AUGUSTA

Calais LNG attempt to delay meeting on updates denied

The Maine Board of Environmental Protection has denied a request by Calais LNG to postpone a meeting set for today to update the state on its attempts to line up new investors for the $1 billion project.

In a letter late Monday, BEP Chairwoman Susan Lessard said today’s meeting will proceed on schedule. Parties will have an opportunity to comment on the company’s request to keep the application on hold until mid-October, she said.

The company is trying to develop a liquefied natural gas terminal in Calais. The proposal is opposed by some fishermen and environmental groups concerned about tanker traffic and a route that takes ships through Canadian waters.

In August, Calais LNG asked the board for time for its lead investor, GS Power Holdings, to find a new financial partner for the project. The new financing was supposed to be lined up by Sept. 11.

But a lawyer for the company asked Monday to postpone the meeting and give it another 30 days to provide a status report. He said Calais LNG has narrowed the candidates to two investors, one with access to a significant supply of natural gas, and the other involved in the global commodities market.

Opponents contend Calais LNG should withdraw its permit application until it lines up financing. They are expected to press those requests today.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H.

Transportation secretary’s help sought for bridge aid

Members of the New Hampshire and Maine congressional delegations are asking U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood for support in getting a federal grant to help replace the 80-year-old Memorial Bridge that links Portsmouth and Kittery.

U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, R-Maine, and U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine; Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and other New Hampshire officials wrote LaHood Monday. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., had already written in support of the project.

The letter says the bridge replacement would create 197 onsite jobs and 950 indirect jobs.

The project would cost an estimated $87 million.

PORTLAND

New York man gets 14 years for conspiring to sell cocaine

A New York man was sentenced to more than 14 years in prison for conspiring to sell cocaine in Waldo County.

U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II said that Carlos Flores Zamora, an illegal alien from Mexico, was sentenced Monday to 172 months in prison and five years probation for dealing more than 20 kilograms of cocaine from 2005 to 2009.

Zamora was living in New York and selling the cocaine to a Massachusetts college student who sold it to associates in the Belfast area. Zamora wired some of the proceeds to associates in Mexico, prosecutors said.

Zamora was removed from the country in 1998 and twice in 2004.

BEDFORD, N.H.

Fatal accident autopsies show four died instantly

New Hampshire State Police say autopsies show the four young men who died in a car accident were killed instantly and that speed was a contributing factor.

It’s still not clear when the crash happened. Police also said Tuesday that only one person, the driver, Jeffrey Levesque, was wearing a seatbelt.

Their mangled car was found Sunday off Interstate 293 in Manchester, 37 hours after they were last spotted in a bar and 16 hours after they were reported missing.

Police said toxicology reports will be forthcoming.

The victims were three childhood friends – 24-year-old Levesque and Alex DeFreitas, both of Londonderry; 25-year-old Chase Abreu of Pelham – and Levesque’s friend and co-worker, 25-year-old Jesse Pena of Lowell, Mass.

BOSTON

$1.4 million awarded to aid fishermen manage system

The National Marine Fisheries Service has awarded an additional $1.4 million to help New England fishermen adjust to a new management system.

The money was part of $3.2 million directed toward industry research and preservation announced Tuesday.

In May, most fishermen switched to a system in which they work in groups called sectors to manage an allotted groundfish catch among themselves.

The aim is to allow fishermen autonomy to maximize profits, while imposing strict catch limits. But some fishermen have said the catch allotments are too low for them to stay in business.

The $1.4 million announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be used to help pay various new expenses, such as a sector manager’s salary.

BARNSTABLE, Mass.

Teen in wheelchair death being held on $200,000 bail

A Cape Cod teenager police say fled the scene after allegedly running down and killing a Hyannis woman crossing a street in her wheelchair has been ordered held on $200,000 bail.

Gina Giovangelo of Barnstable pleaded not guilty on Monday in Superior Court to multiple charges including vehicular homicide. She has been held since pleading not guilty in district court.

Authorities allege the 18-year-old Giovangelo was drunk when she struck and killed 47-year-old Lillian White in May.

Giovangelo showed up for arraignment in May, but before she faced the judge, she said she was going outside for a cigarette break and fled the area. She was captured the next day in Wareham after she was chased barefoot through the woods.

BARNSTABLE, Mass.

Doctor in abortion death sentenced to six months

A doctor was sentenced Tuesday to six months in jail after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the case of a woman who died after he performed an abortion on her.

Dr. Rapin Osathanondh was sentenced in the 2007 death of 22-year-old Laura Hope Smith. He pleaded guilty in a Massachusetts court Monday, just as his trial was about to begin.

Smith was 13 weeks pregnant when she went to see Osathanondh for an abortion in his Cape Cod office. She was pronounced dead later that day.

Prosecutors charged Osathanondh with manslaughter, alleging that he failed to monitor her while she was under anesthesia, delayed calling 911 when her heart stopped, and later lied to try to cover up his actions.

Osathanondh, who was also a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health, resigned his medical license the same day the state Board of Registration in Medicine issued a scathing list of charges against him, alleging that he had “engaged in conduct that calls into question his competence to practice medicine.”

 

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