With 34 active cases, students are told to stay inside their rooms until next Tuesday to reduce spread of highly contagious virus.
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, Politics
Lawmakers consider banning release of most balloons in Maine
Aiming to protect wildlife from latex litter, environmentalists urge the Legislature to bar people from intentionally releasing balloons.
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Posted inBusiness, Local & State
The heartache behind the dry words of a Maine bill on funeral vehicle safety
A widow seeks more regulation of funeral home vehicles after her husband died driving one in 2017.
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Bates says it has the capacity to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to students
College plan will depend on vaccine supply, dropping age restrictions
Posted inLocal & State, Politics
Maine may allow Viking-style funeral pyres
Legislature is weighing whether to make open-air cremation legal in Maine.
Posted inLocal & State
Maine map gap: Bad federal maps muddle route to better broadband
State and federal maps offer little more than a vague impression of where high-speed internet exists and where it does not.
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Nation & World
Atlanta killings spur Bates College president to defend Asian Americans
Clayton Spencer said ‘anti-Asian bias has reached disturbing levels’ and called on Lewiston college ‘to act for justice.’
Posted inLocal & State, Politics
Bangor Democrat seeks to challenge Jared Golden in a primary
Michael Sutton filed paperwork last week to take on the incumbent in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District in 2022.
Posted inLocal & State
Maine lagging on road to high-speed broadband
State’s bid for better access has been stymied by high cost, misleading maps and Maine’s rural nature.
Posted inBusiness, Local & State
Maine senator calls for crackdown on ‘snake oil and fine print’ payday loans
State Sen. Rick Bennett of Oxford calls for limits on how much lenders can charge for short-term loans to hard-pressed Mainers.