling east of New England with little, if any, rain this weekend. The projected path has changed in the last 24 hours with the storm and rain now heading offshore. That's good news for people with outdoor plans this weekend but bad news for farmers with dry fields and homeowners with yellowing lawns.

Libertarian think tank The Cato Institute has awarded Maine's governor with its highest grade in its "Fiscal Report Card on America's Governors." Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, was one of five governors to receive an "A" grade on fiscal policy, and his mark was the highest of the five. The report is based on the governor's taxing and spending records.

Gov. Paul LePage believes Maine has a glut of school superintendents and he intends to pressure districts into consolidating administrations with the two-year budget he will propose in early 2017. LePage has offered no details on his plan to force district officials into combining administrative functions.

Forecasters say Hurricane Matthew is pounding portions of the Central Bahamas and is expected to strengthen as it approaches Florida, where some 2 million people have been told that they should evacuate. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami says Matthew is still a Category 3 storm with top sustained winds of 115 mph, but it's expected to intensify over the next day or so, once again becoming a dangerous Category 4 hurricane.

The interim sheriff in Los Angeles County says, "This is the thing we all dread." A sheriff's sergeant was shot and killed Wednesday while answering a burglary call. The suspected gunman is behind bars. Authorities say 53-year-old Sgt. Steven Owen died at a hospital about two hours after he was gunned down north of Los Angeles. Authorities have not released the name of the 27-year-old suspect.

Two sweeping federal indictments accuse correctional officers at Maryland's largest state prison of helping scores of inmates smuggle narcotics, tobacco, pornography and cellphones into the facility in exchange for money and sex. The indictments name 35 inmates, 18 jail guards at the Eastern Correctional Institution in Westover, Maryland, as well as 27 "outside facilitators."

The Israeli military says a boat carrying pro-Palestinian women activists has docked at an Israeli port after being intercepted and escorted by the navy. The boat was headed to the Gaza Strip and was trying to break Israel's naval blockade of the territory. The Dutch-flagged boat was carrying 13 female activists from different countries and is part of the International Freedom Flotilla Coalition of pro-Palestinian groups mostly based in Europe.

Several months of deadly anti-government protests in Ethiopia have claimed the life of an American researcher. The University of California, Davis says postdoctoral biology student Sharon Gray was killed Tuesday when the vehicle she was riding in was struck by rocks thrown by protesters. The university tells the Sacramento Bee that what happened is unclear, but that another member of the plant biology department was not hurt and is headed home.