BAR HARBOR

Cruise line taking delivery of local lobsters on Friday

Maine officials have convinced the Holland America cruise line to buy locally caught lobsters for its cruise ships when they visit Bar Harbor several times this season.

The first delivery, from the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound, will be made when the Maasdam visits Friday.

WNSX-FM said the collaborative efforts of a Bar Harbor councilor, state senator, lobster pound owner and Cruise Maine is independent of efforts of Rep. Chellie Pingree, who’s also urging the cruise ships, which bring tens of thousands of visitors to Portland, to serve locally caught lobsters.

The Democrat announced Monday that she had sent a letter to the owners of 15 cruise ship lines that visit the state suggesting that they buy Maine lobster.

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Pingree is married to S. Donald Sussman, majority share owner of The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.

PORTLAND

Five public schools offering all students free breakfasts

Five public schools in Portland will start offering free breakfasts to all of their students in September.

The change is taking place at the schools with the highest percentages of students who qualify for free or reduced meals. The schools are: Riverton Elementary School (81 percent), East End Community School, (79 percent), Presumpscot Elementary School (75 percent), Reiche Community School (72 percent)  and Lincoln Middle School (53 percent).

Breakfast will be served in the classroom during the first 10 minutes of the school day.
Reiche will also offer free lunch to all students.

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The meal costs are subsidized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Families still need to fill out eligibility applications. Applications will be included in students’ opening-day packets and must be returned by Sept. 26.

Another change this year is the elimination of the 40-cent co-pay across all schools. Students who previously paid the 40 cents will now get free meals.

BANGOR

Police seek person in video shown leaving burning car

Police sought Tuesday to identify a person seen on a surveillance video running from a burning car where three bodies were later recovered, while the state Medical Examiner’s Office began autopsies on the bodies.

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Video showed someone leaving the fire on foot, Bangor police Sgt. Paul Edwards confirmed.

“At this point, we’d like to know who was in the video and we’re working to identify that person,” he said.

Firefighters made the grisly discovery of the bodies early Monday after dousing the flames in the parking lot of a business in Bangor.

On Tuesday, the blackened car, its windows blown out and its tires flat, remained where it was found. It won’t be moved until the autopsies are completed, and it’s unclear how long that will take, Edwards said.

Transient pleads not guilty in fatal stabbing of man

A transient who is accused of fatally stabbing another man during a fight in May has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter.

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Jason Alan Trickett, 41, was ordered held on $50,000 bail at his arraignment Monday at the Penobscot Judicial Center. He has been held, unable to make bail, since his arrest in June.

Trickett is accused of stabbing Andy Smith, 38, in the street outside a friend’s apartment. Smith died later at the hospital.

He told investigators that they had been drinking and using drugs.

A witness to the fight told the Bangor Daily News that Smith was stabbed following an altercation in a street with a woman. The witness said the woman called for her friends, who went after Smith.

If convicted, Trickett faces up to 30 years in prison.

LEWISTON

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Officials looking for suspect who dumped four kittens

Authorities in Lewiston are looking for the person who tossed four newborn kittens into a large trash container.

Animal Control Officer Wendell Strout said if that person is located, he could face charges.

The kittens, covered with fleas and maggots and with their umbilical cords still attached, were discovered Friday by a passer-by who called authorities.

They were taken to the Androscoggin Humane Society, where they were cleaned and fed, but two died over the weekend.

Operations manager Zachary Black told the Sun Journal the kittens were likely a day old or less when they were found. He said the Humane Society will take unwanted animals for no fee and with no questions asked.

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AUGUSTA

Mount Vernon man denies 57 hunting-related charges

A Mount Vernon man who faces a long list of hunting-related charges came to court Tuesday and denied all 57 charges in an indictment against him.

Joseph A. Deleskey, 38, accompanied by his attorney, Walter McKee, pleaded not guilty to all the charges, including 16 felony counts charging him possession of firearm by a prohibited person.

The remaining counts are all misdemeanors, mostly hunting law violations as well as one count of stealing drugs and four counts of criminal trespass.

