PPH:
The Maine State Legislature won't get the same attention as the high-stakes battles for Senate and governor. But Republicans and Democrats are locked in a struggle that will decide the state's direction for the next two years. In electoral battlegrounds from Wells to Bowdoinham to Deer Isle, voters will choose their state lawmaker--and in more than two dozen House districts, the result really could go either way.
"He's not among the worst of the worst, he's really among the best of the best."
- Saco minister Scott Cousineau describing one of his congregants Makenga, an Angolan asylum seeker who's been living in the U.S. for 8 years and was recently detained by ICE after visiting his newborn child in the hospital.
"I wouldn’t underestimate me," [Andy] Beshear, the Kentucky governor, said last week when I invoked the knock on him that, two years before the presidential primary, is already the talk in Democratic circles. Then, with equal parts defensiveness and determination, he unspooled his electoral history here and how he proved those wrong who argued he was the beneficiary of weak opponents and good timing. "So, if people want to underestimate me, I’m used to it, and it drives me."
A new cafe opened on Mechanic Street in Camden earlier this year. The Villager Cafe offers delicious breakfasts, salads, sandwiches and baked goods, but that’s not what makes the new restaurant distinctive. Owned by the proprietor of the Midcoast Villager, whose newsroom is housed in the same building, the Villager Cafe is an innovative approach to develop as a space to convene community and exchange news--while eating and drinking.
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Beginning this month, the [Maine Trust for Local News] company's southern Maine weekly newspapers--which include the Forecaster papers, the American Journal, Lakes Region Weekly, Scarborough Leader, South Portland Sentry, Courier in Biddeford and the Kennebunk Post--will become digital only.
PPH:
With the Super Bowl only two days away, a judge has ruled that Maine’s first in-person sports betting parlor is allowed to resume accepting wagers. Sunday's game could arguably be one of Oddfellahs Sportsbook and Bar’s most profitable opportunities since opening last fall, a lawyer for the company told the court Thursday. The argument was enough to sway Superior Court Justice John O’Neil to grant a temporary restraining order, allowing Oddfellahs to take bets until a final hearing is held with the state over its license.
Oddfellahs Sportsbook and Bar, Maine’s first in-person sports betting parlor, announced on social media Friday that it was pausing sports betting after having its sports wagering license revoked. Owner Michael Cianchette said Gambling Control Unit Executive Director Milton Champion informed the Portland bar that it would no longer be eligible to have a sports wagering license.
Throughout the year, Maine Calling will examine the stories behind "naming"—how names for different entities and people come about, and what makes them prevalent, unusual or notable. We start with a show about town names in Maine—including the many towns that are named after other countries or cities (Mexico, China, Paris), as well as those that are uncommon (Owls Head, Meddybemps, Friendship).
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PPH:
Housing, child care, energy prices and other cost-of-living pressures will be at the top of the priority list when Maine lawmakers gather in Augusta on Wednesday for the start of a new legislative session. Leaders of both parties cited pocketbook issues as their primary focus in a series of interviews last week, although it’s clear they will have different ideas about how to solve them.
President Joe Biden on Monday designated a new national monument in Newcastle, Maine, honoring Frances Perkins, who was the country's first female cabinet secretary. Perkins was a key architect of some of nation's most sweeping labor laws and reforms. During her 12 years as labor secretary, Perkins was pivotal in bringing about President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal reforms that helped the country emerge from the Great Depression--and that continue to affect the American workforce today.
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For years, Crash [Barry] has been doing the dirty work for the rest of us, documenting pockets of hate in America. He first started tracking fascists as a journalist in 2003, going undercover to report on the World Church of the Creator, a white-supremacist cult that promoted “racial holy war.” (The WCOTC collapsed in 2004, after its leader was convicted of solicitation of murder—he asked someone who turned out to be a government informant to kill a federal judge.) Crash got back on the beat in earnest in 2017, amid a surge of far-right recruiting and organizing after Donald Trump was elected president.
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PPH:
Among the ideas it would study are expanding the size of the House of Representatives, which has held at 435 for nearly a century, requiring independent redistricting commissions and perhaps adopting multi-member districts that would be divvied up in proportion to the votes cast. "Americans on both sides are fed up with a political system that incentivizes division," Golden said in a press release put out this week by U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Washington Democrat.
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The race to represent Maine’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives will be decided by a ranked choice runoff after neither candidate secured more than 50% of the votes. The state will conduct a ranked choice tabulation in Augusta starting next week, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows announced Thursday night. U.S. Rep. Jared Golden secured 196,189 votes, 48.65% of the total, and Republican state Rep. Austin Theriault got 194,030 votes, 48.11% of the total, leaving the candidates separated by 2,159 votes, according to results certified and shared by the Department of the Secretary of State late Thursday night.
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Maine Senate Democrats chose Sen. Mattie Daughtry of Brunswick to serve as chamber president, leading the majority that Democrats maintained on Nov. 5, though likely by slimmer margins as final counts are tallied. "Our constituents are depending on us to hold the line against cruel and unjust federal policies,” Daughtry shared in a statement Thursday night following the vote. "I will take our messaging extremely seriously because we have a duty to expand our reach, not alienate people."
[snip]
Also Thursday evening, Senate Democrats voted to elect Sen. Teresa Pierce of Falmouth as majority leader and Sen. Jill Duson of Portland as assistant majority leader.
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Despite losing a handful of seats to Republicans, Maine Democrats appeared poised to keep control of state government, maintaining their majorities in the state Senate and House of Representatives for Gov. Janet Mills’ final two years in office. Several races in each chamber remained too close to call Wednesday afternoon, and Republicans said they believe enough races remain in play--including expected recounts-- that they still have a chance to take control of the House of Representatives.
