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A new documentary explores immigrant youth and their place in Maine and America

The weight of the world
"Back in the Congo, we heard rumors that America is paradise — where everything is perfect, money flows like water, you can eat as much as you want, whenever you want, you can get anything," says Emmanuel Muya, one of 15 immigrant high school students featured in a new documentary, The Whole World Waiting , which will premiere at SPACE Gallery on Thursday.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | May 23, 2012

Lawmakers mostly stand up against environmental assault

‘Holding the line’
Republican state Senator Thomas Saviello, at one point widely considered a foe of Maine's environment, may have just saved it. At the least, he was a leader in saving a good part of it.

By: LANCE TAPLEY | May 23, 2012

Positive change, at last

Balls, Pucks & Monster Trucks
Even when the Sanford School Committee gets it right, its members manage to be wrong.

By: RICK WORMWOOD | May 16, 2012

Portland’s lady arm-wrestlers slug it out

Battle of the biceps
There was a moment during Saturday's raucous debut smackdown of the Superhero Lady Armwrestlers of Portland when it looked like the favorite, Voom Voom Valhalla, would certainly lose.

By: SARA ANNE DONNELLY | May 09, 2012

What’s driving the East-West Highway?

Taxpayer dollars, secrecy, and private interests
Eminent domain! The government's ability to seize land for a public purpose strikes terror into the hearts of many landowners.

By: LANCE TAPLEY | May 02, 2012

Obama Occupies

Press releases
It's no surprise that the mainstream media are treating the latest policy moves by President Barack Obama as part of the strategic maneuvering supporting his reelection bid.

By: JEFF INGLIS | May 02, 2012

Inside Maine's mouth

The state's decaying dental health
Last summer, 29-year-old "Jane," who lives in Portland, had a serious problem involving an "old root canal gone wrong."

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | May 03, 2012

Mainstream progressives get Occupied

The 99 Percent Spring begins
"We are the 99 percent!" reverberates in the basement of the Portland Public Library on a Saturday morning. Ninety radicals — well, maybe damn strong liberals — are plotting to take over the government — well, in any case, to harass the one percent.

By: LANCE TAPLEY | April 18, 2012

Empathy, racism, and Venn diagrams

Balls, Pucks, and Monster Trucks
Roland Cote raised his hand. Fifty people were in the basement of a Sanford church, listening to several Native Americans and tribal elders, some of whom had driven more than 500 miles to be there, speak about how offensive the local high school's continued use of the mascot name "Redskins" was for their community.

By: RICK WORMWOOD | April 18, 2012

Angus for real

In an interview, the ex-governor and independent Senate candidate explains his political views as expressed in his Bowdoin blogs
Barring an act of God, utter stupidity, or an unexpected explosion of well-financed excellence from one of the second-stringers who will prevail in Maine's Democratic and Republican United States Senate primaries, Angus S. King Jr. will be the state's next US senator.

By: LANCE TAPLEY | March 21, 2012

Hater-Ade pub crawl

Balls, pucks, and monster trucks
The plan was simple: pub crawling, drinking beer, and watching March Madness basketball games with friends.

By: RICK WORMWOOD | March 21, 2012

Silencing Occupy

Big protests are planned. So is suppression.
Get ready for the protests. Get ready for the warm American spring — and maybe a hot summer and fall.

By: LANCE TAPLEY | March 14, 2012

Vocational education opens new opportunities for all students

Blue collar girls
Walk around the cavernous "hard trades" wing of the Portland Arts and Technology High School (PATHS) — which houses the auto-mechanic, carpentry, and welding programs, among others — and you're bound to witness a hubbub of activity, the bubbling-over energy of teenagers at work, the industrial sounds and smells of machinery and tools.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | March 07, 2012

A non-traditional career pioneer lives right here in Maine

Paving the way
Dale McCormick knows this fight.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | March 07, 2012

Distant view

Press releases
Of all the coverage of Olympia Snowe's decision not to run for re-election this year, the Maine media should have been expected to handle it best.

By: JEFF INGLIS | March 07, 2012

Jason Phelps and his 2663.5-mile plan

Take a hike, Jerk
If you pay attention to the local music scene at all, you probably know bluegrass band Jerks of Grass have been playing every Thursday night — first at the now-defunct Bramhall Pub, then at Gritty's, and now at Bayside Bowl — since sometime in 1998.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | March 01, 2012

The power of texting

Mobile phones and alternative currencies are changing how the whole world pays for everything
Money — crispy banknotes and jangly coins — is as old-fashioned as, well, mechanical typewriters.

By: JEFF INGLIS | March 02, 2012

The strange lights of Stratton

Visit the village near Sugarloaf and hear stories of the unexplainable, unbelievable, and downright weird
At first, Sue Critchlow thought the lights came from a car. She owns the Maine Roadhouse, a refuge for hikers and backpackers located not too far from the Saddleback and Sugarloaf ski resorts, and she figured lodgers were pulling up for the night.

By: JOHN CRAWFORD | February 22, 2012

Elusive enshrinement

Balls, Pucks and Monster Trucks
In December 2010, I made a case for Portland boxer Pete Riccitelli's induction into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame, in the snappily titled "The Case for Pete Riccitelli."

By: RICK WORMWOOD | February 22, 2012