Things You Need to Know: ATV’s Width Restrictions on Many Maine Trails
Here are the things you need to know today......
From the Associated Press:
-The chairman of the Millinocket Town Council says it's "pretty powerful" that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg chose to pay a visit to his town. Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary on Friday in Bangor. On Saturday, they hiked some trails near Mount Katahdin and had a low-key visit with a group of residents and business leaders in Millinocket. Chairman Michael Madore said he's honored that they chose to visit Millinocket over all of the other places they could've gone in Maine. He called it a "big feather in our cap."
-Maine officials are reminding the all-terrain vehicle users that ATVs wider than five feet are not allowed on many pieces of the state's vast trail network. ATVs are a major tourism draw in Maine, and are made possible by agreements with private landowners who allow them on their land. State agencies say they brokered a deal with landowners based on a maximum width of five feet for ATVs.Maine registers nearly 70,000 ATVs every year. That total has climbed in recent years, as it was less than 50,000 in the early 2000s.
-Motorists on Interstate 95 in Maine won't see signs directing them to a new national monument because Gov. Paul LePage is refusing to let state workers install them. The Maine Department of Transportation is delaying installation of the signs pending the outcome of a federal. Lucas St. Clair, whose family donated the land, said the governor was just being "spiteful." Katahdin Woods and Waters Superintendent Tim Hudson said Monday that he'd "love" to see signs directing motorists where to go. He has $40,000 set aside for signs.
-Bills to create a uniform teacher contract across the state are set for key committee votes. Republican Rep. Matt Pouliot says his bill would maintain local control while creating a uniform compensation system based upon performance results. GOP Gov. Paul LePage says such an idea would help rural districts compete for teachers.
-Maine officials are reminding the state's many all-terrain vehicle users that ATVs wider than five feet are not allowed on many pieces of the state's vast trail network. ATVs are a major tourism draw in Maine, and are made possible by agreements with private landowners who allow them on their land. State agencies say they brokered a deal with landowners based on a maximum width of five feet for ATVs.
-A New York City man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting deaths of two men inside a Maine apartment. Fuquan Wilson was sentenced Monday for two counts of manslaughter after a judge rejected his attempt to withdraw his guilty pleas.
-Police say a man they named in their investigation of a fatal Bangor shooting on Easter has turned up in Ohio. WCSH-TV reports 40-year-old Antoinne Bethea was the passenger in a car police pulled over in Euclid, Ohio, on Sunday night. A background check showed he was wanted in Maine.
-Manchester police say the man who set off an improvised explosive device at an Ariana Grande concert in northern England died in the attack. Police said Tuesday 22 people died in the attack Monday night. It wasn't clear if that included the suspected suicide bomber. Dozens more were injured.Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said forensic investigations are continuing as police try to determine if the attacker had accomplices.
-The 1876 constitution that founded the National League and the modern business of big league sports is going up for sale. The documents were drafted and signed in a New York hotel by the game's founding fathers, like William Hulbert, owner of the team that would become the Chicago Cubs. Hulbert's principles, such as strictly separating business and players, would provide a model that has lasted 140 years. SCP Auctions expects the papers to draw millions when the auction starts Wednesday. Major League Baseball historian John Thorn calls Hulbert a genius whose ideas allowed modern sports to be born.
-President Donald Trump has arrived in Bethlehem for a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Trump was greeted Tuesday morning by Abbas at the president's headquarters in Bethlehem. The leaders are expected to discuss resuming long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Trump has said he wants to broker a deal that has proven elusive for the past two decades. The Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, captured by Israel a half century ago.
-The Trump administration budget would sharply cut safety net programs for the poor. President Donald Trump is proposing a $4.1 trillion federal budget that targets food stamps and Medicaid. It also relies on rosy projections about economic growth to balance the budget within 10 years. The cuts are part of a budget blueprint for the upcoming fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. It protects retirement programs for the elderly and provides billions of dollars more for the military. The rest of the government bears the bulk of the reductions.
-Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye has left a Seoul court after the start of her trial for bribery and other corruption charges. Tuesday was the opening session of Park's criminal trial, which is expected to take several months. Park is to commute from the detention center to the Seoul court during the trial. Prosecutors have charged Park with extorting money from big businesses and taking bribes from some of them in collaboration with a longtime confidante.
-Democrats are expressing alarm at a report alleging that President Donald Trump asked two top intelligence officials to publicly deny collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election. Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, says The Washington Post's report that Trump tried to enlist the head of the National Security Agency and the national intelligence director to push the White House narrative is a "disturbing allegation" that Trump is interfering with the FBI probe.
More From B98.5
