Author: Ted Cohen

Two recent fatal oceanic accidents – including one in Maine – are raising questions about the degree to which federal maritime-safety oversight has played a role, and if so whether misplaced priorities had anything to do with that. The Coast Guard in both accidents – one of which occurred off Rockland, Maine – concluded it shared some of the blame. In the 2023 Maine schooner tragedy, a midcoast physician was killed when a rotted mast aboard the Grace Bailey collapsed during a North Atlantic cruise. Also in 2023, Titan, a tiny sub, exploded during an expedition to view the wreck…

A western Massachusetts victim of a brutal assault finally may be able to put the nightmares behind her. Jamie Dodge, 49, of Brownville pleaded guilty this week to aggravated rape and kidnapping in a case stemming from 2000. The cops in Holland, Massachusetts have been looking for their suspect since July 2000, when a woman there reported she’d been attacked. The adult victim told investigators that she was walking around Sand Hill Road when she was grabbed from behind, pulled off the road and dragged into the woods. The unknown attacker who then sexually assaulted her was never found. Police…

Maine lobstermen, fishing with rope-connected traps since time began, may be forced by “environmentalists” to go high-tech to access waters made currently off-limits by federal authorities at the behest of whale enthusiasts. And they’re dubious about a plan to use “ropeless” traps even though it would let them fish in a restricted area. The plan proposed by federal regulators would allow lobstermen to fish an area that closes seasonally to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales. The restricted area, a 967-square-mile stretch of the Gulf of Maine from the New Hampshire border to midcoast Maine, is closed to fishing annually…

A perp who allegedly walked up to a Westbrook couple and randomly shot them both dead is doing well showing the judge he’s nuts. Marcel LaGrange, 26, has spent much of the week refusing to participate in a court hearing designed to determine his mental competence. When he was arrested two years ago after allegedly killing two strangers who were sitting in their car with their two children, a judge asked the South Portland suspect how he was going to plead when his trial came up. “I’m not guilty,” LaGrange said at the time. “Not guilty by reason of insanity.”…

A Mechanic Falls man who disappeared four decades ago while on a solo worldwide sailing dare will be honored by a new bridge in his hometown. Bill Dunlop, 41, arrived in England in 1982 after sailing in a virtual bathtub from Portland. Dunlop had successfully sailed in the smallest boat ever – at nine feet not much larger than a bathtub – to have crossed the Atlantic. He had set sail from Portland in a craft so small he could barely stand up in it. But a year later, setting his sights on circumnavigating the world, he set out from…

As speculation grows over possible 2026 Democrat candidates for U.S. senator from Maine, one most-obvious name hardly ever comes up. Chellie Pingree. So what is keeping Pingree, who has been in the U.S. House for 16 years, from taking a good old-fashioned chance at a promotion and running against Republican incumbent Susan Collins. It’s certainly not the fear of losing money, which Pingree has plenty of, as The Maine Wire has analyzed. Sure she gets a bigger pension the longer she sits on her nestegg, also known as her safe seat in the House. (Quiver Quantitative estimates Chellie Pingree’s net…

A veteran Maine radio jock says he’ll never forget: ladies and gentlemen, the one, the only, Hulk Hogan… walking into the studio. “In 2001, when Q97.9 was just a mere five years old and our studios were still on Warren Avenue in Portland, Hogan and his daughter, Brooke, stopped in to visit,” recalls Jeff Parsons. “I remember it very well and was surprised to see this legend in person without all the hype I was used to seeing on TV.” The Hulk, who died July 24 at age 71, was a regular Maine wrestling combatant. He actually made eight World…

A leading Maine rabbi is calling a foul on the state’s junior senator for dropping Israeli support based on false reporting in the legacy media. King blindly followed the “reporting” that falsely blames Israel for whatever alleged humanitarian crisis exists in Gaza and parlayed it into a cheap political speech. That’s the view of Rabbi Larry Rubinstein, a veteran respected cleric and board member of the Maine Policy Institute. “Israel was attacked by Hamas October 7, 2023 and took many hostages, some of which are still being held under terrible conditions,” Rubinstein told The Maine Wire. “Hamas views any treaty…

A Texas-born former FBI agent has joined the crowd of Democrats seeking to become Maine’s next chief executive officer. Jason Cherry, a lawyer currently living in Unity, said he is focused on increasing government transparency and accountability. Based on academic credentials alone, statistics are in Cherry’s favor. Five of the seven Maine governors in the last 50 years have had law degrees, with the exception of Democrat John Baldacci and Republican Paul LePage. So Maine voters seem, oddly, to have a fondness for lawyers when it comes to choosing their governor. On the other hand, only one governor in the…

A growing leftist ideology in the Episcopal church may be the reason Russian clergymen – former Episcopalians – are expanding their Maine presence. Two Russian religious leaders in Maine say they left the Episcopal obsession with “LGBTQ+” politics to create their own kind of orthodox worship in Bucksport. Deacon James Parsons of Bucksport’s St. Innocent of Alaska Mission, and Archpriest Chad Williams, the rector of the faith’s church in Richmond who travels to Bucksport for services, both left the Episcopal faith they were raised in. Williams, who explained that he left the Episcopal church in the 1980s, said it began…

Maine’s largest newspaper’s experiment in covering its outlier towns from Portland was apparently doomed from the start. Duh. The Portland Press Herald, which had recently decided to cover the central part of the state from 100 miles away, has decided that dog won’t hunt. So rather than doing the job with a staffer from Portland, the paper is now advertising for a freelancer out of the Skowhegan area. The MTLN suits had tried to fill the Skowhegan slot with Portland staffer Alex Lear after the incumbent was reassigned to a different beat. “Lear apparently found it difficult to get the…

