Maine
Today in History: February 15, USS Maine explodes in Havana Harbor
Today is Sunday, Feb. 15, the 46th day of 2026. There are 319 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On Feb. 15, 1898, the battleship USS Maine mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the United States closer to war with Spain.
Also on this date:
In 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a law allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1933, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami that mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak; gunman Giuseppe Zangara was executed by electric chair the following month.
In 1950, Walt Disney’s animated film “Cinderella” premiered in Boston.
In 1961, 73 people, including all 18 members of the U.S. figure skating team en route to the World Championships in Czechoslovakia, were killed in the crash of a Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 in Belgium.
In 1978, boxer Leon Spinks scored a massive upset as he defeated Muhammad Ali by split decision to become the world heavyweight champion.
In 1989, the Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.
In 2001, the first draft sequence of the complete human genome was published in the scientific journal Nature.
In 2013, with a blinding flash and a booming shock wave, a meteor blazed across Russia’s western Siberian sky and exploded, injuring nearly 1,500 people as it blasted out windows.
In 2022, the families of nine victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting agreed to a $73 million settlement of a lawsuit against Remington Arms, the maker of the rifle used by a gunman to kill 20 first graders and six educators in 2012.
In 2023, Payton Gendron, the white gunman who massacred 10 Black shoppers and workers at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in May of the previous year, was sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to murder and hate-motivated terrorism charges.
Today’s birthdays:
- Actor Claire Bloom is 95.
- Songwriter Brian Holland is 85.
- Jazz musician Henry Threadgill is 82.
- Composer John Adams is 79.
- Cartoonist Art Spiegelman is 78.
- Actor Jane Seymour is 75.
- Singer Melissa Manchester is 75.
- Actor Lynn Whitfield is 73.
- “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening is 72.
- Actor Christopher McDonald is 71.
- Football Hall of Famer Darrell Green is 66.
- Actor Alex Borstein is 55.
- Hockey great Jaromir Jagr is 54.
- Olympic swimming gold medalist Amy Van Dyken-Rouen is 53.
- Actor-singer Amber Riley is 40.
- Rapper Megan Thee Stallion is 31.
- Race car driver George Russell is 28.
- Actor Zachary Gordon is 28.
Posted inCommunity, News, Outdoors, Schools & Education
The group from Skowhegan Area High School’s outdoor leadership program built tables for the overlook in Dallas Plantation.
The loons are back and nesting on lakes statewide and we need your help to monitor their population! Every year since 1983, hundreds of volunteers have gone out to lakes and ponds across Maine on the third Saturday in July. These volunteers submit data about the number of loons they observe from 7 to 7:30 am, which gives us an excellent “snapshot” of the loon population. The Annual Loon Count allows us to monitor how the number of adults and chicks has changed over the past 40 years and make sure we know how to best protect their population!
This year, the Loon Count will take place on Saturday, July 18. We encourage you to join a group of over 1,800 volunteers and help us count the number of loons in Maine! The Loon Count occurs on lakes and ponds all across the state and volunteers can survey by boat or shore (you don’t have to have a boat to take part!).
If you’re interested in getting involved, please contact us at conserve@maineaudubon.org and tell us if there’s a specific lake or area you’d like to survey. We are always aiming to expand our coverage across the state and particularly encourage volunteers in northern Maine to get involved!
The deadline to sign up for the Annual Loon Count is July 10, so please reach out as soon as possible.
If you can’t make it on July 18, or if one day just isn’t enough for you, you can monitor loons throughout the summer.Through our Loon Pair Monitoring project, you can submit observations of breeding loon pairs over several months to help us better understand nest and chick success across Maine. Find out more here >
If talking to people and doing outreach appeals to you, and you’d like to help spread the word about loon conservation, check out our Look Out for Loons outreach program.
THOMASTON, Maine (WGME) — The Maine DEA says they arrested two people on Wednesday in connection with drug trafficking out of Vinalhaven.
Mariah Grover, 22, and Jefferson Jazzir Arias, 27, were reportedly arrested following an investigation by the Maine DEA’s Mid-Coast Task Force and the Knox County Sheriff’s Office into suspected drug trafficking from the island of Vinalhaven to Rockland via ferry.
Jefferson Jazzir Arias (Courtesy of Knox County Jail)
Both Grover, a resident of Texas and Maine, and Arias, a resident of Texas and California, were pulled over by authorities in Thomaston in a car that had been identified in that investigation, according to the Maine DEA.
The Maine DEA says a search of the car found 66 grams of suspected cocaine, a .45 caliber handgun, $9,500 in suspected drug money, and other “items indicative of drug trafficking.”
Mariah Grover (Courtesy of Knox County Jail)
Authorities say Arias had two extraditable warrants related to robbery in California and theft in Texas. Arias was reportedly charged with aggravated trafficking in Schedule W drugs, and Grover was charged with unlawful trafficking in Schedule W drugs.
Grover was reportedly taken to Knox County Jail on a $50,000 cash bail and will make a court appearance on May 29th.
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Arias was also taken to Knox County Jail on a $75,000 cash bail and will make a court appearance on the same day, according to authorities.
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