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1. Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning icon, a modern-day activist for racial justice and LGBT rights, died Sunday at 90. Tutu worked passionately, tirelessly and non-violently to tear down apartheid — South Africa’s brutal, decades-long regime of oppression against its Black majority that only ended in 1994.
2. The number of COVID-19 patients in Maine hospitals dropped on Sunday to 327, a decline of 60 from the peak last Tuesday. State health officials and hospitals are bracing for another surge in illnesses expected to result from holiday gatherings.
3. More than 700 flights entering, leaving or flying within the U.S. were called off Sunday. That figure was down from nearly 1,000 on Saturday. Delta, United and JetBlue have blamed the omicron variant of the coronavirus for staffing shortages that forced cancellations.
4. Maine will receive more than $5.5 million from the federal government to support its school meal programs. The school meal assistance is especially important because of disruptions to the supply chain during the pandemic.
5. Maine state parks had a record number of visitors this year for a second year in a row. Maine’s 42 state parks and historic sites had more than 3.2 million visitors through November. State park campgrounds also set a record this year.
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