Maine’s version of government-run, taxpayer-financed state media, popularly dubbed “public broadcasting,” will likely have to find a new source of bucks to avoid possible layoffs. The announced shutdown last week of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting means a $2.5 million annual loss to Maine Public Broadcasting Network. Coincidentally enough the Pine Tree State’s version of “public” broadcasting, commonly known as Maine Public, kicks off its summer fundraising campaign today August 4. The decision to shutter CPB came a week after President Trump signed a bill canceling its $1.1 billion in federal funding. The White House has called the taxpayer-financed public-media…

Fresh on the heels of blocking The Maine Wire from one of his “public” events, Democrat Senate hopeful Jordan Wood is now taking incoming fire from his own party. “Having no events until a single campaign event at the end of August is not going to be enough to beat Susan Collins,” says a Wood supporter named GoddessFiana. “Does he need staff?” the Goddess asked a Reddit political forum. “I’m pretty good with event logistics.” Though other Wood “backers” are calling out the Goddess for criticizing his alleged lackluster campaign, they seem to secretly feel her – and apparently his…

A supermarket sale flyer denying Maine customers a discount on a gallon of milk has lit a fire under free-market advocates. What are we, chopped liver? In Maine, yes we are, at least when it comes to taxpayer subsidies for dairy farmers. Unfortunately for Maine consumers, the Pine Tree State is one of seven nationwide with a minimum price for a gallon of milk. Though the policy is designed to keep farmers from losing money, it has triggered a firestorm on Reddit as being pure unabashed socialism. “And it costs poor people 50% more than our neighboring states!” noted Standsaboxer.…

Not a good idea to stop on the main road into Acadia or Baxter to bear-watch. No, not because the bear might see you as dinner. But because traffic backs up when a camera-toting naturalist puts his RV in park and everyone behind him sits…and…steams. It just happened in a national park, Yosemite, and motorists caught in the ensuing hour-long traffic jam went viral on the Internet. “Who are you to think you can just park in the road, get out and take pictures?” asked one frustrated park motorist. “We are not on vacation with you. We have places to…

A world-renowned 20th-century sculptor who put Rockland, Maine on the map loved scrounging in trash bins for scrap wood. That’s the reminiscence of Louise Nevelson as recalled by her granddaughter in a CBS Sunday Morning interview promoting a new Nevelson exhibit. “She’d dumpster dive, she’d get into the garbage can, she’d pull out filthy pieces of wood, and we’d have to take ’em home,” said Maria Nevelson. “I would say the streets of New York weren’t paved with gold for her; it was paved with garbage. And she loved it!” Nearly six decades after the artist’s first Whitney Museum of…

The Coast Guard is calling for increased mast inspections of commercial wooden sailing ships in the wake of a fatal Maine schooner accident two years ago. The mast of the Grace Bailey collapsed off Rockland in 2023, killing passenger Emily Mecklenburg. “There are currently more than 275 sailing vessels certificated to operate as small passenger vessels and approximately 110 of those vessels have wooden hulls,” a Coast Guard report says. “The Coast Guard will survey those vessels.” The vessel’s mast maintenance and inspection documentation practices should have been more aggressive, according to the Coast Guard. But the victim’s father is…

A former longtime top editor of Maine’s largest legacy newspaper is blasting its latest iteration as an “embarrassment.” Cliff Schechtman, who oversaw the Portland Press Herald newsroom from 2012 to 2021, is quoted in a Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism analysis of the paper’s new “nonprofit” ownership. “I’m simply embarrassed by what the Press Herald has become,” Schechtman says. “The standards have dropped dramatically, and the productivity is a shadow of what it was.” He is among several legacy media execs quoted in the piece published this week by Medill’s “Local News Initiative.” Meanwhile, the article also quotes the…

A Republican state legislator who bravely sponsored bills to keep boys out of women’s sports and bathrooms quickly found out how to raise hackles in Maine’s woke ecosphere, but the wilderness guide isn’t backing down. Rep. Elizabeth Caruso (R-Caratunk) told the Maine Monitor the point of the two bills she sponsored – L.D. 868 and L.D. 1337 – was to protect girls from discrimination and restore fair competition. Fairly simple and straightforward, one might think. What came next; however, was organized pushback by not only the usual suspect, but also a surprising sub-sect of clergy, driven by a questionable political…

Never try to outdo the animal-rights clique when it comes to creating a media spectacle. To wit, People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which went to court last week to try to stop the Maine Lobster Festival, now has a new grisly tack. “On opening day of the Maine Lobster Festival – where thousands of sentient lobsters will be cooked alive in violation of Maine cruelty-to-animals law which prohibits tormenting sentient animals – PETA supporters will gather for an eye-popping demonstration in which a chef will drag a struggling, screaming human “lobster” to a giant, steaming pot and “scald”…

A longtime liberal D.C. newspaper “fact checker” is on the way out, suggesting that Maine’s newspaper fact police might want to take shelter. “Washington Post’s controversial fact checker exits paper amid anti-woke reboot…and he isn’t being replaced,” blared Daily Mail.com’s headline. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, chief writer of “The Fact Checker,” announced on Monday that he’s leaving the paper. The Daily Mail is positing that Kessler’s ouster may stem from “a slew of recent steps taken by owner Jeff Bezos and CEO Will Lewis to try and help the paper shed its left-wing reputation.” The Soros-friendly Portland Press Herald…

