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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Facial recognition will be disabled and never enabled to be consistent with our policy.”
— Houlton Town Manager Cameron Clark on a controversial system of more than 50 surveillance cameras the town plans to begin using again this week.
TODAY’S TOP STORIES
Bangor still hasn’t restarted work on this “eyesore” in Pickering Square. The dirt patch between the parking garage and the Bangor Area Transit Center was torn up last summer and has sat unfinished since.
Cooper Flagg is expected to be the No. 1 NBA draft pick tonight, but it started in Maine. The Newport native faced sky-high hopes since before he was in high school and has somehow exceeded those expectations at every turn. Here’s how to watch the draft.
Janet Mills endorsed a Republican alternative to a “red flag” referendum. The measure from Rep. Jennifer Poirier, R-Skowhegan, would essentially direct more funding to mental health treatment and law enforcement to help use the state’s existing “yellow flag” law.
New laws will help a group of towns take over these Bucksport-area dams. The dams belong to a scrap metal company that wants to get rid of them.
Houlton will turn its controversial surveillance cameras back on. Town officials assured residents they will not use the included facial recognition technology.
NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE
- How a former librarian aims to use those skills as Presque Isle city manager
- Maine supreme court to decide whether state must release people without lawyers from jails
- 2 Knox County employees sue over claims of sex discrimination
- Versant Power’s rates will go up next week
- Rick Bennett leaves Republican Party to run for governor as an independent
- New I-395 extension to Route 9 opens this weekend
- This former Bangor department head is now leading an Aroostook town
- Halal butchery owners frustrated by town’s months-long delay in approving expansion
- How the federal budget proposal to slash billions from Medicaid could affect Maine
- Maine had among the nation’s top growth in productivity last year
- Paper mills in Maine are releasing more greenhouse gases than federal data shows
- Maine joins 20 states to challenge billions of dollars in Trump administration funding cuts
MAINE IN PICTURES
Cooper Flagg participates at the 2025 NBA basketball Draft Combine in Chicago, May 13. Flagg, an 18-year-old Newport native, is widely expected to be picked No. 1 overall in tonight’s NBA draft and make history as the only Mainer selected in the first round. Credit: Nam Y. Huh / AP
FROM THE OPINION PAGES
“The consequences of this budget cut extend well beyond the opioid crisis, threatening the foundation of health care access for hundreds of thousands of Mainers.”
Opinion: Medicaid cuts could worsen Maine’s opioid epidemic
LIFE IN MAINE
This home near Augusta has a “luxury resort” in the backyard.
A Bangor heat record was melted on Tuesday as temperatures came close to 100.