Central Maine News: August 3, 2015

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

Maine's Department of Health and Human Services is getting $800,000 to support substance abuse treatment and recovery. The money from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will provide services for Mainers ages 12 to 24 who are struggling with substance abuse. The senators say that the programs supported by this grant can make a big difference in many Mainers' lives. Both say that combating the problem of substance abuse is essential for Maine to build safer, healthier and more prosperous communities. (AP)

Maine's highest court is being asked to resolve a potential constitutional crisis as Gov. Paul LePage and the Maine Legislature dispute the fate of 65 bills. The Chief Justice said Friday the court can issue only an advisory opinion, but acknowledged justices could provide "greater clarity" for the governor and lawmakers down the road. The leadership of the Maine House and Senate contends the bills became law because of the governor's failure to act within 10 days of receiving them. LePage argued that the 10-day deadline didn't apply because lawmakers had adjourned, but lawmakers contend they'd planned all along to return. (AP)

State authorities have seized 28 sick and malnourished animals from a Sidney farm owned by a man who has been cited in the past for animal-related offenses. The director of the Animal Welfare Program in the Department of Agriculture Conservation and Forestry said that 23 goats, four calves and a chicken were taken from Mark Gould's farm. The animals are now under veterinarian care at an undisclosed site. Gould has not been charged. Gould in the past has been investigated for allegedly leaving dead livestock where they lay on the farm grounds. Gould says the animals in question were sick when he bought them, and he has been trying to nurse them back to health. (AP)

Houlton police are looking for two men who are suspected of crushing a woman’s walker Friday evening while joy-riding on an all-terrain vehicle. The walker belonged to a 78-year-old woman who used it to get around. The woman “left her walker in her yard while she went to the store for a short period of time.” When she returned, she found it had been flattened. Surrounding the destroyed mobility aid were “ATV tracks in a repetitive and circular pattern where they ran it over multiple times to ensure it was beyond repair,” Police are encouraging the perpetrators to turn themselves in for the “heinous crime.” Someone has since donated another walker to the victim so she can still get around.(WGME)

There's plenty of raw electricity sloshing around in Quebec's rivers and reservoirs, offering promise for U.S. northeasterners who pay the nation's highest power costs. But getting those raw energy to the north east is another matter entirely. Critics of proposals to import relatively clean hydropower from Quebec worry that transmission lines will despoil the natural beauty of places like New Hampshire's White Mountains. Others fear overreliance on it will stymie efforts to develop new and renewable energy sources. The Energy Information Administration says New Englanders will pay a tops-in-the-nation 20.2 cents per kilowatt-hour in the third quarter of this year, almost 7 cents higher than the national average. (AP)

President Barack Obama is pressing ahead with even tougher greenhouse gas cuts on American power plants. The plan calls for stricter carbon dioxide limits on states: a 32 percent cut by 2030 instead of the 30 percent Obama proposed last year. Opponents plan to sue immediately, and to ask the courts to block the rule temporarily. Many states have threatened not to comply. But it will be up to Obama's successor to implement his plan. (AP)

There's likely to be a Senate showdown over halting federal aid to Planned Parenthood. Conservatives have long targeted the group, which provides health services, family planning and abortions in clinics across the country. A vote Monday proposes shifting Planned Parenthood money to other health care providers. This latest battle was prompted by a series of videos that have focused attention on the group's little-noticed practice of providing fetal tissue to researchers. (AP)

A fast-moving wildfire has charred some 84 square miles north of San Francisco, and fire officials say scattered thunderstorms and gusty winds forecast into Monday could create more of a danger. The blaze, in the Lower Lake area, already has destroyed 24 homes and 26 outbuildings and is threatening another 6,300 homes. There are numerous wildfires burning in Northern California, as well as in Washington state and Oregon. (AP)

Zimbabwe is accusing a second American of illegally killing a lion. Officials say Jan Casimir Seski, a Pennsylvania doctor, shot a lion with a bow and arrow near Hwange National Park in April. They say he did not have approval and was on land where it wasn't allowed. Zimbabwean officials already want extradited a Minnesota dentist they say helped lure a protected lion off the national park, shot it with an arrow and then hours later shot and killed it. (AP)

A 9-year-old bat boy has died after he was accidentally hit in the head during a National Baseball Congress World Series game in Kansas. The Wichita Eagle reports that the boy was struck by a follow-through swing near the on-deck circle on Saturday afternoon. Baseball officials say the child was wearing a helmet. The home-plate umpire, who's also a paramedic, treated the boy until an ambulance arrived. (AP)