Maine Things Considered

It’s Thursday and time for Across the Aisle, our weekly roundtable on Maine politics. This week, Cynthia Dill, an attorney and former Democratic legislator who writes a column for the Portland Press Herald, and Meredith Strang Burgess of Burgess Advertising and Marketing, who served in the Legislature as a Republican.

The Legislature was in session Wednesday, reviewing vetoes issued by Gov. Paul LePage. Lawmakers overrode LePage’s effort to block a bill that could expand access to opioid addiction treatment, and sustained his veto of a bill that would ban motorists from using hand-held devices while driving. The House voted 114-23 and the Senate voted 30-4 to override the governor’s veto of the opioid bill, which allows the Department of Health and Human Services to increase MaineCare reimbursement rates to

There’s an old joke: “What do you call a viola player with a beeper? An optimist.” The idea is that classically trained musicians may have a harder time getting gigs than rock or folk artists. But there’s a project in Maine that’s designed to put young orchestra musicians on a live stage to give them a sense of what it’s like, and for some young players, it’s renewing their interest in music.

The future of Maine’s residential solar power industry was thrown into doubt Wednesday after lawmakers upheld Gov. Paul LePage’s veto of a measure that supporters say aimed to stabilize the sector.

Maine Attorney General Janet Mills is joining a lawsuit with more than a dozen other states against the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Administrator Scott Pruitt for delaying the designation of areas affected by harmful levels of ozone. The designations were required by October of this year under stricter Clean Air Act standards implemented in 2015. Pruitt has postponed the designations for one year, but Mills says there is no time to waste. “We have 360-660 premature deaths every

Facing an anticipated shortage of about 50 school bus drivers across the state, the Maine departments of education and labor are reaching out to veterans to let them know there’s free training available to those interested in becoming bus drivers. Maine Department of Labor spokeswoman Julie Rabinowitz says veterans make good school bus driver candidates. “Because they are very mission-centric and they are often people who have been servicing and protecting our country, and they understand the

Ryan Lizza has been covering politics for the New Yorker for 10 years, but recently broke the big story about Anthony Scaramucci’s profanity laced rant that played a part in ending his tenure as White House communications director just a few days after it began.

Over the past 15 years, refugee and immigrant students have transformed the city of Portland and its public school system. However, teachers have remained overwhelmingly white, and there are efforts to increase the diversity of the staff — by encouraging Portland students to eventually become teachers.

The number of great white sharks may be increasing in the Gulf of Maine.

Secretary of State Matt Dunlap says he’s refusing a second request by the Trump administration’s election fraud commission to turn over Maine voters’ personal information.

Congress appears ready to pass emergency funding of $3.4 billion to continue for six months a program that allows veterans to get health care close to home. The House failed to pass a similar bill earlier in the week, but after some intense committee negotiations, a compromise bill was approved by the House and is expected to win Senate passage next week. That is good news for Maine veterans, says Amedeo Lauria with the American Legion Department of Maine. “We gotta get away from one size fits

Newcomers to Bangor from different cultures and countries can expect a smoother transition into the community as the result of Thursday night’s city council vote to establish a local multicultural center. Bangor Mayor Joseph Baldacci said the city will invest $75,000 in the center this year with the hope of delivering an array of services for new arrivals within the next six months. “Bangor Housing Authority is interested in getting involved and in working on this, so it’s going to have many

This week, more than 70 teens and young adults from 16 countries around the globe are at Colby College in Waterville. Though they come from different cultures, they all have something in common: the loss of a family member from terrorism or war. An organization called Tuesday’s Children brings together young adults affected by trauma every year to empower them to use their experience to create positive change. The weeklong program is called Project Common Bond, and the bonds tend to form quickly

It’s back — the unwelcome bright green slime that showed up around Casco Bay in several locations during the drought last summer has returned with a vengeance, and this year it has arrived even earlier. The environmental group Friends of Casco Bay is actively monitoring the situation, and is worried about what algal blooms like these say about the health of the bay. This story is the latest installment in our occasional series “ Beyond 350: Confronting Climate Change .” With climate change and

A Bangor community college is working to fill a nursing gap in some of the most rural counties in the state with the launch of a nursing program in Dover-Foxcroft. Piscataquis County, like many places in Maine, is facing a critical shortage of qualified nurses. “This is just the first of hopefully many thinking-outside-the-box programs that we’re going to unroll,” says Jennifer Khavari, director of advancement at Eastern Maine Community College. Khavari says many students are unable to travel