1. As of late Wednesday night, Central Maine Power had restored power to nearly 300,000 customers in southern and central Maine since Monday, but still had roughly 107,000 homes and businesses without electricity, according the company’s website. Officials at CMP say crews are working around the clock, with more than 1,800 employees working on restoration. “This storm has been unprecedented; no single storm has caused a higher number of outages,” CMP President and CEO Sara Burns said in a statement Wednesday. (PH)
2. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said during a hearing Wednesday in Washington, D.C., that Russian-created Facebook pages have gone after Maine Republican Gov. Paul LePage. She said three posts by the Russian-linked Internet Research Agency in 2016 attacked him with untruths, saying he “called up white people to kill blacks.” She said a different Russian-created Facebook in August of this year defended LePage’s comments about Confederate monuments and criticized liberals who are “acting like terrorists.” “The primary purpose of Russians’ active measures is to exploit and aggravate the divisions in American society and to undermine public confidence in our democratic institutions,” said Collins during the hearing. (BDN)
3. The Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 in Game 7 on Wednesday night to claim the franchise’s first-ever World Series title. Series MVP George Springer became the first player with homers in four straight games in one World Series. The title makes the Astros the fourth team to go from 100 losses to a title within five seasons, joining last year’s Chicago Cubs. (Yahoo)
4. Starbucks is giving its customers a chance to decorate their own coffee cups. The company’s annual holiday-themed cups feature splashes of red and green amid a white background with sketches of snowflakes, presents and other holiday paraphernalia that customers can color in themselves. In 2015, Starbucks’ plain red holiday cup sparked outcry for not containing enough holiday symbols. Donald Trump even lamented at a rally, “No more Merry Christmas on Starbucks. Maybe we should boycott Starbucks, I don’t know. Seriously, I don’t care.” (APN)
5. A Japanese company has started giving its non-smoking employees extra paid leave to compensate them for their co-workers’ cigarette breaks. Tokyo’s Piala Inc. now gives its non-smoking staff six extra days of paid holidays annually after they complained about the firm’s smoking policy.
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