“My name is Samantha Smith. I am ten years old.” So began the simple letter that ultimately made a little girl from Maine an international ambassador for peace in the early 1980s. Smith, born in Houlton in 1972, was living in Manchester when she sent her famous letter to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov in 1982. […]

In the opening pages of his 1998 thriller, Net Force, author Tom Clancy aptly describes a small communications device that would be recognized today in either the world of business or government as a smart phone. Clancy’s novel envisions a new type of terrorism where the country’s computer systems are taken over, leading to famine, […]

Couples crowded Times Square last week to mark the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II. They puckered up and kissed to re-enact the famous scene captured in the iconic 1945 Life magazine photo of VJ Day. Another milestone also passed with far less fanfare, the final U.S. combat brigade left Iraq last […]

Facing financial difficulties, the YWCA in Portland closed in 2006, despite a tremendous 11th-hour effort by members to raise money to keep it open. What had been a community resource on Spring Street is now a parking lot. That cannot happen to the YWCA facility on Lewiston’s East Avenue. The YWCA of Central Maine’s board […]

As high school and youth football players take to practice fields this month, they do so amid growing concern that sports-related head injuries may start early and last a lifetime. The direction of the research suggests that major changes in equipment and rules may be necessary to make football and other contact sports safer. Tuesday, […]

The series of fatal small plane crashes in Maine over the past few weeks, coupled with one high-profile crash in Alaska that claimed the life of a former U.S. senator, should give us all reason to pause. No one can say for certain what caused these accidents; they remain under investigation. But combined with another recent […]

Truth  is said to be the first victim of any war. So it is not surprising that small distinctions are the casualties of political warfare. The current tempest over President Barack Obama’s comments regarding a proposed mosque and community center in lower Manhattan is a case in point. Saturday, Obama waded into the debate over […]

Several years ago, we set out to do a story on speeding tickets in Maine. How many tickets are issued? What’s the average age of drivers? Where are they stopped the most? What are the driving? Which officers give the most tickets?  Which the fewest? So, we turned to state government for answers. After all, […]

If you have never seen a pay study at work, it’s probably because you have never worked in government before. Here’s how it goes: A department or agency gets a notion in its head that its workers are underpaid. So it hires a consultant who spends about a year finding a yardstick that proves it. […]

D’oh! Go out to bid, man. Even Homer Simpson knows that. The Lewiston-Auburn Railroad Co. — co-owned by the cities of Lewiston and Auburn — is embarking on a highly expensive renovation of the former Grand Trunk railroad depot on Lincoln Street. The renovation cost of $370,000 will be paid with public funds: $55,000 from […]