Firefighter in blast that killed colleague leaves hospital
FARMINGTON, Maine (AP) — A Maine firefighter has been discharged from a Portland hospital one week after a deadly building explosion.
A procession escorted firefighter Ted Baxter back to his fire station after he was discharged Monday.
Last week, firefighters arrived to investigate a gas odor in the Life Enrichment Advancing People facility in Farmington just before it exploded.
The blast killed a firefighter and injured eight other people.
One of the injured is LEAP maintenance supervisor Larry Lord. He remains in critical condition with burns on 50% of his body. Lord helped evacuate the building.
Fire Chief Terry Bell is in the hospital in fair condition, and Capt. Scott Baxter is in serious condition.
Retired Air Force general latest Dem to run against Collins
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A retired Air Force general is entering the race to try to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.
Jon Treacy joins an increasingly crowded Democratic field that includes Speaker of the Maine House Sara Gideon, liberal activist Betsy Sweet and attorney Bre Kidman. Treacy spent more than three decades in the Air Force and says he believes the country “has been led down the wrong path into serious trouble,” with consequences for Maine.
Unseating Collins in 2020 has emerged as a key goal for the national Democratic Party. She cast a pivotal vote to place Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court when Kavanaugh faced sexual misconduct allegations.
The Portland Press Herald reports Collins still hasn’t formally announced her re-election campaign, but she has attended multiple fundraising events.
1 dead in single-car crash in Sedgwick
SEDGWICK, Maine (AP) — Police in Maine say a woman died in a single-car crash in the Hancock County town of Sedgwick when her car struck a utility pole.
Seventy-year-old Nancy Blastow died at the scene. Police say an investigation shows her vehicle crossed a center line and entered a ditch, and she then corrected and lost control and hit the utility pole.
Police say the crash was reported shortly before 11 a.m. Tuesday.
First Maine woman to travel into space
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A Maine astronaut will be the first woman and third person from the state to travel into space.
Jessica Meir, of Caribou, will take her first trip to the International Space Station launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, according to NASA.
Meir is scheduled to launch with a Russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates. She’ll return in 2020.
Meir, a flight engineer and co-pilot of the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft, says she wanted to be an astronaut since she was 5 and hopes to get the opportunity to go on a spacewalk.
The Portland Press Herald reports Meir will be working on experiments ranging from studying gravity’s effect on the human body to protein crystal growth to radiations effect on humans.
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