Things You Need to Know: Election Results + Power Restoration ALMOST Done

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

Zone forecast from Maine.gov

Centralmaine.com election results

Outage information Central Maine Power  and  Emera Maine

There are still a very few people without power from the storm October 30th. Around 400 CMP customers are now listed at CMP's website.

Yesterday was also Maine's first snowfall with a dusting in Caribou. Last winter, the city set a record with 132 straight days with a foot of snow on the ground.

Mainers said no to the casino question and yes to Medicaid expansion, the bond issue and pension reform. Centralmaine.com says votes in Monmouth said yes to the school and Winslow they said no to a school bond. The Sun Journal reports that voters in Lewiston/Auburn clearly voted 'no' on the merger issue.

From the Associated Press:

Police have charged a Maine man with manslaughter stemming from the fatal shooting of a woman while he was hunting. Thirty-four-year-old Karen Wrentzel of Hebron died of a gunshot wound at the scene, where she was digging for gemstones on her own property. The shooting happened on Oct. 28.

Election Day also is first day of snowfall in northern Maine this year. The National Weather Service in Caribou says the first snowflakes of the year were observed in the Aroostook County city on Tuesday. The weather service says the snow fell in the afternoon. It's officially reporting Tuesday's snowfall as "a trace" for the day. Caribou is typically one of the snowiest places in the Northeast. Last winter, the city set a record with 132 straight days with a foot of snow on the ground.

Voters in Maine say they want to join 31 other states in expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The referendum represented the first time since the law took effect that the question of expanding health care for the poor had been put in front of U.S. voters. The vote follows repeated failures by President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans in Congress to repeal Obama's law.

Residents of Lewiston and Auburn have rejected a proposed merger. Supporters said that combining two cities separated into a single municipality with nearly 60,000 residents and the state's largest school system would save money. The proposal needed majorities in both cities.

Crews are restoring power to the last of the customers left in the dark by a powerful fall storm more than a week ago. The storm peaked in the early morning of Oct. 30, leaving nearly a half million homes and businesses without power in Maine. The state's two main power companies said there were only about 400 customers left without power on Tuesday night.

Police have charged a Maine man with manslaughter stemming from the fatal shooting of a woman while he was hunting. Thirty-four-year-old Karen Wrentzel of Hebron died of a gunshot wound at the scene, where she was digging for gemstones on her own property. The shooting happened on Oct. 28.

After a brief truce with China to cooperate over North Korea, President Donald Trump has arrived in Beijing amid mounting U.S. trade complaints, with limited prospects for progress on market access, technology policy and other sore points. The strains between the world's two biggest economies are fueling anxiety among global companies and advocates of free trade that they could retreat into protectionism, dragging down growth.

Sri Lanka's civil war might be over but more than 50 Tamil men say they were raped, branded or tortured under the current government, an AP investigation has found. The men's bodies are marked by extensive scars where they say they were branded, hung upside-down and beaten. Most say they were raped or sexually abused. Sri Lankan authorities deny that a culture of torture and intimidation persists within their security forces.

Police reports indicate the gunman who killed more than two dozen at a small-town Texas church briefly escaped from a mental health center in New Mexico in 2012. The Air Force confirmed Tuesday that Devin Patrick Kelley had been treated in a facility after he was placed under pretrial confinement stemming from a court-martial on charges that he assaulted his then-wife and hit her child. The service acknowledged Monday that it didn't enter Kelley's criminal history into the federal database.

New York's right-to-shelter policies mean most of the city's homeless population is not on the street on any given night, providing one possible approach to the homeless crisis on America's West Coast. The percentage of homeless people who lack access to a shelter is far higher in California, Oregon and Washington. Also, New York's approach isn't perfect. It's costly, and moving people into permanent housing has proven difficult.