A collective of water-sports enthusiasts and fishermen will hold two ceremonies to honor the memory of a Maine paddleboarder killed earlier this month. The Mic Mac Cove gathering of paddleboarders, canoers and kayakers is set for August 7, which would have been Sunshine Stewart’s birthday. A “maritime celebration of life” is also being planned for August 10th in Tenants Harbor, the town where Stewart lived. Police said they found Stewart’s body July 3 in Union on a Crawford Pond island, the victim of a brutal murder. A teenage Mic Mac Cove camper, Deven Young, 17 – weeks away from his…

The planet-wide intrigue stemming from a high-brow alleged affair between two top-level NY execs has now moved to Kennebunk, Maine. That’s where Astronomer ex-CEO Andy Byron’s wife Megan retreated after reportedly leaving her and her tech tycoon husband’s multimillion-dollar home in Northborough, Massachusetts, in the wake of the Coldplay concert “jumbotron” controversy. She is reportedly recovering from the indignity created by her philandering husband in a $2.4 million mansion in Kennebunk, according to the New York Post. Kennebunk town records reviewed by The Maine Wire show that she and her husband own a mansion at 17 Clubhouse Drive in Kennebunk.…

Whomever dropped an invasive fish into a northern Maine lake is going to be on the hook, big time, if he or she gets snagged. Operation Game Thief officials are offering a $6,000 prize to find out who dumped a largemouth bass in West Musquash Lake. The bass threatens a rare wild fish population of native brook trout, landlocked salmon, and round whitefish in the Washington County lake. The monetary reward is for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for potentially ruining the lake’s native fishery. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife said the…

An “animal-rights” lobby has gone to court to try to stop Rockland’s annual “egregiously cruel method of steaming thousands of lobsters alive.” People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) filed its lawsuit in an attempt to get a judge to declare the Maine Lobster Festival a “public nuisance.” Barring a Knox County Court order, the 78th-annual, four-day lobster celebration is scheduled to begin July 30. PETA argues that the festival, if allowed to go forward, would be violating Maine law prohibiting “the torture and torment of animals.” The animal-protection organization argues that “lobsters are sentient beings and are entitled…

A Facebook post promoting the removal of Maine’s Democrat governor just got a nice free ad from the Mills-friendly Portland Press Herald. Oops. The 𝕵𝖆𝖓𝖊𝖙 𝕸𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖘 𝕳𝖊𝖗𝖆𝖑𝖉 has been in her corner since Day One so gifting the anti-Mills forces a platform is an instant no-no. The question is: how did it happen? The paper’s “fact-checking” team headlined a Facebook post that says the Mills recall petition has received 500,000 signatures. The fact-checking squad claimed in one of its latest “fact briefs” that the petition hasn’t received that many signatories. But the problem for the Press Herald is that to…

After a long wait, an Aroostook County ambulance company now can really haul – big time. Southern Aroostook Emergency Medical Services Authority has been weighting two years for its new heavy-duty medical wagon. “We ordered it in 2023,” authority chairman Dan Hiebert. “It was at the end of COVID and there were no trucks available.” Agency director Addison Matthews said the ambulance will serve communities across Aroostook County. The heavy-hauling rig – called a bariatric ambulance – has a special heavy-duty stretcher as well as a winch to handle 1,600-pound “loads.” At a cost of $404,802, one would certainly hope…

A man who gruesomely dismembered his father in Gardiner more than a decade ago is now enjoying the fruits of “limited” freedom. Since he’s dutifully taking his anti-psychotic medications, Leroy Smith III is gaining more judge-approved privileges. Smith, 35, was found to be not criminally responsible by reason of insanity for the bizarre 2014 killing. He became the first Maine detainee to be forcibly medicated under a state law that aims to restore the mental capacity of defendants. A judge is now allowing Smith to be moved to a supervised apartment with more unsupervised time on his own. “Mr. Smith,…

Bad-Boy Black Sabbath phenom Ozzy Osbourne, who died Tuesday at age 76, once got his *** thrown out of Portland, Maine. Osbourne, the guy who put Black Sabbath on the map, got bounced some 40 years ago for throwing furniture off the roof of the Portland high-rise hotel then called the Eastland. Osbourne was just one of many celebs who stayed at the High Street hotel (except for former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt who was turned away in 1946 because she wanted her dog, “Fala,” in her room with her). The hotel has hosted such celebrities as aviator Charles Lindbergh,…

Democrat Gov. Janet Mills naively picked a berry real fight hopping into a farmer’s field to promote blueberry weekend. When the governor went for a photo op in a coastal Maine blueberry field, the critics came in from the wild to pounce on the irony. “Glad the governor had time to rake some blueberries and smile for the camera but let’s not pretend that makes her a champion for Maine farms,” said Tyler Fish on Facebook. “While she was out in Hope doing photo ops for Wild Blueberry Weekend her administration is helping out of state solar companies take over…

A Maine memorial for fishermen who die at sea is under fire from a downeast family who lost two relatives earlier this year. The controversy over the Lost Fisherman’s Memorial in Lubec overshadowed the state’s first-ever Commercial Fishing Remembrance Day on Monday. The family of two scallopers who drowned when turbulent waters overcame their boat are angry the dead men’s names will not be engraved on the memorial. The committee overseeing the memorial ruled the men were merely moving their boat, not working it, when they died. Chester and Aaron Barrett, father-and-son Addison fishermen, were taking their scalloper from Edmunds…

