Ex-Calais cop / Forgotten Maine / COVID-19 vaccines

Today is Wednesday. Temperatures will be in the low 20s to low 30s from north to south, with mostly sunny skies throughout the state. Here’s what we’re talking about in Maine today.

Here’s the latest on the coronavirus and Maine

Another three Mainers have died and 211 more coronavirus cases were reported across the state on Tuesday, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The death toll statewide is now 639. Check out our COVID-19 Tracker for more information.

State officials expressed “strong concern” as hospitals said early in Maine’s COVID-19 vaccination process that they may offer vaccines to non-patient facing workers, but Maine’s largest hospital system did so before the state revised guidelines in mid-January.

Ex-Calais cop ‘decided to go out on top’ in quitting weeks before drug arrest

Jeffrey Bishop, 53, of Cherryfield is facing charges for allegedly furnishing drugs at Narraguagus High School in Harrington. Bishop is a former Calais police officer. Credit: Courtesy of Aroostook County Jail

A few weeks before he was arrested on suspicion of furnishing drugs from his police cruiser, Jeffrey Bishop submitted a resignation letter to the Calais Police Department that said he had “decided to go out on top.”

PLUS: Read the resignation letter of the ex-Calais cop accused of selling drugs

Maine criticized for lack of clarity on Janet Mills’ vaccine priority decisions

In this March 12, 2020, file photo, Gov. Janet Mills speaks at a news conference alongside Nirav Shah, the director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in Augusta. Credit: Robert F. Bukaty / AP

The state has not said who will be eligible in a coming “critical frontline worker” phase of vaccinations.

Long-hidden photos of a forgotten Maine finally on view after more than 60 years

A man sells fish outside the Washington town meeting in 1948 in a photograph by Kosti Ruohomaa for the Black Star agency. The tiny Knox County town meeting is just one of about 500 picture story assignments by Ruohomaa being digitized and made available online by the Penobscot Marine Museum. Credit: Courtesy of the Penobscot Marine Museum

Kosti Ruohomaa chronicled Maine’s fast-modernizing way of life in the 1940s and 1950s.

Old Town and Orono are about to get better internet after a 10-year wait

Workers install fiber-optic cables near municipal buildings. Credit: Courtesy of Jeff LeTourneau

Municipal fiber projects can take a couple years to complete, but Old Town and Orono have tried for nearly 10 years to build a high-speed network.

Vote to remove Maine statue of Supreme Court justice who upheld segregation laws comes next week

A crane lowers a statue of former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Melville Fuller outside the Kennebec County Courthouse lawn. Credit: Courtesy of Robert Devlin

Kennebec County commissioners will discuss next week whether to remove a statue of Melville Fuller, a Maine-educated former Supreme Court chief justice, from the Kennebec County Courthouse lawn. The nation’s top court under Fuller upheld racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.