Bear hunting season getting underway

PORTLAND (AP) — Maine’s bear-hunting season is getting underway today.

Jennifer Vashon, a state bear biologist, says hunting is the primary tool for controlling the population of bears, which has grown 30 percent since 2004 to more than 30,000.

Maine’s bear population is one of the largest in the country, and Maine offers a threemonth season. Last year, more than 10,000 hunters purchased permits, with 3,207 bears killed.

A coalition called Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting wants to limit the types of hunting for bear. It’s collecting signatures for a referendum aimed at banning the use of bait, traps and dogs to hunt bears.

Libraries help destroyed Canadian library

FARMINGTON (AP) — Libraries across Maine are collecting donations to help rebuild the library destroyed when a runaway train exploded in Canada earlier this summer.

Farmington Public Library Director Melanie Coombs launched the effort because the Maine community is the sister city of Lac-Megantic, Quebec. The July 6 explosion and fire killed 47 people.

Coombs tells the Sun Journal the community’s library lost its entire collection of 60,000 books, except for the few that customers had borrowed. It also lost irreplaceable records and photos documenting the town’s history.

Coombs reached out to libraries across Maine, including at schools and colleges, and they agreed to put donation cans at their circulation desks. The cans, that say “Libraries are the heart of the community,” will be out until mid-September.

Pumpkin weighs in at 962 pounds at fair

WINDSOR (AP) — A pumpkin weighing nearly half a ton has taken top honors at a Maine fair’s annual giant pumpkin contest.

Edwin Pieront’s entry tipped the scales at 962 pounds in Sunday’s contest on the first day of the Windsor Fair. The second-place pumpkin weighed 818 pounds.

Pieront, who’s from Jefferson, is no stranger to giant pumpkins. The Kennebec Journal reports that he’s the state record-holder, with a 1,471-pound pumpkin that he grew in 2010.

The Windsor Fair is expected to draw about 100,000 people. Now in its 125th year, the fair continues through Labor Day.

Body found on street near parking garage

PORTLAND (AP) — Portland police say a man who was found dead in the middle of a downtown street may have fallen or jumped from a nearby parking garage.

Police say the unidentified man was found lying on Free Street on Sunday afternoon.

Lt. Robert Doherty tells the Portland Press Herald it’s not clear if the man fell or jumped from the top floor of a parking garage on the street. He says police don’t know the man’s identity and are interviewing possible witnesses.

Some states give lobbyists pension

AUGUSTA (AP) — Hundreds of lobbyists in at least 20 states including Maine get public pensions because they represent associations of counties, cities and school boards.

Legislatures granted them access decades ago on the premise that they serve governments and the public. In many cases, such access also includes state health care benefits.

But several states have started to question whether these organizations should get such benefits, since they are private entities in most respects: They face no public oversight, can pay their top executives private-sector salaries and sometimes lobby for positions in conflict with taxpayers.

But such groups argue that they are entitled to public pensions because they give a voice to government entities that serve taxpayers.

7 game wardens join force in Maine

VASSALBORO (AP) — The Maine Warden Service is welcoming seven new game wardens into its ranks.

The new wardens graduated Friday from a 30-week training program that included 18 weeks of basic law enforcement training attended by all law enforcement officers including troopers, police and deputies. This was followed by a 12-week advance warden academy.

The graduation was held at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in Vassalboro.

Blaze destroys Bucksport apartments

BUCKSPORT (AP) — Authorities say about 20 people were left homeless when a fire tore through a Bucksport apartment building.

All the residents were accounted for and none are believed hurt, but one firefighter suffered a minor injury battling the Main Street blaze on Sunday afternoon.

The three-story building was a total loss.

It took firefighters from several communities about an hour to get the blaze under control, their efforts made more difficult by the tight spaces on Main Street.

They did succeed in preventing the fire in the apartment building from spreading to nearby structures, although the heat did melt the siding on another home.

Jetport’s passenger traffic up slightly

PORTLAND (AP) — Passenger numbers at the Portland International Jetport have slowly started to climb after four consecutive years of declines.

There was a 1.4 percent increase in passengers passing through the jetport in the first six months of this year when compared to the same time-period last year.

Portland’s passenger traffic is ahead of the national figure, which increased by about 0.3 percent in the first half of 2013 compared with the yearago period.