If you seek joy, invite a pair of hummingbirds into your life.
Ruby-throated hummingbirds share our home ground, making surprise appearances throughout the summer. Turn on the garden hose…
#MaineMonitor
sea change: The habitat of home
Maine’s financial stability depends on further federal action
A committee of Maine economic experts and industry representatives this month outlined a $1.1 billion plan to steady the state economy in July.
The plan from the …
Janet Mills proves she can rise above her critics – even the president
Janet Mills weighed the life-changing decision.
A month before her 15th birthday, Janet, her parents and two of her siblings traveled in the family station wagon from their Farmington,…
four experts weigh in on the metrics that paint the clearest picture of the pandemic
During the past five months of the coronavirus pandemic, Mainers and other Americans have been inundated with numbers. Confirmed COVID-19 cases per capita. Death rates. Test positivity rates.…
opinion: expect to see swings between soil-damaging rain events and more regular drought conditions
The words of University of Maine soil scientist Ivan Fernandez reveal a troubling truth.
“Never again will we have the climate system of the 20th century,” wrote Fernandez, co-chair of the…
opinion
The biggest issue in the November elections may not be Trump or Biden. It could be about voting itself.
Whether votes will be counted fairly is turning into a major national argument. A…
opinion: ‘this would be the time to begin planning for the next emergency’
We couldn’t have been fully prepared for COVID-19.
But the virus might have been less deadly — no matter how little science knew about it — if government had been better prepared for a…
More than 57,000 organizations and individuals formally opposed the petition
The fate of net metering in New England — and across the United States — remains unknown, but resistance to its erasure is mounting.
More than 450 organizations, 57,000 individuals and 37…
Before getting new glasses this winter, I’d forgotten what it was like to see distant objects in sharp relief.
The glasses improved my vision but far-off vistas remained hazy – until the…
opinion
In a work-from-home economy, nobody is more remote than anyone else.
Maybe that’s good news for Maine, which has been penalized by its relatively remote location. If remote work takes off…
Due Process: When bail doesn’t work
Doug Dunbar traces the beginnings of his alcoholism to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
He was in Washington D.C., working as director of communications for then-U.S. Rep. John…
‘It’s a nightmare to figure out how to do this safely’
In 16 years operating the Thomaston polls, Joanne Richards has never confronted such a “scary” election season.
“It’s a nightmare to figure out how to do this safely,” said Richards, the…
Due Process: The Data Void
A lack of data has created a massive roadblock for committees, task forces and legislators weighing potential major reforms to Maine’s criminal justice system.
Last February, Maine Supreme…
could roll back net metering and unravel one of Gov. Mills’ key efforts to boost clean energy
As the coronavirus pandemic ripples across the world, the solar energy industry faces a threat in the shadows. The New England Ratepayers Association (NERA) recently introduced a petition to…
DUE PROCESS
As diversion clerk, Katherine Ellis works with many different types of people facing charges in Cumberland County.
Her job in the district attorney’s office is to help people after they…
The recession arrived not as a slow and predictable financial…
This video is part of the 2020: A Class Dismissed series, a series being spearheaded by Bailey Beltramo of Pine Tree Watch.
Pine Tree Watch is speaking to seniors from as many…
Due Process: The prosecutor’s power
Maine’s eight elected district attorneys wield tremendous power to decide how or whether to charge someone with a crime, whether to strike a plea deal and whether there’s enough evidence to win…
opinion
The biggest problem with combating COVID-19 is not the struggle of science to come up with an answer. It’s politics.
The coronavirus is now the center of a war by the ideological right,…
A resurgence of Victory Gardens could inspire lasting changes in food production
The home gardening boom underway is “totally unprecedented” in the eyes of Frank Wertheim, who for 33 years has helped farmers and gardeners as an educator with University of Maine Cooperative…
Maine could further develop retirement economy by ensuring protection for vulnerable seniors
When gentleman bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, it was claimed, though falsely, that he answered, “Because that’s where the money is.”
If you could ask COVID-19 why…
‘2020: A Class Dismissed’ seeks participants
Times are challenging right now for all Mainers, including the high school seniors across the state who have had their plans for their final year of high school drastically altered.
As a…
sea change: In crisis and starting anew
Last week’s storm decimated the trees in our yard, exposing raw tissue where limbs severed. Branches, graced by buds that will never open, lay scattered on the killing snow.
Taking in the…
‘This is a pandemic with so many questions and few answers’
Car accidents, sports field concussions, heart attacks, insulin spikes.
Whenever someone has a medical emergency in a grocery store, on a plane, on the road or during a sporting event, if…
analysis: Mitigating the virus’ impact will require major federal action
The coronavirus pandemic is illustrating a basic truth about the U.S.: We are poor at long-term preparation and better at short-term reacting.
