#MaineMonitor

man cleaning pig stall

As the warm air of a spring day milled across the acres of pasture along the long dirt road leading through Old Crow Ranch in Durham, Steve Sinisi and his wife, Seren, settled onto the porch…

cut timber being loaded onto a flatbed.

From the summit of Katahdin, the view is of forests stretching in all directions, broken only by the western lakes, the alpine tundra of the Tablelands, and the rocky peaks of surrounding…

David Whitney poses for a photo in his warehouse.

Tractors stand at the ready along rolling wild blueberry barrens Downeast, where fields of naked stems offer no hint of the glorious techno-color display to come. By late spring, roughly 47,…

EV charging stations

If you’re driving an electric vehicle up I-95 or 295 these days, particularly in York or Cumberland counties, odds are you won’t have to travel far before hitting a public charging station.…

Aaron Frey poses for a photo

As Maine’s battle with the Trump administration over transgender student athletes intensifies and enters the courts, legal experts say the consequences could be huge — and extend far beyond…

maine recovery council panel.

A bill that would boost transparency of how Maine’s opioid settlement funds are being spent advanced out of committee last month.

Lawmakers on the health and human services committee…

statehouse exterior.

As Burcu Sagiroglu listened to lawmakers debate a bill that would establish a statewide tracking system for sexual assault kits, her mind wandered back to her days as a student at Colby…

offshore wind turbine.

Three years after they began, negotiations over a proposed power contract for an offshore floating wind farm in the Gulf of Maine have come to an abrupt halt, with the developer citing “recent…

statehouse dome

Maine lawmakers on the health committee are considering a bill that would eliminate a new requirement for health care professionals to report miscarriages before 20 weeks to the state…

chart showing NIH funding to maine through the years.

The federal government has funded more than a billion dollars in biomedical and public health research at Maine institutions over the past 10 years, supporting research…

entrance to blueberry fields cooperative.

When Celeste Yakawonis was younger, she thought she would spend the rest of her life in her riverfront home on six acres of land in Turner.

But that was before Yakawonis’s husband died…

inside a classroom

The challenge of recruiting and retaining teachers in Maine is profound. The state 

exterior of maine health.

Medicaid, a federal health insurance program for low-income children and adults, is facing dual challenges at both the state and federal level.

Nationally, Republicans in Congress are…

exterior of maine health.

Maine’s largest health providers already are using artificial intelligence to streamline note-taking during visits, which they said lessens the documentation burden on providers.

But…

a medical student uses a stethoscope on a young boy.

In the United States and across the world, birth rates are falling.

Fertility rates in the United States reached a historic low in 

excerpts from emails about childcare payments.

Betsey Grant, who owns Tiny Tikes Daycare in Trenton, has been fighting the state to pay her for the services she provides foster children for years. 

She isn’t the only one who has had…

a man standing in an attic.

It’s a safe bet that new residents of The Cottages at Winding Ridge in Gorham won’t be spending much time in their attics. After climbing through the scuttle hatch in a bedroom closet, they’d…

a look inside a thrift store, with a sign reading queer love hanging on the wall.

Some days, Jake looks up at his mother and says he’s broken. Other days, he borrows language from the insults hurled at him by middle-school peers, and says he wishes he were “a real boy.”…

inside a classroom

As the Trump administration moves to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, state officials face growing uncertainty around the future of school funding in Maine.…

storm surge

When last year’s winter storms devastated the coast, Sam Belknap’s family wharf on Round Pond harbor in Bristol was saved by its concrete floor. The floor, which Belknap’s family poured years…

Ariel Bernstein poses for a photo.

The vast majority of births in Maine — roughly 97 percent — occur in hospitals. But like the rest of the country, the number of home births has risen in the state in recent years, jumping 41…

storm surge

Jay Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere was blindsided when a flood clipped the winding roads of her small valley community in May 2023. But as flood waters receded, a new challenge for LaFreniere…

sheep graze amid solar panels.

Maine environmental regulators moved one step closer last week to implementing rules that would force solar developers to pay for impacts to high-value agricultural land.

The Board of…

Rachel Keidan sitting in a waiting room.

When Nikki Mahar, who recently moved to Eastport from California, woke up in the middle of the night with stomach pains at 14 weeks pregnant, she and her husband rushed to the closest…

storm surge

Editor’s Note: The Maine Monitor updated this story on March 6, 2025 after receiving additional information from the Maine Bureau of Insurance. 

Maine Bureau of…

the statehouse dome

State lawmakers are considering a bill that supporters say would make it easier for Mainers with low credit scores to take out small loans: the law would give financial technology companies…