AUGUSTA — City councilors decided late Thursday night not to insert the city into Kennebec Valley’s natural gas war.

EAST MADISON — Inmates began arriving at the Somerset County Jail from Franklin County this week marking the end of a nearly four-month-long battle between state corrections officials and local authorities over the cost to house inmates from other counties.

The federal Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it had received a formal request filed a day earlier by the state, which contends the cuts, amounting to $20 million in savings, are needed to balance the state budget.

AUGUSTA — A Superior Court judge has cleared the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland in the final count of a civil lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by a former city priest against a young boy.

AUGUSTA — Two gun-carrying New Yorkers are facing charges after allegedly threatening a woman who offered them a soda.

MANCHESTER — J&S Oil faces federal sanctions, including a potential fine of up to $177,500, as the result of a March incident in which some 1,500 gallons of oil spilled onto the ground and spread to a neighboring property and drainage ditches.