Cumberland County | featured news

PORTLAND
Diocese raises over $62,000 for faith-in-action program
Diocese of Portland parishes and schools partnered to raise more than $62,000 for the Catholic Relief Services’ Rice Bowl program during Lent this spring. CRS Rice Bowl is a faith-in-action program that encourages Catholics to fill cardboard bowls with monetary donations, giving alms to those in need and honoring Jesus’ call to serve our neighbors.

A couple who recently moved to Portland from New York City have bought the Noyes Street property in Portland that was the site of Maine’s deadliest fire in four decades.
Mary Fox and Stephen Hoffman, who live in an apartment on Coyle Street, plan to build a new duplex at 20-24 Noyes St. They will live in one unit and rent the other on a long-term basis. They said they are well aware of the property’s history and hope to find an appropriate way to memorialize the six young people killed in the 2014 tragedy.

Opponents of a ballot initiative that would raise taxes on wealthier Mainers to subsidize in-home care for the elderly and disabled have stepped up their rhetoric, calling the measure a scam and accusing its promoters of deceptive practices.
The group pushing the measure said such tactics only prove how desperate opponents are to prevent Mainers from creating a more democratic mechanism for funding home care that is free from the influence of lobbyists.

SOUTH PORTLAND — It’s the busiest stretch of the busiest street in the city, causing commuter headaches for years and leading some to question whether a plan to consolidate two aging middle schools on one site might worsen traffic congestion.
The road is Broadway, a winding, mostly two-lane, cross-city artery that’s nearly unavoidable if you want to get from one side of South Portland to the other without driving far afield.

ATLANTA — U.S. Rep. John Lewis, the 78-year-old civil rights icon and veteran congressman from Georgia, was released from the hospital Sunday evening after his weekend admission for an undisclosed reason.
Lewis’ spokeswoman, Brenda Jones, said in an emailed statement that Lewis left the hospital a day after he was admitted for “routine observation.”

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg” was trending on Twitter Sunday night, and liberals across the internet panicked.
“My heart stopped for a moment,” tweeted writer Wajahat Ali.
Dedicated RBG fans feared the worst. They refused to look up the news. They prayed. They offered their kidneys.
“I was on my way to the hospital to donate all my organs,” wrote another fan. “Please be alive, please be alive, please be alive. . .,” tweeted another.

AVALON, Calif. — As the sun rose over this harbor town on Santa Catalina Island, four scuba divers with cameras and notepads finned toward canopies of undulating kelp.
The seaweed off Santa Catalina Island was teeming with small fish that flashed kaleidoscopically vivid colors. The small fish attracted larger fish – opaleye, kelp bass, sheepshead and bright orange garibaldi, the California state marine fish.

MOUNT HOLLY, N.J. — A former pastor who co-founded a Christian music festival before admitting he had sexual contact with children and being branded a “wolf” has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Harry Thomas, who’s 75 years old, was the pastor of Come Alive New Testament Church in Medford and a co-founder of the Creation Festival, billed as the country’s largest Christian music festival. He failed in a bid to withdraw his guilty plea in sexual assaults and other crimes involving five minors and was sentenced on Friday.

A former Windham man convicted of a triple murder in New Hampshire was sentenced to death by a Florida jury for killing another prison inmate with a padlock.
Michael Woodbury, 42, has been serving a life sentence without parole in Florida since 2009 for shooting to death three people during a botched robbery at an Army Barracks store in Conway, New Hampshire, in 2007.

VATICAN CITY — In a move seen as unprecedented, Pope Francis has effectively stripped U.S. prelate Theodore McCarrick of his cardinal’s title following allegations of sexual abuse, including one involving an 11-year-old boy. The Vatican announced Saturday that Francis ordered McCarrick to conduct a “life of prayer and penance” before a church trial is held.