With COVID-19 cases declining among its students, Bates Tuesday lifted a lockdown that it imposed April 1 to stop a serious outbreak.
Steve Collins
Columnist
Steve Collins became an opinion columnist for the Maine Trust for Local News in April of 2025. A journalist since 1987, Steve has worked for daily newspapers in New York, Connecticut and Maine and served as the State House reporter for the Sun Journal since 2016. The Maine Press Association named him Maine's Journalist of the Year in 2022. Among his other awards are the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2016 Ethics in Journalism Award, the I.F. Stone Whistle-Blower Award in 2015 and the Bob Wallack Community Journalism Award from the New England Newspaper & Press Association. Steve is a founder and board president of Youth Journalism International, a charity that teaches students around the globe about news writing, media literacy and issues of the day. His wife, Jackie Majerus, serves as its executive director. Born in Massachusetts, he grew up in a military family that took him to Norway, Ohio and Virginia, where he earned a degree in history from the University of Virginia. He and Jackie live in Auburn. They have two adult children, two collies and not enough time.
Posted inMaine
Open-air cremation gets strong support before Legislature
A committee in Augusta heard from many Mainers who like the idea of open-air funeral pyres as an end-of-life option.
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Posted inMaine, News, Schools and Education
Bates extends lockdown two more days to stop COVID-19 spread
Students will have been kept mostly in their rooms for at least 12 days. to fight against ‘relatively large outbreak.’
Posted inMaine, News
Harvard honors the life of Nobel Peace Prize winner Bernard Lown
The 99-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who died in February was hailed in an online celebration of his life.
Posted inMaine, Schools and Education
Number of COVID-19 cases at Bates College keeps rising
Bates College has 77 COVID-19 cases among students and two-thirds of its isolation housing is full.
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Schools and Education
With COVID-19 cases surging on campus, Bates College extends its lockdown
The Lewiston-based campus hit a new high of 60 active cases among students after it locked down the campus last week.
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Bates College imposes temporary quarantine to slow COVID-19 outbreak
With 34 active cases, students are told to stay inside their rooms until next Tuesday to reduce spread of highly contagious virus.
Posted inMaine, Politics
Lawmakers consider banning release of most balloons in Maine
Aiming to protect wildlife from latex litter, environmentalists urge the Legislature to bar people from intentionally releasing balloons.
Posted inBusiness, Maine
The heartache behind the dry words of a Maine bill on funeral vehicle safety
A widow seeks more regulation of funeral home vehicles after her husband died driving one in 2017.
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Bates says it has the capacity to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to students
College plan will depend on vaccine supply, dropping age restrictions