SOUTH PORTLAND (AP) – Maine real estate sales tumbled into the double-digit range last month as decreases in prices and sales followed a national track downward, an industry group said Friday.

In November, 997 single-family homes were sold in Maine, representing a decrease of 12.5 percent from the same period in 2005 when 1,139 homes were sold, according to Maine Realtors’ multiple listing service.

Nationally, the median price was down 3.6 percent to $217,200.

Maine real estate agents emphasized the brighter side of the housing slump.

“I’m pretty optimistic,” said Colon Durrell, an East Wilton agent and president of Maine Real Estate Information System, which provides the Maine sales figures. “We still have really good interest rates and Maine is still considered a really good place to live.”

Within Maine, 12 of the 16 counties recorded decreases in home sales between the three months ending Nov. 30, 2005 and the same period this year. Only Aroostook, Franklin, Piscataquis and Washington counties recorded increases.

Burglar must shed panties, says judge

AUGUSTA (AP) – A convicted sex offender from Albion has been forbidden from possessing women’s panties while on probation. The unusual terms of probation were imposed by Justice Nancy Mills on Thursday as Nicolas Leathers was sentenced for a May 27, 2005 camp burglary in Albion.

The burglary occurred while Leathers was on probation for unlawful sexual contact with children. Leathers was given a suspended jail term for the Albion burglary, but was sentenced to six years of probation. He was released from Kennebec County Jail on Thursday.

Other probation conditions bar Leathers from possession of sexually explicit materials. While on probation, he’ll have to submit to searches for female undergarments and pornography, the judge ordered.

Funeral held for N.H. soldier

WOLFEBORO, N.H. (AP) – Friends, family and fellow soldiers said goodbye Friday to Army Spc. Matthew Stanley with fond rememberances that filled a packed church with laughter.

Stanley was killed with two other soldiers by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Dec. 16, 10 days before his 23rd birthday. He had just started his second tour of duty after getting married almost a year earlier.

Gen. Mark Brown, representing the secretary of the Army, thanked the more than 400 people who crowded inside and outside the First Congregational Church for coming “to say goodbye to an American soldier, a noble profession.”

With Stanley’s flag-draped coffin in the front of the church, Sgt. Juan Olivera read presidential proclamations that awarded Stanley the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.

Then Olivera, who served with Sta nley in the Armored Calvary out of Fort Hood, Texas, talked about how Stanley would trade movies sent from home for Olivera’s cigarettes.

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