Today is Friday. Temperatures will be in the low 80s with mostly sunny skies throughout the state. Here's what we're talking about in Maine today.

Maine has spent more than $33M on protective equipment since the pandemic struck

• State purchasing data requested by the BDN show that, in the middle of the greatest public health crisis in generations, the state has faced fluctuating prices and shipping delays as it has competed for protective equipment with many other buyers from across the country and globe.

It’s not just you. People really are angrier these days.

• Meghan Gardner, co-owner of the Common Loon Public House in Orono, figured she’d seen it all after working more than 20 years in the service industry. But what happened on July 26 in her pub was a first. When a server reminded one group of the mask policy, a woman in the group flipped. She threw the menus and silverware off the table when the server told her group to leave, and spit at the server on the way out.

Unity alumni will reunite in town to process changes. But they won’t meet on campus.

• The announcement that Unity College may sell its main campus angered alumni and worried residents in the small town of Unity, where the college has been a mainstay for more than 50 years. Since then, emotions have been running high in the community. The words “RIP” were recently spray-painted at the entrance to the college campus in response to the news.

• A referendum bid aimed at killing Central Maine Power’s controversial $1 billion corridor was virtually killed on Thursday by the state’s high court, which deemed the effort unconstitutional in a decision that will have yearslong political implications. The decision all but ends the most expensive campaign over a Maine referendum ever.

Susan Collins breaks with Trump on Postal Service, says cost-cutting could backfire

• The vulnerable Republican’s comments came on the heels of comments from President Donald Trump earlier in the day, when he said he opposed funding for the postal service — which has faced a financial crisis exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic — as part of a stimulus bill because it could be used to enhance mail-in voting.

• A second survey by the Bangor Daily News found that readers care more about civil rights and roughly as much about the top-tier issues of health care and the economy than they did before the coronavirus pandemic and protests over police killings.

In other Maine news...

• Statue of Mainer who served as chief justice under scrutiny for racial segregation decision

• Hiker rescued after falling 40 feet on remote stretch of Maine Appalachian Trail

• Faulty turbine cost Maine energy company millions, lawsuit claims