With rippling muscles and broad shoulders, he drove spikes with his 40-pound hammer, nicknamed Lucy, faster than any man alive during the backbreaking railroad era. But John Henry, the legendary steel-drivin’ man of American legend, died trying to compete with a more efficient machine.Facing the odds, and succeeding, is common in American folklore. Social history […]

Chief Enron thief Kenneth Lay must be rolling in his grave laughing after a federal judge Oct. 17 vacated his criminal convictions for fraud and conspiracy, as his fortuitous July demise may now preserve his personal fortune from repaying thousands of Enron employees cheated by his actions.And they say you can’t take it with you.In […]

In this election horse race, the Maine Hospital Association has plunked down its last $2 and is hoping for the best. Whether the landmark settlement to repay millions from Medicaid succeeds will be determined by candidates, and voters, during this taut homestretch toward Election Day.Next to the campaigns, the MHA has the most to lose, […]

Firefighters are meant to be fearless, rough-and-tumble sorts. Adrenaline junkies who rush to the next call, to save the next life, to fight the next inferno. They are trained to respond with the help that’s needed most. Little surprise, then, that Shawn Metayer is coming back to work today.Metayer, a Lewiston firefighter and part-time paramedic […]

It’s a haul from the United Nations floor to the town office in Turner, and even farther from the CITGO on Route 4 to the office of controversial President Hugo Chavez in Caracas, Venezuela.At least one official in Turner, however, seems to think both are around the corner.In a meeting Monday, Selectman Charlie Mock boldly […]

Please turn off the spin machine. Like a child in a whirling amusement park teacup, the spins only make us dizzy and irritable.Such as last week, when a trio of state officials unexpectedly called to proffer opinions on a new report, “Poverty in Maine 2006,” released by the Maine Community Action Center and the Margaret […]

Houses don’t generally fall down without help, and though age and deterioration are likely culprits in a recent incident in Wilton, the town played a role as well.In a cloud of dust, a decrepit, two-story home in Wilton plummeted earthward Thursday, surprising neighbors and seemingly reminding town officials – oh yeah – there is a […]

The meticulous review by Kingfield’s planning board on the proposed construction of a Poland Spring bottling plant exemplifies smart growth, which is what it should really mean to be from Maine.From hours of painstaking review of the bottler’s 1,000-page application, to the intricate calculations on aquifer load and supply, to the days of public hearings, […]

Resources are inherently scarce. Whether natural, like timber, limestone or oil, or capital, like money or credit, the amount is nearly always finite. The same is true of an important, and overlooked, resource of Lewiston and Auburn: its people. The community’s millworkers, specifically.On Oct. 8, some 400 millworkers and guests were feted at the Bates […]

From Bucharest to Bangor, the media has zealously grabbed onto Tuesday’s about-face by Sen. Olympia Snowe on the war in Iraq. “Another Republican questions war,” the headlines trumpeted, following last week’s well-publicized break by Republican Sen. John Warner of Virgina.The influential chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, Warner said after his latest visit to […]