A tough Sanford woman is celebrating a naked loss in a fourth try at $100,000 on Discovery Channel’s top-rated survivor show. “I was mere seconds from winning,” Cheeny Plante told viewers during her final on-air interview on the episode. But by her own standards, Plante did emerge from the show a winner. For starters, she knew she had made her mother proud back home in Sanford, Maine. “My mom told me to kick ass and win, and I came so close to winning,” Plante said. “I just know she’s just going to be beaming with joy to know she raised…

Fifty years ago the body of a 19-year-old woman was dumped in a culvert on Sherman Lake in Newcastle. Florence E. Lauze’s killer to this day has never been identified and without a miracle never will be. As tragic as her death is, she’s just one of 69 Maine victims on the Maine State Police list of unsolved homicides. Unfortunately the list isn’t getting any shorter. Unsolved murders go cold after they fall out of the headlines. Not only does time take its toll on the public’s interest in keeping the cases active, but there are only so many detectives…

A shocking new national survey of states’ public utilities shows Maine ranks the worst of all 50, earning it an embarrassing grade of “F.” That’s according to CNBC’S annual measure of “top states for business.” The survey includes reviews of each state’s roads, bridges, ports, airports, utilities, connectivity and sustainability. “The Pine Tree State has America’s least reliable power grid, a longstanding problem exacerbated by Maine’s harsh climate,” CNBC said. “For years, officials have floated plans to fix the power system,” it added. Two years ago, Maine voters “resoundingly defeated a plan to replace the state’s power companies with a…

As tony Yarmouth celebrates its annual clam festival this weekend, a clam shack down south in Sanford is throwing in the towel after a tide of junkies laid waste to a once family-friendly neighborhood. Used hypodermic needles and sidewalk squatters have taken their toll on a popular southern Maine seafood joint. The owner of Ted’s Fried Clams in Sanford said the fallout from street homeless finally got to be too much to bear. So he’s not renewing his lease. Jason Cole, whose family has been behind the counter selling seafood in Maine for more than 50 years, opened his business…

As tragic as the seemingly senseless killing is of a well-liked camper on a pond in midcoast Maine, it’s also sadly ironic. Decades ago, when Rockland’s de-facto mayor John Lohnes bought Mic Mac Campground, it became news central for the small town of Union, Maine. Maine state troopers like longtimer Glendon Sturtevant would stop for a break and to chat with Lohnes, who was a fountain of information. His knowledge was cop gold. In the old days Mic Mac was a place where cops came to get information, also known as qualified gossip, not to investigate a nearby homicide. But…

(Benjamin Lancaster mugshot)

Justine Hawkes’ family was about to do some laps off Harpswell – until … Jaws showed up. “Caution everyone, hubby has seen 10 sharks just today in the bay,” she posted on her Facebook page. “There goes our swimming plans. 😳” It’s not like the Hawkes’ family isn’t comfortable around the ocean. The family has been lobstering forever off Maine’s coast. But a bunch of shark sightings – let alone one – is enough to scare off even the most hearty seafarers. Due to documented great white sightings in two days east of Bailey Island, Harpswell Marine Resources & Harbor…

A few dozen international flying customers got a special treat – a quick peek at beautiful Bangor, Maine – on their flight from Cancun to London. Imagine – dressed to the nines in first class sipping a martini and suddenly your seat-mate gets slapped with a pair of cuffs. Helluva way to ruin a quick flight over the pond to London, eh mate? The incident involved two disruptive passengers who forced a TUI Airways flight to divert to Maine. TUI flight 49 from Cancun to London landed at Bangor International Airport around 9:20 p.m. local time on July 8 “after…

The newspaper that broke the news of a misconduct lawsuit against a midcoast school failed to mention the paper’s intimate connections with Hyde School. The question is: Why? And how could they?! After all, Sumner Hawley of Bath, who founded the school with Joe Gauld, was married to Jean Gannett, daughter of Portland Press Herald publisher Guy Gannett. Gannett’s daughter inherited the Portland paper from her father and was its top executive at the time Hawley played an instrumental role founding the school. The paper last week first reported a lawsuit alleging student abuse at the school but made no…

A public fund-raising campaign to help pay for a Maine paddleboarder’s funeral costs has so far brought in more than twice its goal. The GoFundMe campaign for Sunshine Stewart had raised more than $32,000 by July 16. Stewart, 48, of Tenants Harbor was found dead July 3 in Union, the victim of a homicide, according to police. Her friends and family have said she was camping near Crawford Pond when she failed to return from a paddleboarding trip. “We’ve unexpectedly lost the light in our lives that was Sunny,” people close to her sponsoring the GoFundMe campaign posted. “We are…

Maine’s top environmental lobby is patting itself on the back for nearly a half century of billboard-free Maine. But critics say the other side of the don’t-you-just-love the vistas coin are solar “farms” that arguably are much uglier than roadside signs that once promoted “Howard Johnson’s, Next Exit.” “Yeah, awesome, so now 30’x60′ billboards poking up in the tree line were replaced with 100 acres of missing trees with solar panels,” said Larry Pelkey Jr. of Mars Hill. Pelkey was among the Facebook billboard-ban detractors critiquing the Natural Resources Council of Maine’s praising itself for pushing Maine lawmakers in 1977…

A Maine camp with real connections to famed secret agent James Bond has just hit the market – for a cool $4.2 million. If you really like it, just show up with cash. In a briefcase. Small bills with untraceable watermarks only. No fast moves. Hands outside pockets. Bond. James Bond. The name is simple, elegant, and perfectly fitting for the British secret agent that author Ian Fleming would bring to life in his novels. Fleming once said: “007 is a blunt instrument and I wanted a blunt name.” Actually, before the debonair, swashbuckling Sean Connery made the role famous…

