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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Former mill towns understand the bitter taste of industrial concentration.” 

— Shane Flynn, tenant recruitment manager for One North, which operates and maintains the former Great Northern Paper mill site in Millinocket. Plans to build a $300 million data center on the property that were first announced in 2021 have been canceled, the site’s redevelopment manager said Wednesday.

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

“I am concerned”: Here’s how Susan Collins criticizes President Donald Trump as he targets Maine. While both allies and critics of the Republican senator acknowledge she is in an uncomfortable position, they disagree on how much she is helping Maine.

The Maine State Library is laying off one-third of its staff after federal cuts. The lost funding came from an independent federal agency targeted for elimination by Trump.

A fifth of Americans are on Medicaid. Some of them have no idea. Many states have rebranded their Medicaid programs with consumer-friendly names such as SoonerCare in Oklahoma, Apple Health in Washington and MaineCare in Maine.

Two aggressive invasive fish are both living in a Maine river, and scientists don’t know what will happen. The newcomers are making it difficult for the native species to use the river for their traditional feeding grounds.

Bangor schools approved a $62 million budget. The spending plan is $2.8 million — or 4.7 percent — higher than last year.

NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE

MAINE IN PICTURES

Hundreds of concerned health care providers and families packed into the John A. Millar Civic Center in Houlton on Wednesday night for a town hall regarding the recently announced closing of the Houlton Regional Hospital’s labor and delivery department. Credit: Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli / BDN

FROM THE OPINION PAGES

Members of the Ku Klux Klan march in their first New England parade in Milo on July 3, 1923. Credit: Courtesy of the Maine Historical Society

“We owe it to our ancestors — millworkers, loggers, farmers and laborers — who pulled themselves up and sacrificed to give us a better life, to remember that their silence was not chosen. It was imposed by law.”

Opinion: More than 100 years ago, Maine outlawed French in schools. We can’t forget that legacy.

LIFE IN MAINE

Even experienced birders still have a lot to learn. One problem with guidebooks is that they typically present the bird in a perfect pose. In real life, the little twerps rarely sit quietly. 

Here are three buried pirate treasures that may be in Maine. The Pine Tree State has its fair share of tales of fortunes stashed away for safekeeping, but there’s no X marking the spots.