Legislators hear from fearful residents who want to block mandates on COVID-19 vaccines, which have been proven to be safe and to prevent more serious illness.
Steve Collins
Columnist
Steve Collins became an opinion columnist for the Maine Trust for Local News in April of 2025. A journalist since 1987, Steve has worked for daily newspapers in New York, Connecticut and Maine and served as the State House reporter for the Sun Journal since 2016. The Maine Press Association named him Maine's Journalist of the Year in 2022. Among his other awards are the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2016 Ethics in Journalism Award, the I.F. Stone Whistle-Blower Award in 2015 and the Bob Wallack Community Journalism Award from the New England Newspaper & Press Association. Steve is a founder and board president of Youth Journalism International, a charity that teaches students around the globe about news writing, media literacy and issues of the day. His wife, Jackie Majerus, serves as its executive director. Born in Massachusetts, he grew up in a military family that took him to Norway, Ohio and Virginia, where he earned a degree in history from the University of Virginia. He and Jackie live in Auburn. They have two adult children, two collies and not enough time.
Posted inLocal & State
Hours before being fatally stabbed, Troy Varney warned police ‘when he kills somebody tonight, it’s on you’
New details emerge in the Turner double homicide, spurring consideration of a measure in Augusta that might help prevent harm in the future.
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Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Local & State
Bates and union organizers clash as workers prepare to vote on whether to form one of state’s biggest union locals
Bates denounces union complaints as ‘the very essence of misinformation’ after organizers say college is violating its own COVID-19 protocols.
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Bates College appeals federal agency’s ruling on union election
College seeks to keep faculty separate from other staff in any proposed union.
Posted inElection 2022, Elections, Local & State, Politics
Maine’s 2nd Congressional District race looking a lot like 2018 election
Independent Tiffany Bond’s entry into the contest sees a return to the campaign trail by the three contenders who got the most votes in 2018.
Posted inArts & Entertainment, News
Chances are nobody will ever again see Maine’s first big movie, viewed worldwide a century ago
‘The Rider of the King Log,’ by well-known Auburn writer Holman Day, featured log drives, dam explosions, romance and more, but it has utterly vanished since its debut in 1921
Posted inHealth, Local & State
It may be time to upgrade from cloth masks to hi-tech ones, experts say
Better masks will better block transmission of the virus, especially omicron, some say.
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Schools and Education
Fearing omicron spread, Bates College imposes new COVID-19 restrictions
Bates College closes campus buildings to outsiders, shuts down in-person dining hall and more to limit threat from new variant
Posted inElections, Local & State, Politics
Paul LePage tells Tom Saviello to ‘bring it on’
Former governor said he would love to see the ex-lawmaker from Wilton jump into the 2022 gubernatorial race, but it’s not clear what will happen.
Posted inCoastal Journal, Lewiston-Auburn, Local & State
State may upgrade water quality rating for lower section of the Androscoggin River
Lawmakers will consider whether to go along with a state environmental board’s recommendation to hike its classification level from Lisbon to the sea.