Central Maine News: August 17, 2015

These are some of the stories central Maine is talking about today.

Starting today (Aug 17, 2015) a part of Mount Vernon Avenue in Augusta becomes a one-way street headed north. According to the KJ, drivers looking to go south into the city from the Civic Center Drive area to find other ways to get there. The roughness of the road is what’s behind the major, $4.3 million reconstruction project that is expected to continue through June of next year. The decision to keep the road open to one-way traffic headed north, not south, was made in large part because the biggest priority was to not impede ambulances and other public safety vehicles rushing to MaineGeneral Medical Center’s hospital in north Augusta. The one-way is only about a half-mile long, from Mill Street near the Bond Brook Bridge just north of the Bond and Boothby street intersection to a fuel depot just south of Augusta Florist. The rest of Mount Vernon Avenue will remain open to traffic in both directions. (centralmaine.com)

The owner of the downtown Gardiner building most damaged by fire last month is asking the city to let him tear down the building or take it off his hands. According to the KJ, it has been about a month since a fire tore through a pair of buildings downtown, mostly gutting their interiors and collapsing a roof. The building is connected to Gerard’s Pizza, which reopened last week after being closed since the fire. The owner of the other building with heavy damage, where a tattoo studio had opened a couple of weeks before the fire is still waiting for more information from the insurance company. (centralmaine.com)

Maine officials are asking residents to sign up for a program to safely dispose of banned pesticides and unusable chemicals. The program is free and available to owners of homes and family-owned farms and greenhouses. Residents must register by Sept. 25. Collection sites are set for Presque Isle, Bangor, Augusta and Portland in October. The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry's Board of Pesticides Control and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection are running the program. Conservation department Commissioner Walt Whitcomb says the program is important to keep potentially harmful chemicals from contaminating land and water resources, such as drinking water. (AP)

Officials and stakeholders dedicated to tackling the issues facing Maine's rapidly growing aging population will gather in Augusta next month. The 2nd annual Maine Summit on Aging will be held at the Civic Center on September 15. The event aims to be a forum for sharing ideas about how to create an "age friendly" Maine. Organizers say that participants will learn tools and ideas that they can bring back to their communities in Maine, which has the oldest population in the country. Garrett Martin, executive director of the Maine Center for Economic Policy, will deliver the keynote address on "Democrats, Work and Maine's Faltering Economy." The summit will also highlight issues like housing, transportation and home care workers. (AP)

Maine is getting nearly $60,000 from the federal government to help low-income students pay for advancement placement exams. The U.S. Department of Education is handing out more than $28 million nationwide to defray the cost of AP tests for students. Maine was awarded $59,955. John King, a senior adviser in the department, said in a statement that the grants will help eliminate barriers for low-income students and provide more students with access to the college-level reason and skills taught in AP courses. The department says that the grants are expected to cover all but $12 of the cost of an AP test. States can choose to require students to pay some of the cost. (AP)

Maine State Police are investigating the death of a Pittston man, who died after being stabbed in the chest Saturday night. Police say 51-year-old Dale Clifford died from a stab wound to the chest. According to WGME Clifford and his wife run a boarding house on the East Pittston Road. He died in an ambulance on the way to Maine General in Augusta. Police say Clifford died after a confrontation with a tenant. No one has been charged and investigators are attempting to determine the circumstances of the death. (WGME/centralmaine.com)

State officials can have a child in their custody vaccinated over the objections of a parent, Maine’s highest court ruled this week. According to WGME in a 3-to-1 decision, the Supreme Judicial Court upheld a lower-court decision that ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to vaccinate a child against the wishes of the mother, who does ‘‘not believe in viruses,’’ . The child had been taken into temporary state custody because of concerns that the mother’s continued relationship with the 1-year-old’s father put the child’s safety at risk. An attorney for the mother, said she is not sure what action her client will take next, but the mother believes that people should be allowed to hold their own views on health care without being punished. (WGME)

Maine officials say a married couple died when fire swept through their Lincolnville home. A state police spokesman identified the couple as 81-year-old Eugene Dyer and his 79-year-old wife, Virginia. Fire officials say the house was fully engulfed in flames when they arrived on the scene at 10:38 p.m. Saturday. The fire appears to have started in a connected storage area of the home between the house and the garage. Investigators are working to try to determine the cause of the fire. A medical examiner will try to determine cause of death on Monday. Lincolnville is a town in northern Maine with about 2,000 people. (AP)

Authorities in Indonesia say they aren't sure if there are any survivors of a plane crash in eastern Papua province. Rescue officials say they've spotted the wreckage in a mountainous area at an altitude of about 8,500 feet. The plane had gone down Sunday in bad weather with 54 people on board. Rescue workers say they could still see smoke billowing from the crash site. (AP)

Calmer weather across the Western U.S. is helping firefighters who are trying to contain wildfires whipped up by wind and heat. Fast-moving blazes destroyed multiple homes in eastern Oregon, cut off power in Washington state and forced thousands of evacuations throughout the region. A 70-year-old woman in Idaho died while getting ready to evacuate east of Lewiston. In California, firefighters have been able to reduce a 4-square-mile wildfire in forest near Los Angeles to 2-and a-half square miles. (AP)

Authorities in central California say a man wanted in a crime spree was either shot and killed by deputies or he killed himself. They say an autopsy will be conducted Monday on 34-year-old Benjamin Peter Ashley, who was struck by several rounds after he refused to drop his weapon when he was confronted Saturday east of Bakersfield. Authorities had been searching for Ashely for 18 days. He was accused of killing a retired dentist, taking three men hostage and wounding two deputies. (AP)

Police in New York are investigating the stabbing death of actor Morgan Freeman's 33-year-old step-granddaughter on a Manhattan street. Officers responding to a 911 call early Sunday found Edena Hines lying on the street with multiple stab wounds to the chest. A 30-year-old man who police say was in a relationship with Hines was taken into custody at the scene — in front of Hines' apartment on West 162nd Street. Police say he's undergoing a psychological evaluation at a hospital and no charges have been filed. (AP)