The Maine School Management Association favors a move to allow public access to disciplinary actions taken against teachers. So does the Maine Department of Education. So do we. So do thousands of Maine parents. Maine teachers, represented by the Maine Education Association, do not. It’s a curious contradiction for the MEA and its members to […]

Cheers to the Lewiston Police Department’s commitment to the community. On Thursday, the LPD officially opened its new substation on Bates Street, staffed by four officers whose complete focus will be on community policing. Remember community policing? When foot patrols were the norm in the downtown? These patrols are back, modernized and improved. The community […]

If Maine becomes the first state in the U.S. to require cancer warning stickers on cell phones, it will be a victory for speculation over science and hysteria over rationality. The Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee held a hearing Tuesday on a bill sponsored by Rep. Andrea Boland, D-Sanford, mandating just such labeling. It […]

For those who fear the government is about to start rationing health care in America, there many examples of how we already do. Here’s one. Each year, about 115 high school athletes across the U.S. die from undetected abnormal heart rhythms. And, for years, some have argued that an electrocardiogram, or ECG, could, if administered […]

Drawing unemployment payments while you’re also drawing vacation pay means you’re earning double pay. It’s double dipping, plain and simple. The Maine House has, so far, supported a bill sponsored by Speaker Hannah Pingree to permit unemployment benefits to kick in while a recently unemployed worker is also drawing vacation pay from a former employer. […]

We are looking forward to spring, but not to one of its rites — the thunder of illegally loud motorcycles. That’s why we urge local legislators to support a measure, L.D. 1675, designed to tone down noisey bikes. Sponsor Nancy Sullivan, D-Biddeford, says that reducing excessive motorcycle noise is a public health issue.  We’re not […]

When it’s gone it’s gone. That’s why the Lewiston City Council should take one last listen to a group of citizens who would like to save Bates Mill No. 5. The group, which includes County Commissioner Jonathan LaBonte, contends that the decision to level the massive old building was based upon some faulty information, and […]

If you want to open a can of worms, simply raise the subject of transportation subsidies, which is exactly what Maine’s biggest bus operator did last week. Harry Blunt, Concord Coach Lines’ president, told state officials that expanding Amtrak from Portland to Brunswick may spell the end of bus service to the mid coast, according […]

For a lot of people, using a public restroom — with its standard lack of privacy — is fraught with anxiety. For transgender teens, the anxiety can be worse. Which is why the Maine Human Rights Commission will talk Monday about advising schools to allow transgender students to choose bathrooms based on the gender with […]

Cheers to the tremendous show of courage and demand for accountability coming out of the Biggest Little State in the Union. Central Falls is one of Rhode Island’s smallest and poorest cities, according to the Providence Journal. There, where students produce very low standardized test scores and the graduation rate is a dismal 48 percent, […]