Central Maine News: June 25, 2015

These are some of the stories central Maine is talking about today.

Police are investigating after more than two dozen American flags were vandalized on Memorial Bridge in Livermore Falls. According to WGME those flags came from the graves of veterans before being proudly displayed on the bridge. The flags up every year for Memorial Day weekend and they stay up through the Fourth of July. The flag holders and the flags were donated by the American Legion. Police believe the vandalism happened at some point on Tuesday.  They say people love to see the flags along the bridge in the summer and are sad to see some of them gone. They hope to have the flags back up by the Fourth of July. In the meantime, police are looking for anyone who might know more about who did this. They do not have any surveillance video to help them with their investigation. (WGME)

The Democratic speaker of the Maine House of Representatives says Republican Gov. Paul LePage threatened to withhold state funding from a charter school to get him fired from a job there. Rep. Mark Eves accuses the governor of "blackmail." Eves said Wednesday that LePage told school operator Good Will-Hinckley it had to remove Eves or lose $500,000 in state funds. A lawyer says Eves is considering suing him. LePage this month urged school officials not to hire Eves because he frequently opposed public charter schools in the Legislature. Eves had been expected to assume the post of Good Will-Hinckley president July 1. Board chairman Jack Moore says the school operator will seek a new president because it doesn't want to be involved in a "political controversy." (AP)

Leaders of Maine's American Indian tribes say the failure of a bill to create a tribal casino in northern Maine widens the rift between the tribes and state leaders. The bill died after the Senate rejected it on Monday. The House had approved the bill last week. The proposal would've allowed a casino designed to benefit the state's four federally recognized tribes. It would be built in Washington or Aroostook County. Brenda Commander, chief of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, says the failure of the casino project is disheartening to the four tribes. She also says the tribes felt left out of the process by state legislators, who altered their original proposal. Commander said the tribes might consider a new approach to make the casino project happen. (AP)

Delhaize Group, the parent company of the Scarborough-based Hannaford grocery chain, is merging with Royal Ahold, another big European supermarket chain with U.S. holdings. According to WCSH Hannaford, which was founded in Portland in 1883, was purchased by Delhaize in 1999. Hannaford currently operates 186 stores, all in the Northeast, and is Maine's largest private employer, with 7,500 to 8,000 workers. In addition to Hannaford, Delhaize owns Food Lion in the U.S. Ahold's U.S. holdings include the Stop & Shop chain in New England; the Giant chain, primarily in the mid-Atlantic; and Peapod. The companies did not disclose how the merger would impact each individual chain. For instance, it isn't known whether Hannaford stores would be converted to Stop & Shop stores, or vice versa. (WCSH)

The Democratic speaker of the Maine House of Representatives says Republican Gov. Paul LePage threatened to withhold state funding from a charter school to get him fired from a job there. Rep. Mark Eves accuses the governor of "blackmail." Eves said Wednesday that LePage told school operator Good Will-Hinckley it had to remove Eves or lose $500,000 in state funds. A lawyer says Eves is considering suing him. LePage this month urged school officials not to hire Eves because he frequently opposed public charter schools in the Legislature. Eves had been expected to assume the post of Good Will-Hinckley president July 1. Board chairman Jack Moore says the school operator will seek a new president because it doesn't want to be involved in a "political controversy." (AP)

The 22-year-old daughter of the late Whitney Houston has been moved to hospice care, five months after being found face down and unresponsive in a bathtub in her Atlanta home. But her family says the condition of Bobbi Kristina Brown continues to deteriorate. Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses Brown's boyfriend, Nick Gordon, of being physically and emotionally abusive, misrepresenting the nature of their relationship and taking money from her without permission. (AP)

Actor Dustin Diamond is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in Wisconsin for a Christmas Day barroom stabbing that wounded a man in Wisconsin. The 38-year-old who in the 1990s played Screech on TV's "Saved by the Bell," was convicted of two misdemeanor charges of carrying a concealed weapon and disorderly conduct. Diamond told jurors at his trial last month that he accidentally stabbed the man during a scuffle. (AP)

Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has finally shown the remorse that, at least publicly, was not evident before. Moments before a judge in Boston formally sentenced him to death on Wednesday, Tsarnaev addressed survivors and the families of victims, saying, "I am sorry for the lives I've taken, for the suffering that I've caused you." He said he had listened to each one of them as they took the stand to describe what the bombing had done to them. (AP)

An arraignment is set for Thursday for a corrections officer accused of passing frozen meat on to two convicted killers. Hidden in the meat were tools that helped David Sweat and Richard Matt escape from the Clinton County Correctional Facility in upstate New York on June 6. The attorney for corrections officer Gene Palmer says his client didn't know that tools were hidden in the frozen meat. Palmer is charged with promoting prison contraband, tampering with physical evidence and official misconduct. (AP)

More than 150 people have joined hands and formed the shape of a heart in a Charleston, South Carolina, park to honor the nine people shot to death last week during Bible study at a historic black church. Organizers say they wanted to spread a positive message. And exactly a week after the shooting, Bible study was held again at the Emanuel AME Church. Some 150 people gathered in the basement of the church, the same area where the shootings occurred. (AP)