A lawsuit against a private high school in Bath by students alleging abuse has sparked a widespread debate over its educational role – effective boot camp or cauldron of out-of-control discipline. The class-action suit claims hundreds of students were trafficked, abused and exploited. The suit was filed by a former student claiming she endured years of harassment while attending the school. Dana McCavity, chair of the school’s board of governors, defended the school. McCavity insisted the lawsuit’s claims “grossly mis-characterize Hyde’s policies and practices over time or are patently false.” “Hyde vehemently denies these claims and intends to vigorously defend…

A new searing biography of flying ace Amelia Earhart is raising serious questions whether she was a willing participant when she visited Maine airports in the 1930s. The new take on Earhart is she was not the independent, trail-blazing feminist the media at the time claimed she was. Rather, she was being exploited by her misogynist manager after he ditched his wife and married Earhart to use as his own personal PR tool. That’s according to a controversial new book due for release Tuesday (July 15) “The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made…

Maine’s Democrat governor is touting her drug-overdose accomplishments amid growing public scrutiny on China’s invasion of the Pine Tree State. While trying to celebrate her administration’s allegedly getting a handle on opioid overdoses, Janet Mills was being shadowed by a troublesome growth. After all, kinda hard focusing your constituents on your drug-fighting successes when surrounded by Chinese marijuana grows. During an opioid conference, Mills “mentioned two areas of concern: the rising use of methamphetamine, a non-opioid stimulant that has been known to cause violent behavior, and the cuts to Medicaid signed into law by President Donald Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’…

The “local” part of “Maine Trust for Local News” has just gotten a lot less so with word that Skowhegan will now be covered from … Portland. Jake Freudberg, the local Skowhegan writer, has alerted devoted readers he is being replaced by a guy reporting from 100 miles away. Freudberg’s successor is Alex Lear, a Portland Press Herald reporter who works out of – drum roll – Cumberland County. For years, Freudberg has been covering Skowhegan and the surrounding area for the Morning Sentinel, among the dailies the trust bought in 2023 from Reade Brower. The trust says its sole…

Every so often on a slow day a certain kind of fellow gets bored and says “hey let’s blow up an old camper trailer.” That’s roughly what happened a few days ago in Stetson, Maine, Penobscot County, population 1,186, where firefighters got summoned to a trailer explosion. Now this wasn’t just your garden-variety July 4th fireworks celebration. What happened was some of the folks up in Stetson had gotten themselves some stuff called Tannerite. “1,000 person tannerite party, everybody brings five pounds of it and we have a grand ole time!!!” joked Redditor SecureJysge1829. “We’ve cut trees down with tannerite…

The sponsors of the upcoming bivalve fest in Yarmouth, Maine are under pressure to come up with some vegetarian options. Seriously. A growing number of Redditor queries are focusing on going veggie on the eve of the Yarmouth Clam Festival’s 60th anniversary. When one Redditor posted a simple question: “Anyone know of any vegetarian options besides fries and desserts?” all heck broke loose. Maine seafood connoisseurs are having trouble taking seriously questions about going veggie at the clam festival. “I’m sorry, this absolutely made me roar with laughter. It’s a clam festival,” replied dk_angl1976 “It’s a *clam* festival. Thanks for…

The state’s top tourism association official says Maine is on par for a great season – tariffs or no tariffs. Brian Langley, chairman of the board of the Maine Tourism Association, told The Maine Wire that when push comes to shove all that Maine needs for a good season is great weather. “I am of the firm belief that good weather and good gas prices are the prevailing factors for a good summer season in Maine,” Langley said. The top tourism official’s comments come in the wake of ongoing debate about whether Trump’s tariffs were going to hurt Maine’s summer…

A vacationing cop repeatedly slugged her firefighter boyfriend in an otherwise-sleepy western Maine town amid a pre-July 4th violent domestic battle, officials say. Kelsey Fitzsimmons, 28, a North Andover, Massachusetts police officer, reportedly assaulted her male firefighter lover, Justin Aylaian, during a holiday break in Bethel. Two days later Fitzsimmons was shot and wounded by officers of her own department as they served her in Massachusetts with a restraining order that Aylaian had sought. Aylaian requested the order because he said he feared Fitzsimmons might kill him or their infant son, or both. The firefighter sought the abuse-prevention restraining order…

The Portland Press Herald appears to have been erroneously reporting that two of its former staffers would be the first married couple to win Jeopardy, angering the wildly-popular TV show’s fanbase across the country. A number of widely-followed news sites, including Yahoo Entertainment, are reporting that the Maine paper’s false stories on the married Jeopardy contestants triggered a nationwide viewer backlash. Media outlets worldwide picked up and recirculated the Portland Press Herald’s apparently bogus reports that the married duo the paper has been sponsoring would be the first victorious Jeopardy couple. “Multiple Jeopardy winners whose spouses also won on the…

Pretty unusual for a small Maine town to be educating the state’s governor – except if it’s the indigenous-deaf Janet Mills. The little town of Yarmouth just trumped Mills big time – by proudly endorsing a resolution honoring native Americans. That would be the same indigenous class that Democrat Mills has gone out of her way – and not just once – to wash out of her hair. In fact Mills now has a virtual history of stiff-arming Maine’s original tribal populations. Mills last month vetoed a bill designed to protect tribal lands from “eminent domain.” And two years ago…

With the July 4th holiday on our doorsteps, the legacy media in Maine is celebrating its own brand of independence – from the tenets of Journalism 101. None other than the Bangor Deadly Snooze had a killer of a headline: “Man thanked Maine deputy after the officer fatally wounded him” Whoops. But the Bangor Deadly wasn’t done yet with its homicidal wordsmithing. The lead to the story was a virtual mirror of that awkward headline construction: “A man thanked a Franklin County sheriff’s deputy after the officer fatally wounded him last October during a confrontation on a bridge.” In our…

