Things You Need to Know: More Food Trucks on Lewiston Streets + Maine Might Relax Rules for In-home Childcare
Here are the things you need to know today......
Lewiston is going to allow more food trucks. According to WMTW, Lewiston councilors voted to expand the food truck ordinance. Until now they have been allowed on private property and on the street for special events. The new rules will allow the trucks on city streets during certain hours.
A Skowhegan sentenced today on a charge of theft by deception. According to WABI 32-year-old Nicole Bizier arrested in March after police say they rescued eleven dogs from an illegal pet store, has been sentenced to 30 days in jail for theft by deception. Other charges against her, including running an illegal pet shop, were dropped. Officals say she did this to get money for heroin.
Verso Corporation announced it plans to permanently shut down paper machine #3 in Jay. This cuts 120 jobs from the mill. 190 jobs were lost in January and 300 when the #2 machine was shut down in 2015.
Maine is looking at relaxing rules governing in-home child care facilities and maybe limiting inspections and the amount of information posted online. According to centralmaine.com child care advocates are criticizing this saying it would weaken oversight and potentially put kids at risk.
From the Associated Press:
Maine State Police say they're treating the death of a woman found alongside a highway in Cherryfield as a homicide. State police declined to identify the victim whose body was found Wednesday morning. An autopsy will be performed on Thursday. Police say a car connected to the woman was found crashed 15 miles away from where her body was spotted by a passing driver on Route 193.State police ask that anyone who was in the area Tuesday night into Wednesday morning and might have information to contact them.
Lawmakers are set to return to Augusta with vetoes on the agenda. Republican Gov. Paul LePage has recently vetoed bills he claims creates hidden subsidies for the rich in electricity bills.
A Maine man involved in two shootings in Portland's Old Port has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison on a gun charge tied to the weapon used in the shootings. The Portland Press Herald reports that Moses Okot pleaded guilty to possession of a gun by a felon and agreed to the maximum penalty.
The lawyer for a Maine man fighting to overturn a conviction in the 1989 death of his teenage girlfriend hopes to bring in two experts to argue that she may have been the victim of a serial killer. The Portland Press Herald reports that a judge will determine whether the testimony will be allowed at an upcoming conviction review hearing for Anthony Sanborn Jr. Sanborn spent more than two decades in prison but was released in April when a key witness recanted.
Communities are expressing confusion over education and tax changes in a last-minute budget deal that's unlikely to offer promised relief to all taxpayers. The $7.1 billion, two-year budget includes initiatives sought by Republican Gov. Paul LePage, but he's concerned about the amount of increased educating funding. The budget nixes a tax on the wealthy but adds $162 million in education funding over two years.
Sen. John McCain's best friend in the Senate says the ailing Arizona Republican told him the cancerous tumor doctors have found in his brain isn't his worst ordeal. South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham says he spoke to McCain by phone Wednesday evening. He says McCain told him: "Yeah, I'm going to have to stay here a little bit longer, take some treatments. I'll be back."
The Senate intelligence committee has scheduled perhaps the most high-profile testimony involving the Russian meddling probes since former FBI Director James Comey appeared in June. A lawyer for Trump's powerful son-in-law and adviser says Jared Kushner will speak to the Senate intelligence committee Monday. Donald Trump Jr. is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee next Wednesday along with former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
President Donald Trump has some harsh words for top Justice Department officials. He tells The New York Times that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should have never recused himself from overseeing the Russia investigation, adding he would have chosen someone else for the job had he known. Trump also suggests that special counsel Robert Mueller, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein all have conflicts of interest that he may reveal "at some point."
How much have North Korea's nuclear and missile programs cost? By some measures not much: A South Korean estimate indicates the North has spent roughly as much on its nuclear program as the U.S. has on a single nuclear-powered submarine. But nukes are a huge portion of the country's economy and draw crippling sanctions. So far it's a price Pyongyang is willing to accept.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his opponents face a crucial showdown as the country's opposition calls the first national strike since 2002 stoppage that failed to topple Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez. Fifteen years later, Chavez's socialist party controls vast swathes of the economy, making it harder to bring the country to a halt. The 24-hour strike Thursday is meant as an expression of disapproval of Maduro's plan to convene a constitutional assembly to reshape the country.