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Maine is seeing a surge in involuntary committals – cases where people are held for mental health issues against their will – that is changing how police do their jobs.
The number of those committals has risen steadily in the last decade, from 344 in 2009 to 401 last year, an increase of nearly 17 percent. In another measure of mental illness affecting law enforcement and the courts, the number of Mainers found not competent to stand trial has leapt from seven in 2008 to 136 last year.

Day Whitehead admits that he never really thought much about the issue of homelessness until the city of Portland unveiled a proposal last month to build a new emergency shelter in his neighborhood.
The 67-year-old and his wife have lived on Holm Avenue in the Nason’s Corner neighborhood for 34 years and raised three children in a modest, well-kept Cape Cod-style home, where a child’s basketball hoop sits in the driveway for his four grandchildren.

The story of the boy who was abducted from the eastern coast of Africa and wound up living among country folk in western Maine has captivated the residents of Paris Hill for more than 160 years.

Along with roll call votes this week, the House also passed: the Building Up Independent Lives and Dreams Act (H.R. 5953), to provide regulatory relief to charitable organizations that provide housing assistance; the Intercountry Adoption Information Act (H.R. 5626), to require the secretary of state to report on intercountry adoptions from countries which have significantly reduced adoption rates involving immigration to the United States; and a resolution (H. Res. 644), strongly condemning the slave auctions of migrants and refugees in Libya.
HOUSE VOTES

WATERVILLE — A man donning a black mask and with moss growing on his clothes removes screws from an old wooden coffin standing upright against a tree in the forest.
The coffin cover falls away and out glides a beautiful, blonde young woman dressed in linen and wearing ballet toe shoes.
Her name is “Elysia,” and she is entering the afterlife for a day to reconnect with her mother.
What follows is a mesmerizing journey through the woods and fields of New Sharon, Maine, as Elysia searches for her mother and greets those she had known in young life.

Rory Ferreira invited 79 of his closest friends and never-met strangers to the 4:20 p.m. showing of “Sorry to Bother You” at the Nickelodeon theater in Portland on Saturday. And they didn’t have to pay even a nickel to see the film.
Ferreira, a Biddeford rapper whose stage name is Milo, bought all 129 of the $7 seats to the movie, a sci-fi satire that includes messages about race and culture. As patrons arrived at the theater on Saturday, employees told them they could see a movie for free.

WASHINGTON — In a 29-page indictment Friday, special counsel Robert Mueller III blamed specific officers in the Russian government for the 2016 hacking of Democrats, answering one of his investigation’s central questions while highlighting another he must still explain: Were any Americans involved in the conspiracy to interfere in the race for the White House?

Two men were arrested at a Lincoln motel for selling methamphetamine, Maine State Police said Saturday.
Maine drug agents and police searched a room Friday at the Briarwood Motor Inn and arrested Jared Fogg, 27, of Florida and Maine, and Rogelio Rios, 29, of Florida. Police seized 125 grams of crystal methamphetamine, 42 grams of heroin, $19,000 in cash, and two handguns, one of which was stolen, according to state police spokesman Steve McCausland.
Fogg and Rios were charged with aggravated trafficking and taken to the Penobscot County Jail.

More than 400 people filled Lincoln Park – and later downtown streets – on Saturday afternoon for the fifth annual Dance Mile.

Dance Mile is a “family friendly, feel-good, social fitness event, according to event director Patrick Hackleman.

LEWISTON — Police on Saturday were still investigating shots fired on Horton Street in downtown Lewiston on Friday evening, according to Lewiston police Lt. David St. Pierre.
“We have not made an arrest or located any victims other than property damage,” he said Saturday night.
Witnesses reported hearing between six and 12 shots fired around 6:30 p.m. Friday followed by screams and the sound of rounds striking metal.