The decision to push back the semester’s start by five weeks was spurred by a desire to minimize the chance of spreading COVID-19.
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 inHealth, Local & State, News
Three people die of COVID-19 at Auburn long-term care facility
34 residents and 22 staffers have tested positive for the disease, which has slammed the memory care unit.
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Posted inLocal & State, Nation & World, Politics
Jared Golden backs Trump bid to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan
Maine’s 2nd Congressional District representative, a combat veteran, said it’s “time to bring our armed forces home.”
Posted inElection 2020, Elections, Local & State, Politics
Alaskans follow Maine’s lead on ranked-choice voting
Maine is no longer the only state to rely on ranked-choice voting after Alaskans approve a ballot question to revise its elections.
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Local & State, Schools and Education
Its finances stronger than expected, Bates delivers pay hikes to staff
The Lewiston college has not been hit as hard as anticipated by costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Posted inLocal & State, News
Augusta man pegs Portsmouth Naval Shipyard as location in mystery photo
A photograph that might show the daughter of a World War II Royal Navy sailor was apparently taken in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Local & State
Searching for a sister he’s never known
Did a World War II Royal Navy sailor from England have a secret daughter in Lewiston? His son hopes to find her.
Posted inLocal & State
Chellie Pingree touted by progressives for U.S. secretary of agriculture
Maine’s 1st District U.S. House member among a few possible picks eyed by President-elect Joe Biden
Posted inLocal & State, News, Schools and Education
State probes five COVID-19 outbreaks in western Maine
The pandemic claimed another life in Androscoggin County as the virus spreads.
Posted inLocal & State, Schools and Education
Five more Bates students test positive; 62 now quarantined
Four of the students whose tests came back positive late Tuesday were close contacts of a classmate who had already come down with the disease.