BOOTHBAY

Two dead, one injured after three cars collide on Route 27

Additional Photos

Work continues Tuesday at the Oak Street Loft Apartments in downtown Portland just off Congress Street. The four-story, $6.4 million building will have 37 energy-efficient apartments and community space with gallery potential on the ground floor. It’s expected to open in December. Gabe Souza/Staff Photographer

Two people were killed in a three-car collision Tuesday afternoon on Route 27. A third person was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries.

Investigators from the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office said the accident occurred at 4:38 p.m. when a car heading south on Route 27 crossed the center line and hit another vehicle heading north.

One driver was killed, police said, and the other sustained life-threatening injuries. A passenger in the vehicle with the injured driver also was killed.

A third vehicle, heading north, was damaged in the collision. The two people in that vehicle were not injured.

Police were still at the scene of the crash late Tuesday trying to reconstruct what happened. The identities of the victims were not available.

Rescue personnel from the Boothbay Fire Department, Boothbay Harbor Fire Department and the Boothbay Region Ambulance Service responded to the crash scene.

PORTLAND

Deering junior picked for panel that advises College Board

A Deering High School junior is one of 16 high school and college students nationwide selected to serve on the College Board’s Advisory Panel on Student Concerns.

Mohamed Sharif will serve a three-year term.

The panel meets several times a year to give student opinions about College Board tests, including the SAT, Advanced Placement courses and exams, guidance and admission, marketing and research for the College Board.

Sharif works at a teen center at Riverton Park, which he helped start with the Portland nonprofit group Community Hope through Education Empowerment Training and Action. He plays lacrosse, indoor track and football.

HAMPDEN

Chase ends with car crashing into tree, killing driver, 21

Officials say a Belfast man fleeing Maine police died when the car he was driving crashed into a tree in Hampden.

Twenty-one-year-old Matthew Cynewski was killed when he crashed his Jeep on U.S. Route 1A.

The Bangor Daily News reported that the chase that led to the crash began shortly before 3:30 p.m., when Bangor police received a report that a vehicle traveling south on Interstate 95 was operating erratically. The vehicle was spotted on I-395, but took off when an officer tried to stop it.

Cynewski’s vehicle sideswiped another car just before it hit the tree. The driver of the other car was not hurt.

The incident remains under investigation.

BANGOR

LaMarche to co-host talk show on author King’s radio stations

Stephen King is offering an antidote to what he sees as the biases of right-wing radio talk shows by hiring a former Green Party vice presidential candidate to co-host a morning talk show on two stations King owns.

In a rare public appearance, the author held a news conference Tuesday in Bangor at the headquarters of his three-station Zone Radio network.

“The Pulse Morning Show” will be co-hosted by 50-year-old Pat LaMarche and 43-year-old Don Cookson, a former television reporter. LaMarche ran for vice president as a member of the Green Party in 2004.

During the news conference King said, “We’re a little to the left, but we’re right.”

The show will begin airing on WZON-AM and WZON-FM at 6 a.m. on Sept. 12.

SACO

Program boosts local lender’s ability to help small businesses

The Biddeford-Saco Area Economic Development Corporation is one of 20 national community lending organizations to participate in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Intermediary Lending Pilot Program.

The program will loan up to $1 million to the community lending organization for fiscal year 2011, so the corporation can in turn make loans up to $200,000 to qualifying small businesses. 

“The Intermediary Lending Pilot Program is an important new tool to support businesses in underserved markets,” said Marie Johns, deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration.

The Biddeford-Saco Area Economic Development Corporation was established nearly 20 years ago by the two cities and the Biddeford-Saco Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It currently administers five revolving loan programs totaling $5.2 million.

“The Intermediary Lending Pilot Program will increase Biddeford-Saco Area Economic Development Corporation’s financial resources and expand access to capital for small businesses and drive economic growth and job creation in York County,” Will Armitage, executive director of the corporation, said.

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

Removal of whale carcass necessitates beach closure

Officials say a section of a popular beach at Acadia National Park has been cordoned off while plans are made to remove the carcass of a dead minke whale.

Park Ranger Richard Rechholtz said the whale had been dead for some time when it washed ashore on Sand Beach around 11 a.m. Sunday.

He said the carcass had been reported floating off Jonesport in Washington County.

Rechholtz said an organization called Allied Whale is making plans to retrieve the carcass and possibly conduct a necropsy to determine how it died.

The Bangor Daily News reported that there are an estimated 185,000 minke whales in the North Atlantic Ocean. The species is not listed as endangered or threatened.

WESTBROOK

Fingerprint analysis reveals suspect gave police fake name

A fingerprint analysis has determined that a man arrested in Westbrook last week on drug charges used a fake name and is actually wanted on previous drug charges, police say.

When Westbrook police arrested Ronald C. Jeanty and three others Friday at 53 Haskell St. in connection with a drug investigation, Jeanty told them his name was Junior Lafortune, 27, of Dorchester, Mass.

However, when his fingerprints were matched with a law enforcement database it turned out he is actually Jeanty, who was wanted by the Maine Violent Offender Task Force, run through the U.S. Marshal’s Office.

Jeanty is wanted on a charge of drug trafficking. He was charged by Westbrook police on counts of aggravated trafficking in drugs and trafficking in prison contraband, after allegedly being found with contraband when being booked into jail.

Jeanty now also faces charges of aggravated forgery and failing to provide his correct name to police. He remains at the Cumberland County Jail on $45,000 bail and also is being held indefinitely by immigration authorities.

OWENSBORO, Ky.

Judge reschedules Mainer’s kidnapping trial for Dec. 6

The trial of a Maine man charged with kidnapping a 13-year-old Kentucky girl has been rescheduled for Dec. 6.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Goebel in Owensboro reset the trial from September to give a new attorney for Archie M. Whalen of Bristol, Maine, time to prepare, the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer reported.

Whalen is charged with driving to Owensboro from Maine to meet with the girl, whom he had known when the girl and her mother lived briefly in Maine in a home shared by the mother’s boyfriend and Whalen.

The girl was reported missing Sept. 26, 2009, and officials in Kentucky issued an Amber Alert.

The two were found in Sturgeon Bay, Wis., a day later. Police say the girl was in the vehicle with Whalen.

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