Tag Archives: Maine

The Portland Press Herald reports: President Biden has approved an emergency declaration request in Maine ahead of Hurricane Lee’s expected impacts on the state. Gov. Janet Mills declared a state of emergency Thursday in anticipation of the storm and asked Biden to issue the Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration, which would allow the state to access federal resources and personnel to …

The Bangor News reports: A prominent neo-Nazi who last year moved to Penobscot County with hopes of building a white ethno-state has been banned from Planet Fitness in Bangor. Christopher Pohlhaus, the leader of the neo-Nazi group “Blood Tribe” who has been spotted waving a swastika flag and wearing a swastika necklace at LGBTQ+ events, was banned from Planet Fitness’ …

The Bangor Daily News reports: Gov. Janet Mills held off a late surge from former Gov. Paul LePage to win a second Blaine House term in a Tuesday election that was the most expensive of its kind in Maine history. The Democratic governor bested her predecessor in their political rivalry stretching back into LePage’s eight-year tenure as governor. Mills served …

Spectrum Maine reports: A poll released Thursday shows Gov. Janet Mills leading former Gov. Paul LePage in the race for governor by 10 percentage points with just over two weeks to go until Election Day. The poll results come as campaigns across the state head for the Nov. 8 finish line in high-profile races featuring Mills, a Democrat who is …

The Huffington Post reports: At a lobster industry rally Wednesday in Portland, a Republican candidate for Maine’s 1st Congressional District compared federal rules aimed at protecting the endangered right whale to sex crimes against children. “NOAA wants to rape you and your family, and they’re saying ‘pick a child,’” said GOP hopeful Ed Thelander, referring to the National Oceanic and …

The Washington Post reports: Gov. Glenn Youngkin plans to travel to Maine this week to campaign for Republican gubernatorial candidate Paul LePage, a former two-term governor with a history of making racially incendiary remarks. A proudly unvarnished politician who has claimed that he was “Donald Trump before Donald Trump,” LePage caused his most notable uproar in 2016, midway through his …

The Daily Beast reports: As he seeks a third term as Maine governor, Paul LePage had reportedly left behind the days when he earned national headlines by threatening to blow up a newspaper office, challenging a Democrat to a duel, or telling the NAACP to “kiss my butt.” But it turns out that, for the man once dubbed “America’s craziest …

The Associated Press reports: Maine will not cooperate with other states’ investigations into people who seek abortions or health care providers that perform them, the state’s governor said Tuesday. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed an executive order that she said will protect access to abortion in her state. She said she made the order as a response to the Supreme …

The Associated Press reports: The first lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland since Maine took away a limitation on claims of child sexual abuse were filed on Thursday. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed a law last year that allowed victims to bring civil lawsuits about older abuse cases. Abuse survivors previously could not bring lawsuits if they experienced …

The Bangor Daily News reports: When no adults would revive the community Pride parade in Belfast, a group of motivated Belfast Area High School students stepped up to make sure that the event — which has been on a pandemic hiatus — happens this year. In Belfast, the city’s first-ever Pride parade and festival took place in 2016, and became …

The Bangor Daily News reports: Two-time former Maine gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler was arrested Friday afternoon on felony charges related to possession of child pornography. Hancock County District Attorney Matthew Foster said Cutler, 75, will be charged with four Class C counts of possessing sexually explicit material involving a child under age 12. He was taken to the Hancock County …

Via press release from Maine Gov. Janet Mills: Governor Janet Mills announced today that she has activated additional members of the Maine National Guard to help alleviate short-term capacity constraints at hospitals and maintain access to inpatient health care services for Maine people amid a sustained surge of COVID-19. The Governor’s decision follows discussions with Maine’s hospital systems and comes …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday turned away healthcare workers seeking a religious exemption to Maine’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in the latest battle over vaccination to reach the justices. The court rejected a request made by nine unnamed plaintiffs who identified themselves as healthcare workers who object to receiving the shots on religious grounds. The court previously rejected …

Reuters reports: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer on Tuesday night turned away a religious challenge to a requirement that healthcare workers in Maine be vaccinated against COVID-19, the latest such bid rejected by the nation’s top judicial body. In a brief order, Breyer wrote that the challengers – unnamed plaintiffs who said they are healthcare workers and object to …

The Associated Press reports: Removing the flipping obscenities from license plates on Maine’s roads and highways isn’t going to happen overnight, even though a law banning such profanities in a state where such regulation has been unusually lax goes into effect Monday. Currently, there are license plates with salty language including f-bombs, references to anatomy and sex acts, and general …

The Bangor Daily News reports: The appellate court in Boston on Friday denied an emergency request to keep Gov. Janet Mills’ COVID-19 vaccine mandate from being enforced, marking the second legal defeat in a week for mandate opponents. Maine’s mandate that requires health care workers be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 29 or risk losing their jobs. The three-judge panel …

The Portland Press Herald reports: U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, will endorse former Republican Gov. Paul LePage Wednesday in a pre-recorded video as LePage kicks off his campaign to challenge Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in 2022. Collins, who is serving her fifth consecutive term in the Senate, won reelection in 2020 with 51 percent of vote. “As Maine recovers from …

The Associated Press reports: A group of Maine Democrats wants a state Republican lawmaker to resign over comments in which she compared vaccine mandates for healthcare workers to the Nazi doctor known as the “Angel of Death” for experiments on Jews during the Holocaust. The state lawmaker made her claims during a rally in front of the State House after …

But the headline is only the start of the story. The Daily Beast reports: A Republican legislator in Maine who lost his wife to COVID-19 last week appeared at a rally on Tuesday that featured a GOP colleague who compared the state’s Democratic governor to a Nazi doctor who performed deadly experiments on Jews during the Holocaust. State Rep. Chris …

Maine Public Radio reports: Rep. Chris Johansen, a Republican legislator from the Aroostook County town of Monticello who has been an outspoken opponent of coronavirus restrictions, has reportedly contracted COVID-19. When contacted by the Bangor Daily News on Friday, Johansen said “I’m not talking” and hung up the phone. The lawmaker’s wife, Cindy Johansen, who is the corresponding secretary-officer for …