1. Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University athletic department doctor who sexually abused dozens of underage female gymnasts, many of them eventual Olympic medalists, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison on Wednesday in a Michigan courtroom. While sentencing Nassar, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina told him, “I just signed your death warrant.” (ESPN)
2. Reported flu cases continued to increase in Maine during the past week, but the number has yet to peak in a season that is already notable for its severity, health officials said. The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday reported 531 new cases for the week ending Jan. 20, with 1,749 cases reported so far this flu season. The previous week there were 391 new cases. Maine has so far reported 22 deaths for which flu was at least a contributing factor, compared to 71 for all of 2016-17. Twenty-five percent of all tested flu cases have resulted in hospitalization this season, compared to 14 percent in 2016-17. (PH)
3. A sixth earthquake has been recorded in northern New England in just the past week. The 1.6-magnitude earthquake was recorded near East Freedom, New Hampshire, on the Maine-New Hampshire border. The closest Maine communities are Parsonsfield and Porter. The earthquake was reported at 1 a.m. Wednesday. The United States Geological Survey measured a 2.3-magnitude earthquake about an hour later near Harrison. Earthquakes below a 3.0 magnitude are considered low intensity and are felt “by very few under especially favorable conditions,” the USGS writes. (WMTW)
4. Don Crisman, an 81-year old Kennebunk man, has attended every Super Bowl, dating back to 1967. He’ll leave Maine on Tuesday to spend the week in Minneapolis, where he will cheer for the New England Patriots as they take on the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LII on Feb. 4. Crisman is a select member of the Never-Missed-A-Super-Bowl club. Which is now down to only 2 members. Starting with the Super Bowl in 2000, the NFL has set aside two tickets for each member of the club at face value. (PH)
5. Chinese researchers have used the cloning technique that produced Dolly the sheep to create healthy monkeys–bringing science one step closer to being able to do the same with humans. Researchers say this means that cloning of humans is theoretically possible. However, they say their goal is to create lots of genetically identical monkeys for use in medical research, where they would be valuable because they are more like humans than lab animals such as mice or rats. (APN)
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