Things You Need to Know Today: Winthrop Post Office Gutted by Fire + Traffic Issues from Waterville Car Wash
Here are the things you need to know today......
A fire destroyed the Winthrop Post Office yesterday. Centralmaine.com reports the fire gutted the building. They are still working to determine the cause of the fire as well as the impact on mail as to what may have been destroyed. If you are a Winthrop resident and had been expecting something in the mail that had not arrived yet...if you don't have the tacking info you may want to contact the sender to check on that sort of information.
Mainers will vote this fall expanding the Medicaid program. According to the Bangor Daily News the expansion would be under the current Affordable Care Act. Past attemps to expand Medicaid in Maine have failed for various reasons.
Maine Wardens are reminding snowmobilers to be careful and slow . According to WMTW three people were injured in crashes yesterday. Speed also appeared to be a factor in all the crashes. Wardens are reminding snowmobilers to slow down and to wear helmets.
About 600 gallons of fuel oil was spilled at Camp Keyes in Augusta this past weekend. According to centralmaine.com it has been cleaned up. It was an over fill situation and they are looking at how it occurred.
Waterville police are asking people to stop lining up on KMD to get wait for the J&S car was. According to the KJ, J&S is taking steps to help cars get off KMD and into a different waiting area or simply return at a different time. They are looking at how to reconfigure things to help avoid this in the future.
From the Associated Press:
Alfond Leaders program says it will help pay down the student debt of some technology workers who settle in Maine. They provide up to $60,000 of student loan debt relief to 150 individuals. The program's open to Maine residents and soon-to-be residents who work in those fields and intend to live in the state for ten years.
A liberal group that wants better access to elected officials is hosting three rallies around Maine, focusing on Sen. Susan Collins. Mainers For Accountable Leadership is planning to hold rallies at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday in Portland, Bangor and Lewiston. The group is referring to the rallies as "open air town halls."
Artists have a chance to create a work of art from the century-old copper that once covered Maine's Statehouse dome. The original copper dates to 1910. Workers removed the distressed, aging copper sheathing in the fall of 2015 and installed a new copper roof. The deadline for proposals is Wednesday.
A woman has been killed and her 3-year-old son injured in a crash in Maine. State police say Teresa Sirois was behind the wheel of a car that crossed the centerline and collided with an oncoming car Tuesday afternoon in Frankfort. The 34-year-old Brooks woman was pronounced dead at the scene. Her 3-year-old son, Damian Sirois, was injured while in his car seat in the back. The driver of the other car also was hurt.
Portland's police chief says it's wrong for the mayor and others to use a police shooting to advance a political agenda. The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, the NAACP, Progressive Portland and Democratic Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling have called on the city to move up its plan to purchase body cameras for police officers.
The Trump administration has announced a sweeping rewrite of immigration enforcement policies. Any immigrant who is in the country illegally and is charged or convicted of any offense, or even suspected of a crime, will now be an enforcement priority. That's according to Homeland Security Department memos signed by Secretary John Kelly.
The National Park Service is trying to figure out who unfurled a giant banner at the Statue of Liberty saying "Refugees Welcome." A Park Service spokesman says the 3-by-20-foot banner was hung from the public observation deck at the top of the statue's pedestal Tuesday afternoon. The banner was taken down more than an hour later.
An unmanned Russian cargo supply ship is on its way to the International Space Station after lifting off Wednesday from Kazakhstan. The mission follows the Dec. 1 botched launch of a ship which crashed less than 7 minutes after liftoff, spraying fiery debris over a sparsely populated area in southern Siberia.
The Army Corps of Engineers plans to close a Dakota Access pipeline protest camp that's been around for more than six months. But Wednesday's deadline for remaining protesters to leave isn't likely to be the demise of on-the-ground opposition in North Dakota. It also may not spell the end of a heavy law enforcement presence.
Video released Tuesday shows a plane piloted by Harrison Ford suddenly and mistakenly flying low over an airliner with 110 passengers aboard at a Southern California airport. The 45 seconds of soundless video show the potentially serious mishap at John Wayne Airport in Orange County. No reason has been given for Ford's mistake.