Fourth of July! Bar Harbor! Yay! Parade, right? Then to the ballfield for lobster and hot dogs. The sun is out, the heat is cranking and by afternoon we all screamed for ice cream. Let’s hear it for the scoopers! If you went to CJ’s for a cone you were one of 1,768 sweltering visitors …
Can it really be the Fourth of July? The long, cold, wet spring gave way so precipitously to sunshine and warmth that we hardly had a chance to realize summer was upon us until it was. Legislators have decamped to wherever home is, adjourning in the wee hours of June 20. Some of the …
Here we go again. Federal fisheries have been tightening the screws on Maine lobstermen for decades. Now they are planning to take another turn in an effort to reduce “the risk of death or injury” to right whales by 60 percent. In the late 1990s, a trap limit was introduced in the fishery for the …
Well hello, Ellsworth. Looks like you’re expecting company. Floods of housing is being built all over the city. Single-family homes, apartments and low-income housing, and the scale of most projects is not overwhelming. There are balconies. Patios. There will be landscaping. Best of all? New housing is being designed for people who will live in …
A blast from the past last week was a sentimental journey back to a time when the world made a certain amount of sense. Maine’s distinguished U.S. senator and secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, Bill Cohen, wrote a May 29 piece in the Washington Post about the controversy surrounding President Donald Trump. Of …
Governor Janet Mills is setting foot in territory where others have feared to tread. On May 21, she announced that the Department of Economic and Community Development will lead an initiative to develop a 10-year strategic plan designed to build the state’s economy. The lead on the project will be Commissioner Heather Johnson of the …
Somebody flipped the switch last weekend and the tourists arrived. Never mind the snow on Cadillac Mountain, the brisk winds battering the newborn leaves or the proliferation of wooly hats. People from away are here. A brave little hummingbird buzzed through the daffodils, hoping for just a drop of nectar to keep those teensy wings …
In my May 9 column, I wrote about bonds, citing Rep. Justin Fecteau as the only Republican who has sponsored a bond this session. Wrong. The bond for equipment for career and technical education centers was sponsored by a different Fecteau, Democratic Rep. Ryan Fecteau. Sponsor Ryan Fecteau represents part of Biddeford and is the …
Finally the temperature is rising and Maine is beginning to blossom. It is an exquisite time of year, with tiny baby leaves cautiously unfurling, shoots of green popping up in the garden and, most beautiful of all, flowering trees showing off their ephemeral glory. The temperature is rising in Augusta, too. Statutory adjournment is …
Recent news about youth in Maine is alarming. A study in the Pediatrics journal of the American Medical Association says Maine is the state with the highest number of children with a mental health disorder such as depression, anxiety or attention deficit disorder. That translates to about 25 percent of our kids, or about six …
It is early in the year, but we might be ready to decide the winner of the annual “Why Didn’t I Think of That?” contest. Hands down, it’s Walmart and its recent request for a tax abatement to the city of Ellsworth. The request seems to be based on Walmart’s assertion that its retail properties …
Snow, rain, freeze. Snow, rain, freeze. That was the weather pattern for the heart of winter this year. Casts on arms were this year’s fashion statement, and stores sold out of “creepers,” the little picky things that go on over your boots to give you a fighting chance at navigating the sidewalks. It took …
