Maine’s top politicians clashed after the Civil War over the hanging of a former slave.
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, Source
Bates College achieves carbon neutral status to help stave off climate change
Bates is the seventh college in the country to reach its goal pronounced in 2007.
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Posted inBusiness, Local & State
Bill aims to encourage more employee-owned businesses
Sen. Nate Libby’s measure would offer tax breaks to help owners of companies sell to their workers or tenants.
Posted inBusiness, Local & State
Measure urges tax breaks for Maine employee-owned businesses
The Legislature’s Taxation Committee has yet to act on the bill.
Posted inLocal & State, News
‘Saturday Night Live’ zings Susan Collins in opening skit
Her opponents say the television comedy show has Maine’s longtime senator pegged.
Posted inLocal & State, News
Legislators consider putting school security videos off-limits to public
Lawmakers try to figure out what footage of schoolchildren should be accessible to people outside the school.
Posted inLocal & State, News
Legislators may make preventive treatments for newborns mandatory
Health experts say rising numbers of parents refuse needed vitamin K shots that keep some babies from dangerous bleeding.
Posted inBusiness, Local & State, News
As popularity of e-bikes soars, Maine asks if they’re motor vehicles
Battery-assisted bicycles fall into a regulatory gray zone that lawmakers aim to clarify in a bid to boost their use.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Politics
Sen. Collins may face first primary challenge since winning seat in 1996
Derek Lavasseur, a conservative activist from Fairfield, says he will challenge Collins in the June 2020 primary.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Politics
Former Democratic Lewiston mayor is considering challenging Sen. Collins in 2020
A lawyer, Jim Howaniec, 60, says his fiscal conservatism and social liberalism could give him a shot.