Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and Congressman Charles Rangel have almost nothing in common except this: They still enjoy the enthusiastic support of their most ardent fans and supporters despite their manifestly bad behavior. The Pittsburgh Steelers star “heard nothing but cheers from the crowd” of about 10,000 people as he made his way to the team’s […]

It’s the bane of newspaper people everywhere, readers claiming “there’s no good news in the newspaper.” It’s there. Really it is. Research shows, however, that people tend to recall bad-news stories much more readily than good news. In other words, stories about people doing good things with happy endings just don’t stick in the old […]

In this country, accidental drowning is the No. 1 cause of death among children under 4 years old. A young Carthage boy was spared that fate Wednesday when his stepmother — a nurse — revived him after he fell into the Webb River in Carthage. The 3-year-old child, who was visiting the home of a […]

While we like to think of our state as pristine compared to the rest of the nation, that’s not the picture that emerges from a beach-closing report issued Tuesday. Eleven percent of Maine’s beach water samples in 2009 exceeded bacterial standards. Nationwide, the average was 7 percent. That’s according to a Portland-based advocacy group, Environment […]

There aren’t many TV ads you can enjoy watching over and over, but the ad for the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee is one of them. “The things that make us Americans are the things we make,” intones an announcer to vintage footage of rail spikes being driven, a locomotive racing across the skyline and a […]

Campaigns for the top office in the state usually have some slips, failings and misappropriated and/or poorly stated comments. It’s how people can tell if the candidates are thinking about what they are saying. Missteps will be made and inappropriate things said when candidates are in front of the public as much as they are […]

The American kestrel is a handsome bird of prey with a wide wingspan, distinctive fan-like tail and a chiseled profile. While they don’t cause much of a stir while perched on power lines in Maine, a Kestrel of a different sort landed with considerable fanfare last week at the Augusta State Airport. The fledgling Kestrel […]

If you think your town manager is well paid, consider Bell, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles where residents apparently awoke from a deep slumber to find city officials gorging themselves at the public trough. The city manager was earning $787,000 per year, just under twice as much as the president of the U.S. The […]