Political leaders in Maine’s largest municipal welfare magnet have a new idea for pretending that public drug use and urination will disappear – paint. Under increasing pressure from upscale Monument Square businesses to get rid of the walking, stalking homeless blight, the Portland city manager announced a public-art project. Danielle West is apparently hoping to paper over the fact that, according to the nonprofit business group Portland Downtown, one of every five Congress Street storefronts are vacant. What to do to wave away public intoxication, harassment of shoppers, litter, public defecation? Buy some multi-colored paints and sponsor a paint-in, kinda…

A retired Special Forces surgeon who earned his medical degree in Maine is running for Texas governor – and vowing to arrest COVID vaccine guru Anthony Fauci. Republican Peter Chambers, a retired decorated lieutenant colonel, first broke into the headlines in the Biden years organizing an armed border-enforcing militia in protest of the open Texas/Mexico border. Chambers received his medical training from the University of New England School of Osteopathic Medicine in Biddeford. He is a doctor of osteopathic medicine, the equivalent of which is the more commonly known allopathic medical doctor. DOs, trained in all aspects of medicine, including…

The picturesque seaside town of none other than Camden, Maine is now attracting a new breed of tourists – cops from Ireland investigating an apparent murder. Police from Ireland came to Camden to interview the former wife of Michael Kelley, a suspect in the suspicious death of Michael Gaine. Kelley had lived on Gaine’s farm in Kerry, where Gaine’s chainsawed remains were found in a slurry pit. Kelley and his then-partner – court filings describe their setup as a “romantic relationship” – lived for a while in midcoast Maine, before they went their separate ways. He eventually moved to Ireland.…

A midcoast Maine school is trying out a new lesson – disciplining students who step out of line with a pleasant walk in the woods. No detention. No suspension. Instead? A bit of fresh air in coastal Bath, Maine to cleanse the devil within. The concept of treating scofflaws with a softer, friendlier, breezier, sunnier touch made it’s debut nationally under the Democrat Obama administration and Morse High School counselor Leslie Trundy is giving it a tryout. Maine Public Radio (of course) had a “field day” featuring the cuddly method of getting bad kids to go straight – time outdoors…

If only he were able to gnaw through his ankle bracelet, the Liver King could quit the Texas heat for a spell and check out the possibilities that lie in wait for him in cooler Maine, where liver is plentiful and cheap. But now being a law-abiding man, the primal influencer will likely secure permission first. Gov. Janet Mills, who has a longstanding beef with Trump’s tariffs allegedly killing Canadian tourism, might consider trying a new tack and inviting a Texan – beef-loving Brian Johnson to pay Maine a visit and promote our plentitude of bovine organs. In fact, the…

Just when you figured it was safe to go in to the water comes word of not only one, but two, shark sightings off Massachusetts’ coast. Nothing like a flesh-tearing great white (two, actually) to put a damper on Democrat Governor Janet’s pleas for Canadians to visit Maine’s pristine beaches. Especially going in to the summer’s “hottest” weekend for Maine tourists – July 4. Now, you’re thinking: “But it’s been 50 years since Jaws came out.” Ah yes, the summer of ‘75. Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end. Well, they haven’t. The first Maine shark…

The former Bowdoin grad who’s on goal to become NYC’s next mayor should be well-equipped to handle the Big Apple’s crime epidemic. By his own admission, Zohran Mamdani stole a table from the school while an undergrad there in 2011. Mamdani, who wants to defund New York’s finest if he wins the general election, will fit in well with the city’s underbelly. He wrote a column in The Bowdoin Orient his sophomore year outing himself for co-opting university property. Mamdani said he and a co-conspirator took the table from an area near his dorm and took it back to his…

The likely next mayor of New York City who has recently tried to deny his alleged anti-semitism left an explosive paper trail of evidence contradicting these claims while he was an undergraduate at Bowdoin College in Maine. Zohran Mamdani, who would be the Big Apple’s first Muslim mayor, wrote in Bowdoin’s student newspaper complaining about Israel’s “occupation” of Palestine. He also blasted Bowdoin’s president for refusing to join an Israeli boycott. But Mamdani’s self-loathing didn’t stop with Jews – he also used his college column in The Bowdoin Orient to accuse the student newspaper of maintaining a “white stranglehold” by…

If you’re a ”New American” then Maine’s Democrat governor loves you. But if you’re Native American, don’t count on Janet, who equates Native American with chopped liver. The all-about-immigrant-protections chief executive of a state with a rich tribal history simply doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether you came to Maine long before the white-as-white-can-be Mills Clan set up its political shop in Farmington. Mills this week vetoed a bill designed to protect tribal lands from “eminent domain,” a fancy term for entitled white elites making land grabs at the peril of Native Americans. The veto is apparently going down without…

An “environmental” organization promoted by Maine’s legacy press complaining about paper-mill emissions apparently forgot about its opposition to not just one but two sources of clean fuel. The Maine Monitor and Portland Press Herald on Monday paid top headline homage to the “Environmental Integrity Project” blasting Maine paper mills for allegedly increasing carbon emissions more than other plants in America by burning tires. The project is also upset because the federal Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t monitor carbon emissions from paper plants because it considers trees a renewable resource. For those paying attention, trees are the most obvious source of natural…

