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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“What we originally envisioned as a wonderful little organic composting facility that would make great products is now a toxic waste site … It’s a terrible tragedy, what’s happened.”

— Bill Ginn, former chief conservation officer at The Nature Conservancy, who in 1989 started what is now the heavily contaminated Hawk Ridge Compost Facility.

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

Bangor spent nearly $120,000 to clean up its largest homeless encampment. The land, which spans about 7 acres between Cleveland Street and Texas Avenue, was home to nearly 100 people.

A celebrated conservationist’s unwitting role in Maine’s PFAS crisis. Bill Ginn is mad about what happened at the Hawk Ridge Compost Facility that he started 35 years ago as a recycling center.

We asked Maine mayors how they would handle a meeting with President Donald Trump. After Trump’s meeting with New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, we asked four Maine mayors what they’d discuss with him.

Here are three homes in Ellsworth that sold in November. All are single-family houses with an average selling price of slightly more than $283,000, which is less than the price of an average Ellsworth home.

Help us raise funds for emergency heating assistance on Giving Tuesday. Join the Bangor Daily News, Pulse Marketing Agency, Maine Community Action Partnership and local banks to help Mainers heat their homes.

NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE

MAINE IN PICTURES

A woman and child pose for a photo in front of Bangor’s holiday tree in West Market Square shortly after it was lit Friday evening. Credit: Sawyer Loftus / BDN

FROM THE OPINION PAGES

Maine election officials, including former Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, left, and Deputy Secretary of State Julie Flynn, center, begin counting ballots on Nov. 9, 2018, in Augusta. Credit: Marina Villeneuve / AP

“We cannot count on anyone in Washington to come and rescue us; we have to do it ourselves.”

Opinion: I’m running for Congress because Mainers deserve a better future

LIFE IN MAINE

Woodpeckers in Maine are acting weird. “This year’s woodpeckers, and the one in my yard in 2012, were all immature. … But that’s not the weirdest thing,” Outdoors contributor Bob Duchesne writes.

This is one solution for Mount Desert Island’s deer problem. “If the Southwest Harbor leaders really want to begin addressing the deer issue, step one would be a phased in hunting season,” Outdoors contributor V. Paul Reynolds writes.

Here are three Maine hunting laws I hope change in the new year. Outdoors contributor Al Raychard writes that most of the items on his holiday wish list involve “issues my fellow hunters, nonhunters and others across the state can’t agree on.