The African families released at the border in Texas will be offered overnight shelter in local gymnasiums, and city officials are making contingency plans in case the influx is larger than expected.
Randy Billings
Staff Writer
Randy Billings is a government watchdog and political reporter who has been the State House bureau chief since 2021. He was named the Maine Press Association’s Journalist of the Year in 2020. He joined the Press Herald in 2012 as the Portland City Hall reporter, where his beat touched on a wide range of topics, including municipal government, immigration, homelessness, housing and social services. Prior to that, he worked at various weeklies as well as business and arts publications. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maine, Orono. He lives in North Yarmouth with his wife and two children and enjoys the outdoors and playing his upright bass.
Posted inLocal & State, News
Portland council decides to ask voters whether to expand ranked-choice voting in city elections
The effort to expand ranked-choice voting to all city elections was initially led by Fair Elections Portland, but the group failed to gather enough signatures to put it on the ballot.
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Posted inLocal & State, News
Portland poised to ask voters to expand use of ranked-choice voting
The City Council on Monday is expected to set a date to ask whether they want to expand the voting method to all council and school board elections.
Posted inLocal & State, News
Portland considers ban on face-scanning technology
Civil rights advocates fear the proliferating facial recognition technology will be used to conduct mass surveillance of innocent civilians without probable cause.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Politics
Kate Snyder wins heated race for Portland mayor, unseating incumbent Ethan Strimling
After taking a commanding lead, the former school board chair wins a late-night ranked-choice runoff.
Posted inLocal & State, News
New ICE office in downtown Portland draws protests
A spokesperson says the the Homeland Security Investigations office will specialize in transnational criminal probes, not deportations.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Uncategorized
Sale of student lodging house in Bayside triggers backlash
Affordable housing activists say hundreds of low-cost Portland units will be lost and want the city to step in. The developer plans traditional apartments, but at workforce housing prices and says he’ll help anyone who’s displaced.
Posted inLocal & State, News
Deferment of deportation order makes Portland man ‘feel like a dead person who came back to life’
Abdigani Faisal Hussein of Portland had been detained for 9 months and was about to board a plane returning him to Somalia when his attorneys won a last-minute delay in a deportation order.
Posted inLocal & State, News
Portland accepts, allocates donations for asylum seekers
The city received more than $900,000 to help cover shelter and basic needs of more than 400 asylum seekers who arrived over the summer.
Posted inLocal & State, Maine Crime, News
Driver charged with manslaughter in rollover crash that killed 3 in Acadia
According to a National Park Service officer, the man had been drinking and was driving too fast.