Cheers and jeers from around the news:• Cheers to the Air National Guard for agreeing on a full environmental impact study of low-level flights across Western Maine. Enough questions about these flights were raised to make this study appropriate.What’s most pleasing is the Guard chose to conduct the study; it was not compelled. It was […]

Until a legal notice about the abandoned baby “Alexis Safe Haven” was published in this newspaper recently, we didn’t know Maine had a “Safe Haven” law. In retrospect, this was a good thing; safe haven is one of those laws that are best when unused.Under safe haven in Maine, children less than one month old […]

If an elected official has a conflict of interest, he should disclose it. If the conflict is deemed serious, the official should remove himself from debate and voting.Seems sweet and simple. So why is this sometimes so hard to do?Dan Herrick is an Auburn city councilor and a general contractor. A few months ago, he […]

The last seat we’d like to fill nowadays is on the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee, which has the arduous task of slimming state government by $150 million for now, and then several hundred million dollars more later. Call it a “stock market crash diet.”Yet this process is about more than hitting a figure. Anybody with a […]

In December, the city of Lewiston made its wish list. Not for Santa, though, but President-elect Barack Obama, whose campaign promises of economic stimuli sent visions of more than sugar plums dancing in the heads of local leaders.The list is vast, with about 50 items costing more than $66 million. It’s a roster of everything […]

Snowmobiling is a great outdoor pastime which contributes millions to the state’s economy. Unfortunately, like any other human activity, it also attracts its share of selfish dolts.There are, of course, those who drive drunk, or too fast, or who venture out on thin ice. They are a menace to themselves and others, and they have […]

Will the Obama stimulus pull America out of its recession? Nobody needs to be told that our economy is going down the tubes at a rate unseen for decades. Every week brings new numbers that are setting records. In just the three months that ended in November the job loss was 1.26 million, the worst […]

Will the Obama stimulus pull America out of its recession? President-elect Barack Obama has announced plans for a new stimulus package containing $500 billion to $700 billion worth of public works projects. The package would be “the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the federal highway system,” he said. America’s governors already […]

Americans are used to the occasional political and business scandal, but 2008 produced a bumper crop of embarrassments, with a particular rush as the year drew to a close.Foul-mouthed Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was secretly taped discussing how he expected to make money by selling Barack Obama’s Senate seat. The boyish governor seems likely to […]

The year gone by has been pretty awful, and many say the prospects for 2009 aren’t much better. The governor of the Bank of Spain, to cite one example, recently declared that the entire world economy was facing a financial meltdown.“The lack of confidence is total,” said Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez, who is also a […]