Things You Need to Know: Hallowell Planning New Fire Station for Spring

Here are the things you need to  know today......

Zone forecast from Maine.gov

Police arrested a man in connection with an apartment scam. According to WCSH Nathan Poulin is looking at four counts of theft by deception. He was renting out an apartment that was not his to rent, collecting the deposit and upfront rent and then disappearing.

Hallowell is planning for its new fire station, the amount and design of the new facility are growing. According to centralmaine.com there are plans to make sure the old fire station building stays viable.  The new station  should be ready by spring.

From the Associated Press:

Trump's voter fraud commission could create a new target for hackers by creating a federal government-controlled database of voters. Voting and data security experts say the compiling the information in one place makes a lucrative target for those who want to get data on millions of Americans or interfere with elections. But there's disagreement on whether the data will be deep enough for online snoopers to cause major problems.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine has filed a federal lawsuit against Republican Gov. Paul LePage for blocking people who disagree with him on his official Facebook page and deleting their comments. The ACLU sued Tuesday in federal court on behalf of two women, saying their First Amendment rights were violated. Similar lawsuits have been filed against Kentucky's governor, Maryland's governor and President Donald Trump.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins is introducing a bill designed to train more primary care physicians and address the nation's shortage of doctors. The senators say the bill would reauthorize and strengthen the Teaching Health Centers Graduate Medical Education Program that trains physicians in underserved areas. Collins says the improvements would be especially beneficial for rural and underserved communities that have been hit hard by the opioid abuse epidemic.Collins and Tester say the U.S. is estimated to need more than 100,000 new primary care doctors by the year 2025.

The socialite daughter of two world-famous New York ballet dancers is charged in Maine with breaking into several stores. Police say drugs and alcohol were factors when 21-year-old Talicia Martins and a friend broke into The Smoothie Shack, Francine Bistro and Camden Cone, taking more than $1,000. She is the daughter of Darci Kistler, former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, and Peter Martins, current chief of the New York City Ballet.

Federal fishing regulators are scaling back the volume that fishermen can catch of red hake, an important food fish on the East Coast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it is reducing the amount of northern red hake that commercial fishermen can possess from 3,000 to 400 pounds per trip.

Elected officials in Guam are reassuring constituents that the U.S. territory is safe following North Korea's claim that it is examining its plan for "making an enveloping fire" around the strategically important Pacific island. Governor Eddie Baza Calvo said Wednesday there is no threat to Guam or to the Mariana Islands to the north.

Trump's voter fraud commission could create a new target for hackers by creating a federal government-controlled database of voters. Voting and data security experts say the compiling the information in one place makes a lucrative target for those who want to get data on millions of Americans or interfere with elections. But there's disagreement on whether the data will be deep enough for online snoopers to cause major problems.

The new constitutional assembly assumed even more power in Venezuela by declaring itself as the superior body to all other governmental institutions, including the opposition-controlled congress. That decree came Tuesday just hours after the assembly delegates took control of the legislative chamber and put up pictures of the late President Hugo Chavez, who installed Venezuela's socialist system.

Thousands of migrants are fleeing the United States for Canada via a remote back road in upstate New York. The Canadians arrest the migrants as soon as they step across the border from the United States. The migrants prefer to take a chance in Canada rather than risk being deported from the United States.

India had been predicted to become a carbon-belching behemoth as it demanded ever-more coal to meet its energy needs. But for the last two years, the country's consumption of coal has slowed. Could India's coal appetite have peaked? Time will tell, but the trends of using renewable energy and delivering power more efficiently are promising.