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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It’s a sad time to be an American and a sad time to be a farmer.”
— Angela Harwood of Orland, whose plan to take over a farm from her retiring employers has been delayed by the federal funding freeze, staffing cuts at federal agencies and additional reporting requirements ordered by the Trump administration.
TODAY’S TOP STORIES
In this rural Maine county, residents worry overwhelmed police won’t respond in time. Residents have waited hours for an officer to arrive, one Maine senator said.
The Bangor Mall’s owner says it fixed the building’s leaking roof, but the city disagrees. More than 20 buckets were placed throughout the hallways of the mall on Thursday to catch dripping water.
Donald Trump’s fight with Maine is based on an untested legal theory. The president’s threats to withhold federal money because Maine allows transgender girls and women to compete in female sports hinges on a new interpretation of Title IX, the 1972 law barring discrimination “on the basis of sex” in education.
Small Maine farmers struggling with federal funding freeze. Almost every farmer in Maine works with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and many are now facing delays and uncertainty about the federal loans, grants and contracts they’ve built their businesses around.
A family-owned blueberry farm near the Maine coast is for sale. Sweetening the deal is the four-bedroom, three-bathroom ranch-style home included with the property.
NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE
- How Trump’s Canada, China and Mexico tariffs could affect Maine
- Penobscot County HIV cluster surges to 21 cases
- Fort Fairfield town manager resigns
- Fort Kent hospital paying $24K over labor violations
- Driver slides on slush right off the dock in Southwest Harbor
- Warren puts controversial mobile home park proposal on hold
- Massachusetts man hospitalized after driving pickup into house in western Maine
- 20 geese found on Maine beach may have died from avian flu
- Penobscot Valley girls seeking 1st-ever state basketball title
- Bangor boys hockey team to face Kents Hill in Saturday playoff game
- Bangor High School principal to be inducted into Maine Basketball Hall of Fame
- Blauenfeldt leads UMaine women’s basketball to important win over UNH
MAINE IN PICTURES
FROM THE OPINION PAGES
“The last major [spruce budworm] outbreak in the 1970s and 1980s destroyed more than 7 million acres of spruce and fir, severely impacting Maine’s timber industry and wildlife habitats. The economic toll was in the hundreds of millions, and extensive salvage logging reshaped Maine’s forest landscape.”
Opinion: Maine’s forests are vulnerable to wildfires and a spruce budworm outbreak
LIFE IN MAINE
A Belfast theater group is offering an immersive theatrical experience in “Circle Mirror Transformation.” Cast members realistically capture the eccentricities of characters achingly familiar to anyone who’s been part of theater game exercises, Judy Harrison writes.
This fraught birding expedition still held two surprises. “It was a day of fortune and misfortune,” Bob Duchesne writes.
Jack White and Andre 3000 are among the headliners for a new Portland music festival. The Back Cove Music & Arts Festival is set for Aug. 2 and 3 in Payson Park, a 47-acre park in Portland’s Back Cove neighborhood.