It’s a perfect summer day in Maine for setting traps – but unfortunately Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is thinking of a different trap than the type Maine lobstermen are baiting today. The cyber kind – the kind that “catches” you off guard. And the scary part is, the Iranian monster who’s plotting his revenge on US President Donald Trump doesn’t need to worry about buying herring to do his phishing. All that pathetic loser needs is a mouse… Khamenei deals with a trap world’s different than Maine’s lobster guys’. The threat is real – Homeland Security officials Sunday warned Americans…

Maine’s top police spokeswoman promised Thursday that an investigation into the death of a chocolate-lab police pup will not be just a whitewash. “Yes, this is a legitimate investigation,” Shannon Moss, spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, told The Maine Wire in response to questions about how seriously authorities with conduct the probe. State animal-welfare investigators will share their findings with the district attorney, Moss explained. Baxter, the state’s official comfort dog, died last month when he was left in his handler’s car on a hot summer day. The handler is obviously heartbroken about the dog’s death and…

A bird – voting with its feet – has won an election by acclamation in central Maine, effectively closing down two walking trails. Through threats, intimidation and violence, this bird has employed tactics of which land trusts can only dream. Chalk one up for the Democrat goshawk, which allegedly clawed a jogger’s head so badly that Bond Brook Recreation Area officials deemed the area a threat to humanity. The same goshawk is believed to have previously nested and acted aggressively toward people in years past in the same area of the Augusta-owned recreation area with a network of recreation trails.…

If the failed Canadian summit sponsored by Maine’s Democrat governor is any indication, she may want a reset on her planned “goodwill” tour en francais. Gov. Janet Mills held a tete-a-tete with Canadian premiers to try to bash Trump’s alleged anti-tourist tariffs. But out of it came a big goose egg – lots of talk but no substance. Maybe it would have been a good idea to hold the meeting in Maine as opposed to Boston where she traveled for it? After all, if you’re trying to sell Pier Fries to mes-amies Quebeceers it might have been more fruitful to…

If you’re going to get caught breaking a law that you claim to support, make sure the news breaks going into Father’s Day/”No Kings” weekend so hopefully no one notices. Pick your best analogy for explaining how Maine’s liberal southern-district congresswoman got corraled violating the measure that she’s been railing needs better enforcement. Hand in the cookie jar? Practice what you preach? Rules for thee, but not for me? U.S. Democrat Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) quickly blamed her violation of the “STOCK Act” on – you guessed it – a “reporting error.” Hubris personified is a way to more aptly…

The upstart now surging ahead in polls to be top banana in New York City as the race to succeed Mayor Eric Adams takes shape more than four months before election days was schooled at the Harvard of the North, in Brunswick. Maine’s pre-eminent institution of higher learning proudly boasts “preparing the next generation for climate and sustainability.” Little does Bowdoin College realize it may be becoming a cauldron of unsustainable climate warriors and left-wing radicals. In its heyday the Brunswick school produced original thinkers. Before it went woke, the college pumped out luminaries such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth…

Facts are stubborn things, as John Adams said. No John Adams they, Portland Press Herald editors are now embarking on a fact-checking mission. Speaking of barking, when Press Herald managers went on the radio recently to trumpet claims they’re increasing coverage, who checked them into the boards? The Maine Wire, that’s who. So now the state’s largest paper is using a well-known platform that sometimes uses “artificial intelligence” (AI) to “fact-check” the internet? In fact (pun intended) the skepticism over the paper’s new fact-checking gumshoes first broke out into the open on Reddit. The Press Herald editor in charge of…

The political fallout stemming from the weekend revelation that the office of Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D-Hallowell) has recalled thousands of misprinted Maine plates has begun gathering velocity like a rolling boulder in the Oxford Hills. The ink isn’t even dry on the replacement tags but the social-networking ridiculers have gotten a jump start on Election Season 2026. “This is the Democrats’ achievement for this term!” Keith Costigan of Benton posted on Facebook.“ “Another Democrap crowning moment in Maine!” said Facebookers posting as Phyllis ‘n Bob Walker of Etna. “Brought to you by The Mills/Bellows, ACME License Plate Company.”…

As the saying goes “you can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” Terry Moran, the ABC News reporter suspended Sunday for bashing a top Trump official, began his illustrious career in Bangor. Moran first went in front of a TV camera in the mid-1980s as a reporter for WLBZ. His roles at ABC, which hired him in 1997, have included anchoring Nightline and World News Tonight. He previously worked for The New Republic and Court TV. Moran, 65, got himself suspended after he wrote on social media that Stephen…

Maine’s largest paper buried the lead in announcing the retirement of a top veteran editor whose exit comes in the wake of recent staff cutbacks. To wit, John Richardson’s position as one of two managing editors is being abolished. Richardson put in 35 years at the Portland Press Herald, most recently as one of two managing editors. With his departure, Julia Arenstam will remain as the only managing editor, Executive Editor Carolyn Fox disclosed. The cutback to one managing editor from two comes not long after the Maine Trust for Local News announced nearly 50 layoffs at the budget-challenged daily.…

The internet has blown up with speculators discussing how two Mount Katahdin hikers died amid obvious warning signs to abandon the risky mission. By all accounts the most likely reason Esther Keiderling, 28, and her father Tim Keiderling, 58 died was accidental exposure to the cold. Officials of Rifton Equipment, which employed the Keiderlings, said the pair likely succumbed to hypothermia. The common refrain among disbelievers when hikers are caught unprepared is “how could this happen? They were experienced.” If they were experienced, some say, they wouldn’t have taken the hike in the first place. Others, who know how unpredictable…