The country was unprepared for dealing with a…
When need meets need
Among the boundless concerns provoked by COVID-19, food supplies are top of mind for many Maine residents. The fear for consumers can be visceral: With store shelves emptying quickly, will there…
More than 450 pieces of legislation are in limbo, including measures to reform Maine’s criminal justice system, following the sudden adjournment of the Legislature last week because of concerns…
Pine Tree Watch
For nearly 15 years, Paul Weiss fortified hospitals and healthcare facilities in southern Maine for outbreaks of infectious disease with thousands of pieces of medical equipment. But by the end of…
number of detainees more than triple limit for gatherings recommended by Gov. Mills
AUGUSTA — Maine is reducing its jail population as the state aims to avoid potential exposure of staff and inmates to COVID-19, the illness widely known as coronavirus, inside its locked…
DUE PROCESS
Across Maine’s 16 counties, eight district attorneys are entrusted to prosecute all criminal cases — except murders — that occur in their region.
Maine’s DAs represent one of eight Unified…
Electricity rip-off: Private electricity suppliers cost Mainers an extra $132 million in seven years
Mainers have spent $132.5 million more than they needed to on electricity over the past seven years.
It’s not because of a faulty billing system or a mistake.
It’s because of a…
Maine voters affected, even with state’s good election history
The national voting season now begins in full force.
Maine will hold primaries on Super Tuesday (March 3) along with states all the way to California. Next Tuesday will be the single…
ROCKLAND — Inna Bezborodko is quick to point out that while she studied psychiatry in what was then the Soviet Union, she was a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. It’s a distinction that may be…
A steep climb
On the road to all-renewable power, Maine is moving like a car near the base of a long, snowy hill. It’s accelerating now, knowing it may lose momentum and traction in the ascent. One icy patch…
Lacking funds, governments boost debt or cut services
“You can pay me now or you can pay me later,” goes the saying.
When it comes to government budgets, if it’s later, it must be Washington. If it’s pay now, it’s Maine.
The…
Coping with emerald ash borer, Maine’s slow-motion natural disaster
Maine communities stand to lose a lot with the arrival of emerald ash borer (EAB), an Asian parasite that attacks white, green and brown ash (Fraxinus spp.) — killing most trees within a…
Lawmakers will consider more than two dozen bills this session that seek to…
A breaking wave
Stonington, the state of Maine’s top fishing port in landed value, is facing seismic change. By mid-century, its lobster fishery could drop by 15 to 20 percent due to warming ocean waters, the…
In the name of resilience
During Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Hoboken, New Jersey “literally became an island,” recalled its mayor at the time, Dawn Zimmer, during a recent talk she gave in Maine. The city was 80 percent…
‘We’ve got to make these children and moms with opiate-use disorder our priority’
Babies withdrawing from opiates. Children watching their parents shoot up heroin. Orphans growing up in foster care.
They are the opioid epidemic’s youngest victims.
Nationally, an…
From the column ‘Sea Change’ for Pine Tree Watch
“We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot,” Leonardo da Vinci is said to have observed roughly five centuries ago. Sadly, that statement still holds,…
open enrollment anticipated to start february 2020
AUGUSTA — The Ecology Learning Center will officially become the 10th and final charter school to open in Maine.
The Maine Charter School Commission voted unanimously Tuesday, Sept. 10, to…
opinion: how do we manage tourism instead of just marketing it?
Overtourism, a new term for a growing global…
Nearly three drug-affected babies were born each day in Maine from 2013-2017, severely taxing hospitals, foster care system
The baby girl was born on a Sunday.
By Tuesday, she was suffering from opiate withdrawal. Exposed to drugs in her mother’s womb, she could not sleep. Inconsolable, her…
A look back over eight years of Maine politics
No matter what your opinion is of Paul LePage, it’s safe to say that his eight years as governor have added up to a contentious and controversial tenure.…
From Augusta
AUGUSTA — For close to six hours Monday afternoon, April 9, the Joint Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs at the State House heard arguments from an overflow crowd of concerned teachers,…
Pushback on the state’s education standards makes it to Legslature
AUBURN — A state law that requires a new way of granting high school diplomas worries Auburn mother Barbara Howaniec, who has seen her two high-achieving children struggle under the new system.…
Gubernatorial candidates, in a nutshell
AUGUSTA – With nine months to go before Maine voters elect a new governor, the race to replace incumbent Paul LePage is already crowded with a diverse field of candidates.
…
AUGUSTA — They are bus drivers, fishermen, lawyers and cooks. The members of the 128th Maine Legislature — a “citizen legislature” in the truest definition of the term — come from backgrounds as…
