Things You Need to Know Today: More Road Construction Starting in Augusta

Here are the things you need to  know today......

More road construction for Augusta, a $1.2 million project paving and storm drain project is starting on Northern Avenue and Townsend Road. According to centralmaine.com the project will start this fall to be wrapped up in the spring.

Because of the heroin crisis in the state, needle sharing is the likely source of a spike in hepatitis B cases in Maine.  Centralmaine.com reports for hepatitis C the numbers are down so far for this year.

From the Associated Press:

The stealthy Zumwalt destroyer is ready to leave Maine for good. The 610-foot-long destroyer is due to leave Bath Iron Works on Wednesday en route to its formal commissioning ceremony next month in Baltimore. It'll be making port calls along the way.

Gov. Paul LePage is sticking by his assertion out-of-state blacks and Hispanics account for the vast majority of heroin arrests in his state, but no law enforcement stats come close to backing him up.The FBI data show blacks accounted for 14 percent of drug arrests in Maine in 2014, the most recent numbers available.

Neighbors of Maine's public shooting ranges have become increasingly annoyed some of the antics. Now the state is now proposing rules for two long-unsupervised shooting areas on state-owned land. The measures would include the Summerhaven shooting area in Augusta. Public hearing is set Sept. 8 in Hallowell Summerhaven.

President Barack Obama is opening a historic visit to Laos. It's a mission to heal war wounds and reinvigorate relations with a country with rising strategic importance to the U.S. On Tuesday, Obama was greeted by a military band before meeting with the country's president. The Obama administration is committing to Laos some $90 million to help clean up the unexploded ordinance the U.S. dropped on the country during the Vietnam War.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte isn't exactly apologizing, but he says he regrets cursing President Barack Obama. The cursing came when a reporter asked Duterte how he planned to explained to Obama the Philippines' extrajudicial killings of drug dealers. Duterte had been scheduled to meet with Obama while in Laos, but that meeting has now been canceled.

Outspoken conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly has died at age 92. Schlafly helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and founded the Eagle Forum political group. Her son John Schlafly says she died of cancer Monday afternoon at her home in St. Louis.

A tropical storm warning remains in effect from New York's Long Island to Massachusetts as Hermine (hur-MEEN') continues to churn hundreds of miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean. Forecasters say the storm is expected to begin weakening, but could continue to impact areas from New York to southern New England with pounding waves, coastal flooding and beach erosion before it moves out to sea.

Kent State University has opened what it says is the first entirely gluten-free dining hall in the country. The Ohio college restructured Prentice Cafe in Prentice Hall after administrators noticed a rising number of students with intolerance to gluten. The school tells Cleveland.com that the cafe has been certified by the Gluten-Free Food Services Certification Program.