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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Sixty days and potentially it will be an all new, unplanned for, unacceptable ball game.”
— Connie Kousman of Hancock, whose health insurance coverage is in limbo due to stalled negotiations between Anthem and Northern Light Health.
TODAY’S TOP STORIES
30,000 Mainers in limbo as negotiations between Northern Light Health and Anthem drag on. Talks stalled in June, when Northern Light announced the contract would expire if Anthem didn’t agree to raise reimbursement rates.
What we know about Penobscot County’s plan to build a new jail in Hampden. A possible site has been chosen, but there are significant steps to be completed before the facility can be constructed.
The next frontier in Maine’s “David and Goliath” fight over broadband expansion. When Vienna Broadband’s municipal network goes live for its first customers on Aug. 1, it will launch with new competition.
Extreme heat is becoming a bigger problem for pregnant Mainers. Doctors said high temperatures are increasingly stressing the health of expectant mothers and unborn babies.
Maine city’s push to expand low-incoming housing drove developers away. Portland’s inclusionary zoning requires developers of housing projects with 10 or more units to set aside 25 percent of the units as affordable housing.
These towns hope to better market unique Maine municipal arrangement. Since 1992, Mapleton, Castle Hill and Chapman have shared a budget, town office, fire, highway and recreation departments, and more.
NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE
- Maine lawmaker gets trespassing notice after hometown parade argument
- As electricity demand grows, Maine weighs nuclear power
- How a Maine museum lost the largest piece of Mars on Earth
- BDN cartoonist George Danby to be inducted into Maine Press Association hall of fame
- Firefighters contain building fire in Newport
- Hikers who spent the night on Katahdin’s Knife Edge rescued
- A new Aroostook ‘bin store’ offers a fresh take on discount shopping
- DEP, Coast Guard respond after houseboat swamps
- A new midcoast motel offers ‘summer camp’ for adults
- Man dies in rural Maine fire
- Egg-carrying lobster rescued from Utah restaurant dies on her way to Maine
- Badly injured person found in Scarborough road
- Suspect arrested in gunshot incident that put UNE Portland campus on lockdown
- Maine, NH study possible suicide barrier on Piscataqua River Bridge
- Dramatic rally sends defending champion Bangor Babes to title game
- UMaine joining ‘first of its kind’ basketball challenge next year
MAINE IN PICTURES
FROM THE OPINION PAGES
“High-profile stories like Epstein’s shouldn’t distract us from the more common realities of trafficking.”
LIFE IN MAINE
Maine’s legendary blueberry rake maker is still inventing at 83. For the past 35 years, Ike Hubbard has been supplying the wild blueberry industry in Maine from a shop beside his home.
Uncommon birds spotted in Maine this summer. “It’s been a summer of birding surprises. Mostly, the birds have been surprising other people,” Good Birding columnist Bob Duchesne writes.
There’s more to harvesting Maine’s wild native fish than ethics. “Practicing zero-harvest and encouraging others to do so doesn’t undermine conservation — it promotes it as a personal choice,” Outdoors contributor Bob Mallard writes.