MILO – About an hour after police allowed the wife of murder victim Joseph Gray to return to the couple’s home on Monday, Janice Gray answered the phone and agreed to talk about how her husband was shot right in front of her. “Believe it… Read More
Gubernatorial hopefuls Peter Mills and Pat LaMarche are poised to qualify for public funding of their primary campaigns after submitting enough qualifying donations to state elections officials in advance of today’s deadline. Officials with the Maine Commission of Governmental Ethics and Elections Practices said Monday… Read More
Police investigators in Maine, Boston and Canada gathered information Monday in hopes of uncovering a 20-year-old Canadian dishwasher’s motive for gunning down two convicted sex offenders in their rural Maine homes early Easter morning. Stephen A. Marshall, 20, gained access to information about his victims,… Read More
ASHLAND – Four sisters died instantly Monday when their car strayed into the path of a tractor-trailer loaded with logs that ran over the car and pushed it hundreds of feet down Route 11. Police Chief Cyr Martin identified the sisters as Paige Long, 16,… Read More
A headline on a Local & Regional page story published April 7 about the proposed SAD 67 budget was incorrect. As the story correctly stated, the proposed school budget increase is 6.21 percent. Read More
CALAIS – Gov. John Baldacci, who has not made an appearance at the Washington County Business Conference and Marketplace in its three previous years, is changing that record – now that the event has been recast as one of the Governor’s Regional Conferences on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Read More
WASHINGTON – Tobacco companies are withholding more than $700 million that the states contend is owed to them this year under a landmark legal settlement. No. 2 cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. paid the states about $1.4 billion but withheld $647 million, putting that… Read More
Regarding the article, “World of wonder: Elephants” (BDN, April 12). My dad told me that after he stopped smoking in 1960, he realized how stupid cigarette commercials were. I feel exactly the same way about all the efforts I’ve seen over the decades trying to… Read More
In his April 12 op-ed piece, Richard C. Hill encourages people to “do the math,” yet his analysis concluding nuclear power is the only way Maine can meet its energy future is silent on the most crucial math of all: the cost. Nuclear power has… Read More
In 1972, I refused to pay my federal income taxes, because that money was being used for a terrible and immoral purpose: to prosecute the Vietnam War. After years of peacefully paying my taxes, I have been brought to that point again. My conscience no longer permits me… Read More
Have you been out on Maine’s roads recently? Not just the back roads, but many of those with state highway route signs. Many of them are in deplorable condition. Because we have a dispersed population and challenging geography, it’s tougher to build a modern road… Read More
Yesterday was Patriots Day. For those who wonder why the bank was closed or why they had an extra day to finish their taxes, here’s a primer on this uniquely New England holiday and its oft-forgotten hero. Listen, my children, and give a pause for… Read More
If you are finalizing your federal tax return today – you had three extra day this year thanks to the 15th falling on a weekend and Patriots Day on Monday – you know how difficult it can be to negotiate a form 1040 and its convoluted instructions. Unfortunately,… Read More
For the past few years, I’ve read, with great interest, about Plum Creek Timber Co.’s involvement in Maine. As a Moosehead-area native, I’d like to share a few thoughts. Moosehead sits at the edge of the largest surviving section of wilderness that once stretched all… Read More
Earlier this winter in a thoughtful piece about a middle-class family in Bangor (BDN, Feb 3), columnist Renee Ordway asked an important question. Amidst all that talk about the rich getting richer and the poor poorer, what is happening to the families in the middle? Ordway reports that… Read More
Physician assistant Bill Bisbee gently unwound a cloth covering one of Jordan Johnston’s hands and leaned toward the young man as he inquired about the injury. Johnston, 18, of Dover-Foxcroft, told Bisbee he hurt his hand while processing a board at a local sawmill. After listening to a… Read More
ACADIA NATIONAL PARK – Maine’s most popular national park won’t be affected by a program intended to increase park efficiency that has been instituted in parts of the West, officials said Monday afternoon. The Core Analysis Program was portrayed Monday in a Knight Ridder newspaper… Read More
