Today is Monday. Temperatures will be in the low 60s across the state with mostly sunny skies. Here’s what we’re talking about in Maine today.
Here’s the latest on the coronavirus in Maine
Another Mainer has died and 346 more coronavirus cases were reported across the state on Sunday, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The statewide death toll now stands at 765. Check out our COVID-19 Tracker for more information.
Half of Maine’s population of age 16 and up has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while nearly 38 percent have received their final dose.
Inside the Maine State Police, officer misdeeds are kept secret
In discipline records that provide one of the only public windows into officer malfeasance, the state police includes so few details about trooper misbehavior that the public cannot know what the officers did wrong by reading them. The practice defies the intent of the state law that makes discipline records public, according to those who helped craft the statute 30 years ago.
The lack of information in the records illustrates one way Maine’s largest police force exhibits a pattern of secrecy that blocks it from public scrutiny.
Read the Maine State Police discipline records here.
A look at the misconduct hidden by Maine’s largest police force
During a joint investigation, the Bangor Daily News and the Portland Press Herald worked to learn the truth behind the opaque language of more than five years of state police discipline records, drawing on police sources, licensing documents, court records, vehicle crash reports and witness interviews.
In doing so the newspapers discovered the state police may not be holding officers accountable to a level the public would find acceptable.
Coronavirus complaints expected to rise during tourism season
Complaints about Maine businesses flouting coronavirus rules have been low, but that may be the calm before the tourism-season storm.
Nearly 70 percent of Maine’s active COVID-19 outbreaks are now in schools
But that doesn’t mean the virus is spreading rampantly within schools, where strict masking and social distancing and other arrangements to minimize student contact have kept transmission in check.
Vaccine hesitancy remains low in Maine, bucking rural-state trends
Maine ranks 11th-lowest in vaccine hesitancy among U.S. states, according to survey data analyzed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, with 12.3 percent of the adult population considered hesitant and 7.8 percent strongly hesitant.
PLUS: Remote Alaska villages boast high vaccination rates
Now is the time to prepare your pets for when you leave them for the day
If your pet won’t respond well to you going away for hours at a time, it’s better for your pet, you and your home’s furnishings to address it now.
She lost her father as a teen. Now, she’s written a book with the man wrongly convicted of killing him.
With their lives inextricably linked by trauma, more than 40 years later, Amy Banks and Issac Knapper and their families have found within each other a path to healing and redemption.
Paddlers battle low water, cold conditions in 54th Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race
This year’s overall champ was Ben Randall of Sabattus, who finally took the top spot after finishing second four years in a row.
PLUS: Results from Saturday’s 54th Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race
AND: Here are the best photos from Bangor’s Kenduskeag canoe race
Bid winter weather adieu with a final bobcat-in-snow photo
This is hopefully the last time we see any snow until at least November.
In other Maine news…
Bangor man faces drug charges after man died outside his Center Street apartment
UMaine police looking for man following alleged social media threat
Woman drowns after falling from catwalk into St. Croix River
Woman dies in Fairfield house fire
New ferry to Maine’s islands is undergoing sea trials
UMaine’s Blanca Millan signs contract with WNBA’s Washington Mystics