Maine

MATINICUS, Maine - The internet is celebrating two Maine lobstermen who rescued a seal pup trapped in a fishing net.
 
WCSH-TV reports that Jeremy Willey and Jeffrey Door were lobstering near Matinicus Rock Monday when they saw a baby seal floating in rope. Door pulled the trapped pup aboard to see what they could do.
 

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine - A key Senate committee is signing off on funding for a new National Guard center in northern Maine.
 
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins says the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved $17.5 million for the Army National Guard Readiness Center in Presque Isle. Collins says the money would be used to construct a more than 43,000-square-foot training facility that would replace an existing building she says isn't up to modern standards.
 

The Dempsey Center in Lewiston and the Cancer Community Center in South Portland announced an intent to merge on Monday.

Spokeswoman Dani Colvin says the new entity will be known as the Dempsey Centers and is expected to be in operation by early 2018.

“It’ll just really increase not only the number of people we serve, but also the amount of fundraising we can do and the grants we can apply for, and we can just incorporate best practices from both organizations across the board,” she says.

The LePage administration's attempt to streamline secondary school education has taken a step forward.  

The Education Department has picked three proposals from seven as finalists for possible funding of an education facility that will combine high schools, career technical education and local business.

NAPLES, Maine - A pilot and passenger in a Maine seaplane escaped injury after their vehicle was forced to make a hard water landing.
 
Cumberland County Sheriff's Capt. Scott Steward says the seaplane sustained significant damage in the hard landing in Naples on Sunday afternoon. A video taken by an onlooker shows the plane coming in fast, and at an angle.
 
The plane narrowly missed a boat before making the landing, skidding to a stop with its right wing submerged in the water. Several nearby boat operators rushed to assist the passengers.
 

Firefighters responded to a fire at Brookfield Place plaza in Waterboro around 10 a.m. Sunday.

There was so much damage that the cause of the fire, which destroyed the strip mall, may never be known.

Crews contained the blaze within an hour and a half. Fire Marshal Sgt. Scott Richardson says all indications are that the fire started in the area of the Asian Taste Restaurant, one of three businesses in the shopping complex, and quickly spread to the other businesses.

“No one was in the Asian Taste Restaurant at the time,” he says.

 FALMOUTH, Maine (AP) _ Hundreds of bird enthusiasts are flocking to lakes and ponds around Maine to get an idea of how many loons there are in the state.