Maine’s incumbent congressmen each have raised more than $400,000 for their re-election bids, far outpacing Republican challengers, according to the most recent filings with the Federal Election Commission. U.S. Reps. Mike Michaud and Tom Allen, both Democrats, respectively have raised about $400,000 and $475,000 so… Read More
ORONO – The Bear Brew Pub has scheduled its grand re-opening for tonight, after the facility was shut down in January by the state for health and safety violations. Workers were scrambling Monday morning to complete renovations to the downstairs in preparation for the expected… Read More
We should have seen this coming a mile away. The cellular leash has arrived, providing anxious parents everywhere a convenient little tool with which to monitor their children’s every move. googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot var slot_sizes = [[300,250]]; var new_slot_sizes = []; var… Read More
THOMASTON – A Rockland man shot himself to death on U.S. Route 1 moments after repeatedly ramming his ex-girlfriend’s car and forcing it into a ditch. Lucas G. Kostopoulous, 27, of Rockland was dead on arrival from a single gunshot wound after being taken to… Read More
LINCOLN – If Tom and Scott Gardner have any say in it, Mattanawcook Academy will have an athletic facility that approaches state of the art when the school opens this fall. The construction company owned by the brothers, W.T. Gardner and Sons Inc. of Lincoln,… Read More
MADAWASKA – NorState Federal Credit Union is celebrating 65 years this year. Started in a one-room facility on March 9, 1941, the financial institution has grown from a one-industry organization to one that serves all of the St. John Valley, Aroostook County and northern Penobscot… Read More
BELFAST – A Swanville family was unaware their car had been stolen overnight Sunday until city police told them it had been recovered off Achorn Road. Patrolman Bryan Cunningham said an Achorn Road resident informed police Monday morning that a car with a broken rear… Read More
HOULTON – The town manager has proposed a way to allow the Aroostook Historical and Art Museum to lease and maintain a site that housed a World War II prisoner-of-war camp. At a Shiretown Development Corp. meeting last week, Town Manager Douglas Hazlett proposed a… Read More
FORT KENT – Christopher Adam Roy, 17, a Boy Scout in Troop 189 at Fort Kent, has attained the rank of Eagle Scout. A junior at Community High School at Fort Kent, Roy developed and supervised the construction of a 60-foot-long pedestrian bridge connecting the… Read More
MACHIAS – The woman killed in a single-car accident on U.S. Route 1 on Sunday afternoon has been identified as Bette A. Parker, 77, of Machias. She had shared Easter dinner with her family before returning home. The accident occurred about 2 p.m. near the… Read More
VAN BUREN – The Van Buren Yacht Club had minor damage Saturday when human carelessness caused a fire, prompting evacuation of a half-dozen full-time dwellers. Fire Chief Dana Violette said wood was ignited by unsafe action in an area near a wood-burning furnace that heats… Read More
HOWLAND – Roof reinforcement work at Penobscot Valley High School finished Friday, with only a final architect’s check remaining before the roof is certified as being in compliance with present building codes, SAD 31 school officials said Monday. Bowman Bros. of Newport finished the $57,500… Read More
HOULTON – Fresh seedlings will be springing from the earth around Houlton now that a group of volunteers has planned a groundbreaking ceremony to kick off a project that will commemorate the town’s 200th birthday. Houlton resident Kay Bell said Monday that the first trees… Read More
CROSS LAKE – Irving Woodlands has donated to Aroostook County 2 acres along Route 161 used by the Cross Lake Fire Department and the Lakeview Seniors Citizens Club. The donation has allowed the county to accept a $50,000 Community Development Block Grant to help build… Read More
BELFAST – A Northport woman who fled after her car left Lower Congress Street, flipped over an embankment and landed on its roof in Little River has been charged with failing to report an accident and driving without a license. Crystal W. Miner, 20, of… Read More
ELLSWORTH – The Downeast Family YMCA is pursuing an 18-acre city-owned parcel on Branch Lake that it hopes will be the home of a new summer day camp. YMCA Executive Director Peter Farragher made a presentation Monday evening to the City Council, which granted the… Read More
ELLSWORTH – Less than a year after passing an ordinance to charge boaters for use of Branch Lake, the City Council decided Monday to waive those fees for this season and possibly permanently. The fees, which would have charged users $2 per day or $20… Read More
A University of Maine student at an Orono dormitory called public safety officials late Sunday night after hearing an explosion outside the building. Officers found a plastic soda bottle that exploded at 10:55 p.m. behind Knox Hall near the volleyball courts on the campus, UM spokesman Joe Carr… Read More
