With the number of Mainers with Alzheimer’s rising rapidly, research at The Jackson Lab and beyond is crucial to slowing its impact on families and taxpayers.
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.
Labor leader tells incoming Bates students to ‘become the missionaries of truth’
‘You are the ones who are going to have to clean up this mess,’ Dolores Huerta tells freshmen during the Lewiston college’s convocation ceremony Tuesday.
During 1972 presidential race, Muskie faced at least 3 death threats
FBI records show details of several investigations into claims the Democratic Maine senator would be shot or bombed.
During his 1972 presidential race, Maine’s Edmund Muskie faced at least three death threats
FBI records released to the Sun Journal on Friday show details of several investigations into claims the Democratic senator would be shot or bombed.
New report hails condition of Maine’s highways
A Reason Foundation report issued this week ranked Maine as having the 4th-best highways in the country, the only state in New England called “very good” for the shape of its roads.
A century after Prohibition, some Maine towns are still dry
Three dozen small Maine towns — home to more than 12,000 — have maintained bans on booze, beer and wine sales long after Prohibition’s national repeal.
Racism at Edward Little highlighted in The Boston Globe
Auburn officials say racial issues at high school deserve more attention but insist the city’s high school is typical in the problems it faces.
Bates College receives its largest-ever federal grant
Nearly $4 million from the National Science Foundation will allow the college to create a new database of video images useful for research on artificial intelligence and neuroscience.
The strange tale of a Maine balloonist who vanished in 1885
Wealthy Frederick Gower disappeared after his balloon wound up in the English Channel and put an end to his plan to develop a way to drop dynamite on London or Paris in future wars with the help of wind-borne bombing.
Eric Brakey rounds up endorsements for congressional race
The Auburn Republican plans to announce formally next month that he will take on U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a 2nd District Democrat serving his first term.