Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Quote of the Day

“I’m still befuddled that we’re off by this much.”

— Kendra Bird on an unsuccessful attempt to dig up a 38-year-old time capsule at James F. Doughty School in Bangor. Bird, who went to the middle school 10 years after the capsule was buried and has worked as an archaeologist, said the dirt around the 12-foot-deep hole dug in the outfield of the school’s softball diamond Monday showed no signs that the capsule had been previously found and removed.

Today’s Top Maine Stories

Janet Mills vetoed a bump stock ban but let a waiting period bill become law. The governor’s decisions settle the last of many gun control measures introduced in the wake of the Lewiston mass shooting.

New Maine laws will allow more people to hide old marijuana convictions. The changes have been backed in recent years by both progressive Democrats and libertarian-minded Republicans.

Maine’s housing authority built nearly four times as many affordable housing units in 2023 as the year before, according to its annual report. Nearly two-thirds of them were for seniors.

A midcoast man has been missing for 20 years. Jeremy Alex was last seen running down a road in Northport clutching money in his hand and claiming someone was after him.

Attempts to find a buried 1980s time capsule at a Bangor school were unsuccessful. Almost no one remembered that it had been buried. To make it more difficult, no one knew where exactly it was.

Maine in Pictures

Video of the Week

Maine is home to several species of woodpeckers including hairy, downy, red-bellied, red-headed, pileated, three-toed and black-backed. Woodpeckers, sapsuckers and flickers are in the same family. Watch them in these videos contributed by Renee Martel in York County of the pileated and Emily Burnham of Bangor of the hairy.

More News from Around the State

• Student loan borrowers face Tuesday deadline for debt cancelation program

• Gulf of Maine had one of its hottest years in 2023, part of a global trend

• Weather-related power outages on the rise in Maine

• State rejects challenge of $1B Medicaid transportation contract to Colorado company

• New federal rules will require nursing homes to increase staffing

• Mainers arrested in Canada on suspicion of poaching baby eels

• Bangor airport postpones temporary closure for runway repaving

• Winterport man pleads guilty to distributing child pornography

• Nurses and technicians will strike at Down East hospital on today

• Man who died at midcoast Maine jail has been identified

• Maine prison gardening program gives inmates ‘meaning’

• Police find illegal marijuana growing operation in Belmont

• Christmas trees now helping restore Popham Beach sand dunes

• Older Maine couple found their housing ‘miracle’

• Coffee By Design signs labor agreement with baristas

• 35 workers losing jobs as a Chili’s closes in southern Maine

• Man who pleaded guilty to Portland slaying asks judge for new trial

From the Opinion Pages

Life in Maine

Mainer Julia Gagnon is now in the “American Idol” top seven. Her moving rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” from her grandmother’s favorite movie, won her praise from the judges.

Websites and how-to videos are great for homesteaders, but there’s a lot to be said for a good collection of reference books.

A Maine teen killed two turkeys with one shot on youth day. The Harris family of Dixmont had been deer hunters before 13-year-old Alex made his two-for-one shot.

Speedway 95 and other Maine auto racing tracks ready for the season. Oxford Plains and Wiscasset have already opened. Unity Raceway and Caribou’s Spud Speedway and get rolling in June.

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