PORTLAND – A nonprofit political group has filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Maine supreme court in support of a lower court decision to reject petitions filed with the secretary of state’s office calling for a referendum on a government spending cap. Democracy Maine cited… Read More
Members of five Penquis-area bands will perform a benefit concert beginning at 7 p.m. Saturday April 22, at Center Theatre in Dover-Foxcroft. Admission is $10. googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot var slot_sizes = [[300,250]]; var new_slot_sizes = []; var has_banner = false; for (var… Read More
BANGOR – With Stephen Marshall still at large and police uncertain whether he would strike again, Bangor investigators beefed up local patrols Sunday and searched a wooded area with a dog. But the real clue to Marshall’s whereabouts came from a small bathroom in a… Read More
WASHINGTON – Federal regulators on Monday upheld their earlier approval of a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in Fall River, Mass., handing a setback to opponents of the project. Fall River officials and other project foes had asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reconsider… Read More
PORTLAND – The numbers of New England cottontail rabbits are on the decline in Maine, with only 300 of the animals remaining in a small range in the southern end of the state. Efforts are under way to increase their numbers by preserving habitat where… Read More
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To understand the landscape of Vaino Kola’s mind, it helps to look at the landscapes on his canvases. The world, as Kola paints it, is meticulously detailed, quiet, awe-inspiring. He finds wonder in the rhythmic pattern of a stand of birches. He portrays despair through… Read More
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Teacher and lifelong knitter Darlene Oliver of Fairmount School in Bangor was 10 years old and in the fifth grade when her aunt Uldene Winship taught her to knit. Last year, when Oliver started a weekly after-school knitting group for fourth- and fifth-graders at the school, she knew… Read More
Even on a cloudy early spring day the community room at the Hampden Municipal Center was filled with light flowing in from tall windows on three sides. Kathy Childs of Bangor and her daughter Melissa Raymond of Winterport were busy conducting one of the monthly sewing classes sponsored… Read More
The Old Town High baseball team narrowly missed earning an Eastern Maine Class A playoff berth last spring – just one year after struggling to a two-win season. But with seven starters back from last year’s seven-win effort, the newly named Coyotes hope to break… Read More
Belfast High girls basketball coach Ted Rioux is heading to Waterville to serve in the same capacity next year. Belfast athletic director Terry Kenniston said Rioux, who had coached the Lions for five seasons, told the girls on his team last week. googletag.cmd.push(function () {… Read More
Cherryfield’s Andy Santerre has another job and one that could be extremely rewarding. Santerre, the team owner for Sean Caisse on the Busch East (formerly Busch North) series this coming season, is the new crew chief for 15-year-old Joey Logano in the USAR Hooters Pro… Read More
The subject is fishing. With apologies to the talented scribes of this newspaper who frequent the wilds of Maine and write about them for a living, thoughts today turn to the time I’ve spent on the water. A number of years ago, Bob Hennessey, a… Read More
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LEWISTON – Leah Citrin singled to left field in the bottom of the eighth inning to drive in Kyla Decato and give Bates College a 10-9 win over Husson College in the second game of a college softball doubleheader Monday. Bates captured the first game,… Read More
While police continued to search and keep people away from the properties of the murder victims in Milo and Corinth on Monday, residents and neighbors talked about the shocking events of the weekend. At the home of victim William Elliot, crime scene tape stretched across… Read More
AUGUSTA – Even as police were verifying Monday that the man who shot two sex offenders found their names and addresses on the state’s online sex offender registry, legislators who helped create the registry said its benefit to the public far outweighs the potential harm to convicted offenders. Read More
CAPE BRETON ISLAND, Nova Scotia – Family members, co-workers and American and Canadian police don’t know what drove a 20-year-old dishwasher at a North Sydney Chinese restaurant to apparently murder two convicted sex offenders in Maine before fatally shooting himself Sunday night on a crowded, Boston-bound bus. Read More