Cumberland County | featured news

Maine child protection caseworkers have been concerned since late last year that widespread problems within their agency were making their jobs harder and putting vulnerable children at risk.
High staff turnover. Low morale. Unmanageable caseloads. Some even said they felt intimidated by superiors.
Conditions were ripe for tragedy to strike, and late last year it did.

HARPSWELL — In a ditch, half-hidden in weeds, is a remnant of the storm Mainers won’t soon forget. It’s a cut-up utility pole, one of hundreds that were destroyed in the October 2017 wind and rain storm that left a record 470,000 customers in the dark.
“That pole snapped, broke in two,” said Gordon Weil, who lives at the end of a narrow, woodsy lane and gets electrical service via the pole. “And the wire sat on the ground for 10 days.”

China was so hungry for Maine lobster last summer that Stephanie Nadeau, a live lobster dealer from Arundel, was selling $100,000 of lobster to Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai on a good day. She was living and breathing the China lobster market, which after seven years of 1 a.m. sales calls and repeated trips to the mainland had grown to account for a third of her annual sales.

Jill Lamontagne says she was just trying to help a troubled student when she exchanged dozens of emails and scores of text messages with the 17-year-old boy.
Those online communications – including 94 text messages exchanged over a two-week period – turned into evidence that prosecutors used against her in a criminal trial after the youth accused Lamontagne of sexually assaulting him.

As a running coach, Roger Morse is a big believer in setting one’s own pace, not overdoing it and, above all, enjoying every step of every training session.
Which might help explain why, as a patient with a relatively rare neuro-muscular disease called myasthenia gravis, or MG, Morse is getting a little tired of running repeatedly into a brick wall.

ATLANTA — Civil rights icon and U.S. Rep. John Lewis has been hospitalized for undisclosed reasons.
Citing a statement from Lewis’ office, WSB-TV reports that the 78-year-old Georgia congressman was “resting comfortably” in a hospital Saturday night for “routine observation.”
The statement says Lewis expects to be released Sunday.
Lewis, a Democrat, played a key role in the civil rights movement and marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 in Selma, Alabama.

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Donald Trump said Sunday he’d be willing to shut down the government if Democrats refuse to vote for changes he seeks to the U.S. immigration system, including building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I would be willing to ‘shut down’ government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall!” Trump tweeted. “Must get rid of Lottery, Catch & Release etc. and finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT!

AUBURN — The body of a woman was found early Sunday floating in the pond known as “The Basin,” off Holbrook Road.
A death investigation was being conducted, according to a prepared statement from Auburn police Deputy Chief Jason Moen. Moen said the woman’s identity won’t be made public until the chief medical examiner completes the autopsy.

The family of former Deering High School basketball player Patrick Lobor, who died after collapsing Saturday afternoon at the scene of a traffic accident in Portland, said Sunday morning they had been told little about the circumstances of his death.

BATH — The City Council is moving toward adopting strict new rules for vacant buildings in the city.
“We’ve had a number of complaints about vacant buildings, and these are buildings where no one is living in the house,” City Manager Peter Owen said this month.
The council gave initial support to the ordinance during a meeting July 11 and is scheduled to take a final vote Wednesday.