#MaineMonitor

tugboat on the water

Russell Marinari, 23, graduated from the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine in May and is now working as third mate on 

Dissecting the latest decisions on Maine dams
montgomery dam

The terms dictating the vast influence of many Maine hydroelectric dams were last drawn up a generation ago, often by the same paper companies that first harnessed the…

two women completing a puzzle.

In the first major update to assisted living and residential care regulations in more than 15 years, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services has proposed…

storm surge

To prepare Maine for future climate change-fueled storms, the state will have to overhaul local emergency response policies, massively expand…

Alamoosook Lake

Nearly a decade after a company abandoned the paper mill that once shaped Bucksport’s economy, its successor is in the process of abandoning…

opinion
EV cars charging.

The Maine Climate Council has just finished updating the state’s climate action plan, as required by law, and a key strategy in the draft…

Shawmut Dam

The Ellsworth Dam, nestled just upstream from the picturesque Union River Bridge in downtown Ellsworth, is easy to…

exterior of courthouse.

There are many legal concepts that require some time in law school or Latin classes to understand. The “reasonable person” standard, however, sounds simple. 

nursing home employees in a hallway

The state is planning to implement a new system for issuing MaineCare reimbursements to nursing homes on Jan. 1, but providers still don’t know what their rates will…

Jared Golden and Austin Theriault

On Tuesday, residents of Maine’s 2nd congressional district will vote for their representative to Congress.

Austin Theriault, a former NASCAR driver, won the…

salmon pens

The first restaurant to serve salmon raised in the flooded pit of the Callahan Mine Superfund site would be the historic Jed Prouty’s Inn and Tavern in Bucksport,…

blue and white ambulance

Last year the Maine Legislature allocated $31 million to emergency medical services around the state.

Lawmakers said the money …

blue and white ambulance

A committee tasked with distributing $31 million in funding to faltering emergency medical service agencies around the state met in Alfred earlier this month to determine how the remaining $19.3…

probate office sign

Lauren Wille, the legal director of Disability Rights Maine, has helped dozens of adults with developmental disabilities get out of guardianships — arrangements in which a guardian is appointed by…

Caregiver Kim Greene-Labranche interacts with Ginny Cardner at her home in Gorham.

Agencies that employ caregivers to help older adults and disabled people in their homes are now required to be licensed with the state, according to new regulations that went into effect in August…

Excerpts from different child care provider directed plans of actions for inspections. Graphic by George Harvey.

A loose pill. Pet urine on the floor. Dog feces on the deck. Unexplained “self-inflicted” injuries. A bottle of wood glue and six-inch screws in a play area. A loose bullet. Guns waved around in…

Republican Steven Foster is running for his fourth term in the statehouse’s lower chamber, representing Dexter and several other towns west of Bangor. He has won every election easily —  because…

“It’s been more than 100 years since herds of woodland caribou graced the state of Maine. At least we can still claim the potato.”

Thus opens the description in this year’s Fedco…

People holding a banner during a rally for child welfare system improvements.

In 2021, the legislature’s government oversight committee directed the state watchdog agency to investigate the deaths of four…

Exterior of the Cape Elizabeth Middle School.

The price tag on a new elementary school in Bar Harbor is $63 million. An Auburn high school completed in 2023 came in at $122 million. And at the ballot box this fall, Cape Elizabeth voters will…

A street flooded in Portland, Maine.

State leaders tasked with reviewing Maine’s preparations and responses to climate change-fueled natural disasters are at a crossroads. 

While Maine has seen seven federal disaster …

Fall is in the air, though we have a couple weeks left of astronomical summer. It’s a transitional time not just for our wardrobes, schedules and outdoor activities, but for the climate. 

A transportation broker company with a pending contract to handle all MaineCare rides throughout the state is facing complaints from vulnerable riders who say they’re being left at their…

The owners of Chipman’s Wharf, a seafood market, buying station and restaurant in Milbridge, had a brutal awakening after the powerful January storms wiped away their 106-foot wharf. 

The…

As president of Caribou Rehab and Nursing Center, Phil Cyr begins each morning walking the hallways, greeting every employee by name. The walls of the Aroostook County nursing home are full of…

Editor’s note: This story contains references to suicide.

When a bill to strengthen Maine’s yellow flag law went into effect earlier this month, Sagadahoc County…

From a bird blind on Seal Island, I watched as puffins zoomed in from the sea with a rainbow of fish drooping from their beaks.

They carried copper and golden juvenile haddock, redfish and…

In a Bangor courtroom last week, Judge Meghan Szylvian ruled the state had violated the constitutional rights of a criminal defendant who had been in custody for nearly a month.

The…

Even before it opened in Presque Isle in March, the Aroostook Memory Center had 68 referrals.

Primary care physicians across the rural county had patients they suspected were experiencing…

Lobster fishing has been a good business in the Gulf of Maine for a long time. With the exception of a few notable dips, both the landings and value of the catch have been on an …

A working group looking into ways to bring healthcare to Maine’s island communities is considering “ambulance vessels” as a possible solution.

Rob McGraw, executive director of Atlantic…

A nearly $5 million federal grant recently awarded to the University of New England will be put toward efforts to improve Maine’s workforce supporting geriatric care over the next five years.…

Communities around the state are working to comply with Maine’s landmark housing law after a July 1 deadline to meet the requirements.

The law, which essentially bans single-family zoning…

In August 2023, Maine Supreme Court Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill …

There’s a reason so many independent pharmacies have had to close in recent years: pharmacy benefit managers.

That’s according to the Federal Trade Commission, which in a harsh report…

Kristy Basso sets a timer for 25 minutes any time she does a chore outside her West Paris home. As the primary caregiver for her 77-year-old mother, who has dementia, Basso is worried about…

Maine’s community solar program, commonly known as net energy billing, has been wildly…

Maine will coordinate plans for new transmission lines — particularly regional projects to share power from offshore wind farms — with nine Northeast neighbors, under a major agreement …

Entering the Healing Lodge, a log building steps from downtown Millinocket, visitors are greeted by the soft sounds of a flute, and the aroma of burnt sage and fresh sweetgrass.

Anchoring…

Ron Huber rifled through a thick folder full of decades of state environmental records outside a community hall in the tiny coastal Maine town of Searsport. For the longtime local conservation…

A year-old law seems to have done little to curb a surge in violence against health care workers that began during the pandemic, despite increasing charges for assaults on nonmedical staff — such…

Keri-Jon Wilson started as a hobbyist, making medical marijuana edibles on a small scale for patients suffering from chronic pain and cancer. But in 2015 she expanded her business, Portland-based…

On June 25 in Caribou, Judge Stephen Nelson faced a constitutional dilemma. Prosecutors had charged a defendant with aggravated drug trafficking, furnishing and possession nearly three weeks prior…

Sea level rise, intensifying coastal storms and rising construction costs converged to drive up annual Maine home insurance rates by an average of 15 percent this year, a recent …

As the daughter of a dad with paranoid schizophrenia, Delaney Ruston, a physician and filmmaker, wanted to find a better way to help her father when he was in crisis.

In a film she made…

The attorney general’s office is putting nearly $2.5 million toward a resource center that will offer assistance to Maine counties, cities and towns as they decide how to spend opioid settlement…

Inside the Capitol Region Public Defender’s Office on a sunny morning in late May, five attorneys sat around a…

After qualifying for home care services, Pauline Kane sat on a waitlist for more than a year. In the meantime her…