Today is Wednesday. Temperatures will be in the high 20s to low 30s with partly sunny skies in the north and cloudy skies in the south. Here’s what we’re talking about in Maine today.
In exchange for his resignation, Franklin County agreed not to tell future employers or state regulators about former correction officer Casey Boulay’s misconduct. Credit: Photo illustration by Natalie Williams
Settlement agreements like the one Franklin County negotiated with a former corrections officer can make it harder for law enforcement agencies to gain information about job candidates’ past performance as police and corrections officers. It means future employers could hire someone without learning the full scope of the person’s history.
Other states, however, have made changes in recent years to make it easier for police agencies to get information about the officers they’re hiring. Those states now require past agencies to release details about officers who used to work for them, regardless of whether officers signed a confidential settlement agreement, and have given agencies legal immunity to get and share information.
Medical personnel discuss patients that had been admitted for testing for the coronavirus at the entrance Central Maine Medical Center on Friday, March 13, 2020, in Lewiston, Maine. U.S. hospitals are setting up circus-like triage tents, calling doctors out of retirement, guarding their supplies of face masks and making plans to cancel elective surgery as they brace for an expected onslaught of coronavirus patients. Credit: Robert F. Bukaty / AP
The number of Mainers hospitalized with the virus reached a new high of 171 on Tuesday, with 48 in critical care and 19 hooked up to ventilators, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a four-fold increase from just one month earlier, and more than double the 60 hospitalizations at the peak of last spring’s surge.
Craig Worster allegedly sexually harassed Deputy Police Chief Janet Theriault and used police department resources to eavesdrop on town employees illegally.
Henry Ramiak, Daphne Hahmann and Willa Stoll (left to right) work on making patterns during their math lesson with teacher Chrissy Blais in late October at the newly formed, outdoor Woodland Pond School. The school is a homeschooling collective for four kindergarten and prekindergarten students. Maine public schools have seen their enrollment decline more than 4 percent this fall, with the drop sharpest in pre-K and kindergarten. Credit: Linda Coan O'Kresik / BDN
Maine’s public schools enrolled nearly 8,000 fewer students this fall than a year ago, as some parents have kept younger students home and others have turned to homeschooling and private schools during a school year altered by the pandemic.
While Maine’s school enrollment has dropped in all but one year over the past decade, this year’s drop of 7,865 students is more than five times the size of the next largest recent enrollment drop.
Maine’s four Electoral College representatives hand their secret ballots to pages as they vote for president at the State House in Augusta in this 2016 file photo. Credit: Gabor Degre / BDN
Four presidential electors will still meet in the chamber of the Maine House of Representatives to officially cast the state’s votes for president and vice president, but they will likely be among the few people in the large room and they must all wear masks.
A sign announces that masks are required to get $3 tacos in Portland on Tuesday Dec. 8, 2020. Credit: Troy R. Bennett / BDN
We want to talk to Maine businesses and their employees about the lingering need for aid during the pandemic. Did you get aid earlier this year? What was your situation then and how does it compare to now?
A fence keeps people out of Preble Street’s courtyard in Portland on July 21. Preble Street’s proposal to renovate their existing facility to a 40-bed wellness shelter will be heard by the planning board on Dec. 8. Credit: Troy R. Bennett / BDN
City officials on Tuesday night will reconsider a plan to build a 40-bed emergency shelter for vulnerable people during the pandemic as Portland temporarily houses more than 300 people in area hotels.
This odd image is a still photo capture off a doorbell camera video taken in July. The homeowner says his friends have suggested the flying object might be a moth, or a drone. What do you think? Credit: Courtesy of Paul Grega
Technically, today’s trail camera offering did not actually come from a trail cam. Technically, it doesn’t show wildlife (although we really don’t know what it shows).