All the offenses occurred in the period from November 2010 to December 2011 in Mount Vernon, according to the indictment.

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At the hearing in Kennebec County Superior Court, Justice Donald Marden granted Deleskey’s request to allow contact with his father, who was described as a co-defendant.

McKee said Deleskey’s father is out of state and in poor health and Deleskey may be called upon to help care for him.

“The case has been pending for quite some time and there have been no bail issues,” McKee said.
Deleskey remains free on $5,000 bail.

SACO

Burglar steals cigarettes, energy drinks, loses bike

A burglar’s health could be taking a turn for the worse, after he swiped $1,000 in cigarettes and energy drinks Tuesday morning but then lost his bicycle as he fled police.

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Police said an officer was patrolling near Frodo’s Variety on Bradley Street at 3:30 a.m. when the officer heard a screen door slam at the back of the building. The burglar, who had broken a window to get into the store, tried to flee on his bicycle but hit a ditch and flipped over the handlebars, police said.

The burglar was able to run from the scene and a police dog tracked him as far as Elm Street in Biddeford where the dog lost the scent.

The thief made off with cigarettes and 5-hour Energy drinks but left behind his Zebrano bicycle, the Gary Fisher model, which sells for more than $500 new.

BRIDGTON

Police say man tried to force girl, 9, into white cargo van

Police are investigating reports that someone tried to compel a 9-year-old girl to get into a van near a swimming hole Saturday off Kansas Road.

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The girl reported the incident to her father who called police. Police Chief Kevin Schofield said that based on the investigation so far, and two days of interviews, police believe the incident did occur.

Police have identified a man who may have been in the area and are seeking to interview him, Schofield said. Police are looking for a white-haired, heavy-set man driving a white cargo van, he said.

The girl was swimming at Stevens Brook with friends and relatives when she walked up by the road and was confronted by a man. The man laid hands on her but she was able to fend him off, police said.

The man drove off toward downtown Bridgton and the girl went to a nearby home and called her father, police said.

PARIS

Voters reject plan to merge towns’ police departments

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A proposed one-year trial merger of the Norway and Paris police departments has been rejected by voters in Paris.

The measure was defeated in a 41-41 vote on Monday night. It needed a majority to pass.

Norway voters had approved the trial merger in June.

The police chiefs in both towns had expressed approval for the move. They said a merger would lead to a more efficient use of resources, put more officers on patrol and more resources into the investigation of serious crime.

If the one-year trial merger was deemed a success the towns would have worked on a permanent merger.

Both chiefs told the Sun Journal the proposal now appears dead.

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BOOTHBAY HARBOR

Senators: Bigelow getting $1 million in federal grants

Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine say federal grants totaling more than $1 million are being awarded to the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.

They said a grant of nearly $1 million will go toward construction of a new facility focusing on ocean acidification. A second grant of about $150,000 will help fund a study of the ecosystem within the Earth’s crust underneath the ocean floor.

From its base in Boothbay Harbor, Bigelow scientists have traveled around the world to every ocean and the polar seas. Research ranges from microbial oceanography to large-scale interactions between ocean ecosystems and global environmental conditions.

BOSTON

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Five journalists will receive region’s Yankee Quill honor

Five New England journalists will receive the Yankee Quill Award this fall for their contributions to journalism in the six-state region.

The Yankee Quill Award is presented annually by the Academy of New England Journalists through the auspices of the New England Society of Newspaper Editors Foundation. It is considered the highest individual honor awarded by fellow journalists in the region.

The 2012 honorees are Robert Giles, former curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University; R. John Mitchell, publisher and owner of the Rutland Herald and The Barre Montpelier Times-Argus of Vermont; Robert Schrepf, former longtime editorial page editor of The Hartford Courant; Robert Turner, former deputy editorial page editor of The Boston Globe; and Jack Williams, veteran television journalist and news anchor at WBZ-TV in Boston.

The Yankee Quill selection committee is made up of previous Yankee Quill winners who are members of the Academy of New England Journalists and representatives of New England journalism organizations.

The Yankee Quill awards will be presented as part of the annual conference of the New England Society of Newspaper Editors in November.


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