Author: Staff

Four Maine Maritime Academy students were killed and three others were injured when their SUV crashed into a tree and burst into flames early Saturday morning in Castine. The driver and two other passengers, also students from the Maritime Academy, survived the fiery crash which authorities say occurred just one day after classes ended for the semester. According to the state medical examiner’s office, the four deceased students have been identified as Brian Kenealy, 20, of York, Maine; Chase Fossett, 21, of Gardiner, Maine; Luke Simpson, 22, of Rockport, Mass. and Riley Ignacio-Cameron, 20, of Aquinnah, Mass.

Police said the 2013 Range Rover was traveling south on Route 166, also known as Shore Road, when it veered off the road and struck a tree. The driver and two passengers were brought to the hospital to be treated for non life-threatening injuries, state police spokesperson Shannon Moss said. The two survivors who were passengers were identified as Noelle Tavares, of North Falmouth, Massachusetts, and Dominick Gecyoa, 20, of Middletown, Massachusetts. Officials said Joshua Goncalves-Radding, 20, of North Babylon, New York, was driving the SUV at the time of the accident. Investigators are working to determine the cause of the crash.

Jerry Paul, the President of the Maine Maritime Academy, said in a statement: “Our community is grieving for these young lives and for their families. While we have lost beloved members of our student body, tonight there are four families who have lost their children. I ask for continued respect and privacy of our Maine Maritime family. Please hold these young people close to your hearts and in your prayers.”. Paul added that grief counselors will be available to students, faculty and staff members.

Maine Maritime Academy is a public, four-year college of about 950 students with areas of study including engineering, management, science, and transportation.

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After traveling 1.4 million miles through space, including orbiting the moon and collecting data, NASA’s Artemis 1 capsule returned to Earth on Sunday. The 25 1/2-day Artemis I mission slammed into the upper atmosphere at more than 24,000 mph and endured a 5,000-degree re-entry inferno before descending under three huge parachutes and landing gently in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico’s Baja California at 12:40 p.m., NASA reported. The Orion capsule originally was slated to land near San Diego, but NASA officials said Thursday that rain, wind and large waves had moved into that area. The mission’s ending was on the 50th anniversary of the last Apollo moon landing in 1972.

NASA tweeted: “Splashdown. After traveling 1.4 million miles through space, orbiting the Moon, and collecting data that will prepare us to send astronauts on future #Artemis missions, the @NASA_Orion spacecraft is home.”  Mission Control commentator Rob Navias announced: “Splashdown! From Tranquility Base to Taurus-Littrow to the tranquil waters of the Pacific, the latest chapter of NASA’s journey to the moon comes to a close. Orion back on Earth.”  NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said: “I’m overwhelmed. This is an extraordinary day. It’s historic, because we are now going back into deep space with a new generation” 

The 3,000-ton Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft launched at 1:47 a.m. Nov. 16 from pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.  NASA said that Orion stayed in space longer than any spacecraft designed for astronauts has done without docking to a space station, and surpassed the record for distance traveled by a spacecraft designed to carry humans, previously set during Apollo 13.  Orion captured pictures of Earth and images of the lunar surface and a “Earth rise,” and it performed two lunar flybys, coming within 80 miles of the lunar surface.

Orion will return to shore in the United States and return by truck to Kennedy, where the capsule and its heat shield will undergo testing and analysis over several months. The capsule is designed to hold astronauts. NASA is likely planning to send humans to the moon in 2025, and then Mars. The Artemis II mission with four people is scheduled to orbit the moon in 2024.

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The House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that provides federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriage. Called the Respect for Marriage Act, the measure won bipartisan support in the Democratic-led House, after the lower chamber passed this summer a version of the bill with backing from 47 Republicans. The House vote to give final approval to the legislation was 258 to 169, with one Republican voting “present.” Thirty-nine GOP lawmakers joined all Democrats in supporting the bill.

The Respect for Marriage Act now heads to President Biden’s desk, where he is expected to sign it into law. It had passed the Senate 61-36.  Mr. Biden said the measure’s passage will provide peace off mind to LGBTQI+ and interracial couples now guaranteed federal protections.  The White House said in a statement: “Congress has restored a measure of security to millions of marriages and families. They have also provided hope and dignity to millions of young people across this country who can grow up knowing that their government will recognize and respect the families they build.”

The legislation requires the federal government and all states to recognize marriages if the pair was wed in a state where the union was legal. It also cements protections for interracial couples, ordering states to recognize marriages regardless of “the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals.” It also repeals the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which recognized marriage as “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” and refers to the word spouse as “a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife.”

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President Joe Biden announced Thursday that WNBA star and Olympian Brittney Griner has been released from a Russian prison in a one-for-one prisoner exchange. Griner, the 32-year-old center for the Phoenix Mercury, was arrested at a Moscow airport in February after arriving in the country with cannabis oil in her luggage. She was found guilty of smuggling narcotics into Russia in August and sentenced to nine years in prison. Griner’s arrest came shortly before the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

The POTUS tweeted: “Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner. She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home.”  Later during remarks from the Roosevelt Room of the White House alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, Biden said exchange took place in the United Arab Emirates after months of negotiations: “This is a day we worked toward for a long time. We never stopped pushing for her release. It took painstakingly intense negotiations.”  The President added: “These past few months have been hell for Brittney and for Cherelle and her entire family and all teammates back home. People across the country have learned about Brittney’s story, advocated for her release, stood with her throughout this terrible ordeal and I know that and I know that support meant a lot to her family.”

Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Griner was released in exchange for the U.S. release of international arms dealer Viktor Bout. In its statement, the Russian foreign ministry said the United States “categorically refused to engage in dialogue” on the inclusion of Bout in the prisoner exchange, but added, “Nevertheless, the Russian Federation continued to actively work to rescue our compatriot.”  Bout, known as the “Merchant of Death,” was serving a 25-year prison sentence for selling weapons that U.S. prosecutors said were intended to be used to kill Americans.

The one-for-one exchange means that former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who has been in Russian custody since 2018, was not part of the deal. Whelan was arrested at a Moscow hotel in December 2018 and convicted of espionage charges, which the former security executive has denied. He is serving a 16-year hard labor sentence at a Mordovia prison camp. Biden said negotiations for his release remain ongoing:“We have not forgotten about Paul Whelan, who has been unjustly detained in Russia for years. This was not a choice of which American to bring home. … While we have not succeeded in securing Paul’s release, we are not giving up. We will never give up …We remain in close touch with Paul’s family, the Whelan family, and my thoughts and prayers are with them today. They have to have such mixed emotions today and we’ll keep negotiating in good faith for Paul’s release.”

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