Man with metal detector finds 222-year-old coin near church

EMBDEN, Maine (AP) — A man with a metal detector has found a long-hidden, 222-year-old coin under a few inches of soil outside a church in Maine.

Shane Houston, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was on a metal-detecting trip with a friend from New Hampshire when he found the coin earlier this month, the Bangor Daily News reported.

The copper penny, dated 1798, comes from the first decade of American-minted money in North America.

He said it was found on the grounds of a church in Embden where he had permission to use his metal detector.

The penny is not in pristine condition. Houston said it might fetch $200 but he has no intentions of selling it.

On the same trip, he also found an 1818 penny, a full wagon wheel and a musket ball. The ammunition was measured at 0.75 caliber, making it British in origin.

Utility cuts power to 26,500 Californians over wildfire risk

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Pacific Gas & Electric started cutting power Sunday to tens of thousands of customers in Northern California and planned outages for many more to prevent the chance of sparking wildfires due to extreme fire weather.

The nation’s largest utility said outages began in the north of the state in Shasta, Tehama, Glenn, Colusa and Lake counties and were expected to continue southward throughout Sunday and possibly into Monday.

Power was initially cut to 26,500 customers. As many as 361,000 customers in 36 counties could be affected by the planned outages. Previously, the company announced more expansive blackouts but said it had scaled back in some areas due to shifting weather forecasts.

California is bracing for a return of gusty winds and bone-dry weather that carries the threat of downing or fouling power lines or other equipment that in recent years have been blamed for igniting massive and deadly blazes.