We’re here again. A powerful and determined president is squaring off against an independent investigator operating inside the Justice Department. Robert Mueller’s mission is a comprehensive look at Russian meddling in the 2016 election — and any other crimes he uncovers in the process. President Donald Trump insists it’s all a “witch hunt” and an […]
Perspective
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What time is it?
Alexa, what time is the apocalypse? Ulp. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the symbolic Doomsday Clock a notch closer to the end of humanity Thursday, moving it ahead by 30 seconds. It is now set at two minutes to “midnight.” In moving the clock 30 seconds closer to the hour of the apocalypse, […]
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How did we lose a president's daughter?
Many people know that Thomas Jefferson had a long-standing relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings. But fewer know that they had four children, three boys and a girl, who survived to adulthood. Born into slavery, Sally’s daughter Harriet boarded a stagecoach to freedom at age 21, bound for Washington, D.C. Her father had given her […]
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Is a unified Korea possible?
North and South Korean athletes will march under one flag during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea. The “Korean Unification Flag” is both a highly symbolic marker of reconciliation and a reminder of a divided Korea, a condition that has lasted since 1945. As a scholar of East Asian […]
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How talented kids from low-income families become America's 'Lost Einsteins'
To maximize innovation and growth, all of our brightest youth should have the opportunity to become inventors. But a study we recently conducted, jointly with Neviana Petkova of the U.S. Treasury, paints a very different picture. We found that a child’s potential for future innovation seems to have as much to do with the circumstances […]
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Maine women have long fought for equal rights, and the fight continues still
The old always seems to have a familiar ring to it. About a hundred years ago — Sept. 10, 1917 — Maine voters cast their votes against the Maine Women’s Suffrage Referendum which would have granted women equal suffrage with men. Against the background of National Women’s Rights conventions, celebrated national feminist Lucy Stone carried […]
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Gerrymandering has broken our democracy. The Supreme Court should help fix it.
When the Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday in Gill v. Whitford, contesting Wisconsin’s legislative map, it will have a chance to rein in an aggressive new breed of data-driven gerrymandering that divides communities and diminishes the voice of many Americans. The record is clear, and the Supreme Court must take this opportunity to protect the […]
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Troubled minds, ‘shattered’ system
After 27 years, Mainestill fails to comply with the court-ordered decree to improve treatment of the state’s mentally ill. In April, while incarcerated at the Maine State Prison’s Intensive Mental Health Unit in Warren, James Staples removed his own eyeball. The 66-year-old prisoner, who has a lengthy history of both mental illness and assault and […]
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Maine Labor Day, democracy and economic justice
“A Free Ballot and a Fair Count” — A plea by Democrat State Rep. T.F. Callahan of Lewiston on March 7, 1891. “The Secret Ballot is the Honest Ballot” — Banner carried in Labor Day parade in Portland on Sept. 2, 1891. * * * In an age when widespread criticism of income inequality and […]
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Faithful work by the Prince of Peace orison ministry
God can be found in the darkest of places. Such is the belief of the four men in the Prince of Peace Parish prison ministry, who, once a week, travel to Androscoggin County Jail in an attempt to encourage faith among those who may need it most: inmates. “We open up a different perspective, or […]