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Is that the weekend ahead? Yes, it is! And it looks like it’ll be a beautiful one, once today’s soggy weather clears out.

Today and tonight, we’re looking at a 60% chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms, with a high around 81 degrees.

This weekend looks sunny and mostly clear, with a high of around 80 degrees.

License plate-reading cameras have quietly operated in Brewer for 7 years

Traffic cameras on Route 1A in Brewer just before the Holden town line. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN

While communities across Maine are pushing back against license-plate-reading cameras — often called Flock cameras — Brewer has quietly operated two of them for seven years.

The city has never received a complaint.

BDN reporter Marie Weidmayer writes that Brewer’s cameras, installed on Route 1A in 2019, scan more than 40,000 vehicles a day during peak summer months. The cameras can record and log license plates of passing vehicles and alert police if they detect one connected to an active investigation.

Most people don’t know the cameras are there — which is part of the problem, according to the ACLU of Maine. The city did not pay for the installation or operation of the cameras, meaning the purchase never came up in a public meeting.

This raises a broader question playing out in communities across Maine and the nation: How much surveillance is acceptable, and who gets to decide?

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Democrat Zohran Mamdani takes the stage at his primary election party on June 25, 2025, in New York. Credit: Heather Khalifa / AP

“These and other activists pushed a radical agenda that eventually produced a significant social safety net.”

Opinion: Radicals and extremists have long successfully challenged the political establishment