Central Maine News: June 26, 2015

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

The Jay Village Water District has issued a boil order for customers who lost water Thursday afternoon.  A water line on Main Street broke Thursday afternoon. According to WCSH o nce water returned, the district will bring samples to a laboratory in Augusta to be tested for E.coli and coliform bacteria. The district will make an announcement when customers can stop boiling water. (WCSH)

Gov. Paul LePage's joke about shooting a political cartoonist is falling flat. The son of Bangor Daily News cartoonist George Danby said LePage made the remark after he asked what the governor thought of his father's cartoons Wednesday during an event at Dirigo Boys State, a youth leadership program. The BDN’s news and audience director said the joke wasn't funny, especially after the killing of cartoonists in Paris earlier this year. LePage has frequently made his disdain for newspapers clear and once joked about blowing up offices of the Portland Press Herald. (AP)

Even lawmakers used to Gov. Paul LePage's aggressive style of politics say they're troubled by accusations that the Republican blackmailed a school for at-risk youth. Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves said Wednesday that LePage told Good Will-Hinckley that he would withhold more than $500,000 a year from a charter school that the nonprofit operates unless it removed him as president. LePage said he stands by his opposition to Eves' holding the post.  Both democrats and republican have spoken out against LePage’s actions.(AP)

Nearly 61,000 Maine residents will continue to receive tax subsidies that reduce the cost of their health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act. The U.S. Supreme Court decided Thursday to uphold a key provision in the President Barack Obama's health care overhaul that will preserve affordable health insurance for millions of Americans. Almost 61,000 Mainers were receiving subsidies as of March 31. The average monthly subsidy in the state receive is $337. On average, premiums were expected to rise 383 % without the tax credit. (AP)

A Maine grand jury is expected to decide by July 8 whether criminal charges should be brought in relation to a fatal haunted hayride. Androscoggin District Attorney says the jury will reconvene for a third session on July 7 and wrap up the following day. The jury is weighing the possibility of criminal charges stemming from the death of 17-year-old Cassidy Charette of Oakland. She was killed during a haunted hayride at Harvest Hills in Mechanic Falls last October. The accident also injured more than 20 people. Authorities have said it appears a mechanical problem caused the accident. The grand jury first met on the case in May and held a second session in June. (AP)

New U.S. Census Bureau estimates show that Piscataquis County had the highest median age in the state at 50.2 years, nearly 12 years older than the national average. Lincoln County was the next oldest at 50.1 and Hancock County third at 47.9 years. The youngest county in the state was Androscoggin at 40.9 years. It was followed by Penobscot at 41.5 and Cumberland at 42.3. Every county in the state was older than previous census figures indicated.  (AP)

An Oakland man was arrested after allegedly making up a story about a missing 3-year-old boy and triggering a search involving more than 20 emergency responders. According to the KJ, 20 year old Jacob Terrance Collins of Oakland was arrested Wednesday night in Waterville and charged with false public alarm or report and refusing to submit to arrest or detention. Collins allegedly told a clerk at J&S Oil in Winslow that he was looking for his lost son. He told the clerk that he didn’t want the police called, but his story about the missing child was so convincing that the clerk contacted the authorities, as officials investigated the were able to determine the story was false. A false public alarm or report is a class B crime. It carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine. (centralmaine.com)

A district attorney in upstate New York says investigators have no proof that a prison guard at the Clinton Correctional Facility knew that frozen meat he delivered to two convicted killers contained tools they used to break out of prison. Guard Gene Palmer was released on bail Thursday after his arrest on charges of promoting prison contraband, tampering with evidence and official misconduct. In a signed statement, Palmer told authorities he was an unwitting helper. (AP)

On Friday, Charleston, South Carolina will say goodbye to the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the state senator shot and killed along with eight other people during Bible study last week at Emanuel AME Church. President Barack Obama will deliver the eulogy. On Thursday, funerals were held for two other victims. One was 70-year-old Charleston native Ethel Lance. (AP)

An Iraqi pilot who had been training in the United States was the only person aboard a military plane that crashed in southern Arizona. A spokesman for the Iraq defense minister says the pilot had been training in the U.S. for four years and his fate is still unknown. The plane went down during a Wednesday night training mission with the Arizona National Guard. The plane hit a gas pipeline in a rural area, starting a fire. (AP)

Heavy early monsoon rains have killed dozens of people in western India. A National Disaster Response Force official says at least 81 people have been killed and nearly 9,000 people have been evacuated to higher ground in the worst-hit areas, three districts in Gujarat state. Most of those killed were swept away by flood waters and mudslides, or buried in collapsed houses. (AP)

Actor Dustin Diamond, who played Screech on the 1990s TV show "Saved by the Bell," has been sentenced to 4 months in jail for stabbing a man in a Christmas Day barroom fight in Wisconsin. Diamond apologized in court Thursday, saying, "This was the single most terrifying experience of my life ... This is all I've been able to think about for the last six months." The 38-year-old actor was cleared of a felony charge last month after a three-day jury trial. (AP)