Maine Things Considered

When a child enters the foster care system in Maine, the goal is to reunite them with their parents — but less than half of the kids ever are.

A day after Gov. Paul LePage ordered the transfer of nearly $11 million out of a fund controlled by the Maine Attorney General’s Office, the attorney general is speaking out. Janet Mills told Maine Public Radio that she’s still assessing the effects of the governor’s action and considering a lawsuit. The account in question contained money the state of Maine received in successful lawsuits against Volkswagen and the financial ratings company Moody’s. In a written statement on Thursday, LePage

For a few hours Friday morning, offices at the Robbins Lumber Mill in Searsmont were transformed into a Senate hearing room, where independent U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine presided over an Energy Committee field hearing on how rural industries could be strengthened by developments in energy technologies. The Robbins family, for example, are in the process of installing a $36 million, 8.5 megawatt combined heat and power unit that is expected to reduce costs at the mill and sustain forestry jobs

More than 200 private landowners from across the country gathered in Bangor Thursday to talk about conservation and how they can collaborate to protect wildlife while also expanding commercial forestry. Finding a balance between conservation economic interests remains a big challenge, but stakeholders from both sides say there’s room for middle ground. One place for middle ground is a conservation easement. Typically purchased from or donated by a landowner, easements extinguish development

More than a decade into the nation’s opioid crisis, Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and other members of the Senate Health Committee are pressing for solutions to the escalating number of overdose deaths. At a hearing of the Senate Health Committee on Thursday, Collins referenced a newspaper article about the Maine Municipal Association’s annual convention, where first responders in Portland and Falmouth discussed their concern about the deepening drug epidemic in Maine. She told

A new political action committee has formed in Portland to support the less expensive of two proposed bonds aimed at improvements to the city’s aging schools. Backers of both items want to rescue four aging elementary schools. One would float a $64 million bond to renovate all four facilities. The other would authorize about half that amount to rehab two of them, and rely on the state’s school improvement program to replace the other two with brand-new facilities. The PAC, called Better Schools

It’s Thursday and time for Across the Aisle, our weekly roundtable on politics. This week, Cynthia Dill, an attorney who served in the Legislature as a Democrat; Dick Woodbury, an economist and former independent lawmaker; and Mike Cianchette, an attorney and former chief counsel to Republican Gov. Paul LePage.

Members of Maine’s congressional delegation could soon be thrust into another gun control debate.

Regional energy interests are making a move to break up an electricity logjam that has stalled wind power development in Maine. Over the last decade, Maine wind developers have built new turbines at a rapid clip, bringing overall capacity to more than 900 megawatts by last December. Maine now produces some 60 percent of the wind energy in New England — enough to power more than 150,000 homes, and developers want to build more turbines in northern and western Maine. But in 2017, ISO New England,

State officials say fraud continues to plague the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, and that investigations into food stamp abuses will continue. But advocates for the poor are citing a recent study that they say supports their case that the program should be providing more assistance, not less. When state Department of Health and Human Services fraud investigator Tom Roth looks at the recipients of Maine’s SNAP program, he sees two kinds of people: those

Danny Moody and Dan Giguere both recently finished hiking the nearly 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail.

Two days after the largest mass shooting in modern American history, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Betsy Sweet challenged Maine candidates and elected officials to refuse gun lobby money as an option for funding their campaigns. “Today I am calling on all Maine candidates and elected officials to join me in refusing to take one penny of gun money from the gun lobby, so that we can have a real conversation on gun violence,” she said. Speaking in Bangor, Sweet said commonsense gun laws need

The political action committee opposing a proposed casino in York County has launched a website fiercely attacking the controversial gambling developer who could profit if voters approve Question 1 in November. The website, wickedshady.com , pulls few punches. And it targets the long trail of investigations, lawsuits and licensing denials left by casino developer Shawn Scott and his business associates. Scott is the only one who can obtain the gambling license if Question 1 is approved by voters

Gov. Paul LePage has nominated acting commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services, Ricker Hamilton, to take the top post that was vacated earlier this year by Mary Mayhew — a choice that is likely to draw fire from some lawmakers. As deputy DHHS commissioner, Hamilton ran several different divisions within the agency, including the Office of Aging and Disability Services and the Office of Child and Family Services. He was also in charge of the embattled Riverview Psychiatric

This summer, the campaign to approve a casino in York County hired former Maine Attorney General Andrew Ketterer to represent its interests in an investigation by the Maine Ethics Commission.