Committee endorses bill that limits out-of-state construction debris and likely hurts a Lewiston firm caught in the middle
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 inMaine, News, Politics
The day the dirty trickster apologized to Muskie
Twenty-one months after the Canuck letter came out, Nixon campaign operative Donald Segretti sent Muskie an apology. The Muskie Archives has it at Bates College in Lewiston. “Dear Senator Muskie,” the by-then convicted dirty trickster wrote on Oct. 11, 1973, “I wish to personally apologize to you, your family and your staff for my activities […]
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Posted inMaine, News, Politics
Maine’s Edmund Muskie: ‘Good-humored’ but with a ‘temper that verged on the volcanic’
Known for his environmental legacy, Muskie, according to then-Sen. Joe Biden, ‘never believed that a career in politics obliged his head to divorce his heart.’
Posted inMaine, Politics
How Mainer Edmund Muskie’s tirade a half-century ago may have cost him the White House
One of the most successful dirty tricks in American political history wiped away the presidential hopes of Rumford’s favorite son in 1972.
Posted inHealth, Maine
Newborns in Maine may soon be screened for dangerous – and common – virus
Lawmakers are poised to endorse a bill that would establish rules for checking babies for CMV, a virus that can lead to hearing loss and cerebral palsy.
Posted inMaine
Maine lawmakers look to take on voracious browntail moths
New bill would fund more experts and programs to combat the invasive bug that strips trees and causes people to itch all over.
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Politics
Sen. Ned Claxton not running again for Auburn’s seat
Democrat Bettyann Sheats seeks to succeed him in what is likely to be a highly contested campaign
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Bates College union vote count on hold
National Labor Relations Board must decide who is eligible to unionize.
Posted inMaine, News, Politics
Bruce Poliquin and Jared Golden locked in a close fundraising race in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District
The two frontrunners each had nearly $1.5 million in their campaign treasuries at the end of 2021, far more than other congressional hopefuls in the district
Posted inMaine
Stop invasive species from infesting Maine lakes, advocates urge lawmakers
A legislative committee is weighing how best to beef up the battle against plants and animals that don’t belong in Maine.