AUGUSTA — Maine Senate President Michael Thibodeau has given his support to a bill that would bring a magnet school to the town of Searsport in Waldo County.

The Senate President is a co-sponsor of LD 1277, "An Act to Establish a Magnet School for Marine Science, Technology, Transportation, and Engineering."

Magnet schools are public learning institutions that have a focus on specific areas, such as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

Science, technology, and engineering are the jobs of the future," Senator Thibodeau said in a news release. "They are also vital to the economic development of Maine, and that is why it is so important to have schools like this available to our students.

"I am particularly proud that Waldo County is going to be home to this institution. Searsport is home to a deep water seaport which is ideal for marine research."

Senator Brian Langley, who is chair of the Maine Legislature's Education Committee, is also a co-sponsor of LD 1277. "Coastal Maine is rich in maritime history and the addition of this magnet school will add to that proud legacy.

"Great challenges lie ahead in finding the best ways to develop our maritime economy and, at the same time, protect our precious resources along the coast. I am certain this magnet school will provide the best and the brightest to help us reach these goals," Senator Langley said in the release.

Pingree joins effort to ban Chinese chicken from school lunch

A bill co-sponsored by Congresswoman Chellie Pingree and introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would ban school meal programs from serving chicken or meat produced or processed in China.

Since 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has allowed the export of processed poultry products to the United States from China. This could result in American consumers, including children and older adults participating in federal nutrition programs, eating processed poultry products from China, and possibly poultry raised in China.

Pingree said in the release: "China has such serious food safety problems that even Chinese consumers don't feel safe eating some of the food that is processed there. The list of recent food safety scandals they've had is scary — hundreds of thousands of children seriously sickened by tainted milk, rat meat passed off as lamb—the list goes on and on. These products don't belong in the meals we serve to our children at school."

The bipartisan bill, written by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), bans Chinese produced or processed meat and chicken from the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program, and Summer Food Service Program. Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) is the lead Republican sponsor.

Pingree and DeLauro inserted language temporarily banning the use of Chinese chicken in school lunches in a spending bill that passed last December, but that ban expires at the end of September.