The Lewiston campus adds more testing, extends masking requirement as it aims to keep its semester on track.
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.
Racist comments from Auburn city councilor tarnish agreement to name footbridge after John Jenkins
Leroy Walker said that alleged looting by “dark-colored people” in the South reflects badly on John Jenkins, former mayor of both Lewiston and Auburn who died last year.
Auburn city councilors refuse to fund passenger rail study
Lewiston officials already contributed $10,000.
COVID-19 roars back in Androscoggin County
In July, there were days when Androscoggin County didn’t see a single new case of COVID-19. Not anymore. On Friday, as the state reported 665 new cases and three more deaths, Androscoggin County registered new case levels not seen since the height of the pandemic last winter. To get a sense of how fast COVID-19 […]
In wake of Texas law, abortion again becomes a hot topic in Maine
Pro-choice politicians decry Supreme Court’s refusal to block the highly restrictive new law.
Lewiston cremation service owner issues apology to families
An attorney says Affordable Cremation Solutions owner Ken Kincer man was in the grips of substance abuse.
A Bates College senior from Kabul helps save her family from the Taliban
Two sisters in America found Americans in Afghanistan to evacuate their parents and younger siblings.
A near-normal Bates College welcomes a supersized new class
The Class of 2025, which arrived this week, hopes for an academic year that isn’t disrupted much by the pandemic.
State EMS regulators agree to give more time for some personnel to get vaccines
Fire and ambulance officials warned Monday the state’s vaccine mandate will lead to an exodus of firefighters and EMS personnel from already stressed staffs.
They were winter weary, fed up and suffering ‘Ohio Fever’: How fleeing Mainers founded Maineville, Ohio
The tiny town in southwest Ohio was among the places Mainers settled in the 1800’s seeking a better life, and the town maintains a connection with Maine 200 years later.