The latest version of a Maine political dynasty may be about to take down another electorally powerful family in the next election cycle. The last time the Angus King family humiliated the Pingree clan was 15 years ago. Now, the latest polls have Angus King III trouncing Hannah Pingree by 13 points, evidence the King family could bag yet another Pingree based on name alone. Harken 2012, with ex-Gov. Angus King Jr. as an “independent” leapfrogging U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-ME1, allegedly in cahoots with Democrats. King at the time said “hogwash” to allegations by some Republicans that he had…

A proposal by a Knox County Democrat legislator for a “regional living wage” – supposedly to help people afford housing – has died. Rep. Valli Geiger of Rockland, whose bill was killed last week, claimed her measure would help low-income earners a chance to get into the housing market. “When more than 75 percent of Maine’s people are unable to afford to rent or buy a home, we have a structural issue,” Geiger told a legislative committee earlier this year. Had her bill succeeded, it would have split Maine into three sectors for wage rates: the Portland area, the coastal…

Remember the good ole days in Maine when would-be politicians would run for office on nothing but grit – knowing they were acting against all odds but didn’t care? When they didn’t “test the waters” and hire high-priced pollsters to gauge whether they could win? When they eschewed political norms and didn’t care whether they lost? Think Jim Longley, the no-name Lewiston insurance salesman who ignored his pledge to the incumbent, Democrat Gov. Ken Curtis, not to use his appointment as Curtis’ cost-containment commission chair as a perch for the purpose of running to succeed his boss. Think Paul LePage,…

A former Maine Medical Center finance director has thrown his hat into the ring with a growing field of Republicans in an attempt to wrest the Blaine House from the Democrats. Ken Capron of Portland also directed finances for the regional bus system in Maine’s largest city. Capron is a retired certified public accountant, systems engineer, and financial-fraud investigator, according to his press release. He said his financial skills are just what the state needs to move forward. “Our legislative process is broken,” Capron said. “Thousands of bills are processed that exclude the voice of the average citizen.” Capron’s announced…

The nanny state is now coming after a Camden man whose bird-feeding hobby town authorities say far exceeds the norm is now under legal orders to curb the habit. Town officials decided earlier this month to file legal action against Gian-Angelo Gallace, who lives in an upscale neighborhood at 11 Chestnut Hill, for allegedly attracting rats. Though Gallace argues that his bird-feeding hobby is completely harmless, the town says he’s creating a neighborhood pest problem. “We’re at the end of the trail now,” said town attorney Bill Kelly, told the Bangor Daily News in an attempt at wit that fell…

(Mick O’Neill/Reach plc)

In the wake of famed Rockland world-champion canner Rita Willey’s golden sardine era, Maine’s shuttered canneries have taken far-divergent directions since the halcyon days of the state’s packing pinnacle. On the one hand is the former Stinson Seafood sardine-canning operation in Prospect Harbor, which is being developed as a cold-storage warehouse for Wyman blueberries. Stinson’s was the last sardine cannery in the U.S. when it closed in 2010, marking the end of the industry that was once a major economic force in Maine, employing thousands. But declining herring catches and reduced consumer demand marked the nadir of the once-prosperous canning…

Is the parent company of the Portland Press Herald and more than a half dozen other daily, weekly and bimonthly publications throughout the state concerned about the fall-out from recent revelations that Hansjörg Wyss — the Swiss billionaire reportedly helping to prop-up their non-profit status — sexually harasses employees? On this question, the Maine Trust for Local News (MTLN) has been notably silent. According to Semafor, Hansjorg Wyss, was one of the financiers behind the 2023 purchase by the National Trust for Local News, MTLN’s parent, of Maine’s largest newspaper. Wyss is also a major donor to causes that support…

The new CEO of the parent company that owns the Portland Press Herald apparently wanted to quickly leave his imprint on the embattled National Trust for Local News, selling off 21 papers one day after he took the helm. One day. It took Tom Wiley 24 hours – he started on the job Monday and sold the papers Tuesday – to decide that the business model of the National Trust for Local News was unsustainable. The news of the shocking sale was broken not by the Portland Press Herald – but by NiemanLab.org. The Times Media Group, to which the…

Get-Off-My-Lawn party poopers trying to defuse July 4th fireworks locally and statewide are winning few converts along Maine’s midcoast. First it was a Democrat state senator introducing legislation in Augusta to limit good-old-fashioned fun. [RELATED: Knox-County Democrat Wants to Spoil Your Firework Fun] Now it’s Camden Select Board members suggesting that fireworks displays may require too much town staff time to oversee – even though by law town officials can’t limit commercial boomers. Town Manager Audra Caler had recommended in a memo that the board “decide what resources the town will continue to provide for free, at a cost, or…

Despite indications nationally that business is picking up because of or in spite of Trump’s tariffs, a Maine beach town is in panic mode. Proprietors in Old Orchard Beach, which by summer sight typically has more Canadians than Mainers, say they’re hoping against hope that Trump hasn’t ruined their “bottom line.” Gritty, thong-wearing, rough-and-ready Old Orchard Beach, the town once humorously described by a Boston Magazine writer this way: “To understand Old Orchard Beach, you have to see it to believe it and believe me you shouldn’t see it.” Yet, by the hundreds of thousands every summer, Canadians flock to…

So much for insurance choice for Maine religious orders preferring horse-propelled buggies to Ford Mustang Shelbys. Faith-based freedom? Forget that too. The Democrat-majority Legislature shot down the latest attempt to let Mennonites self-insure their wheels. LD 918, “An Act to Allow a Qualifying Religious Organization to Self-Insure for Automobile Insurance” was introduced – yet again – by state Rep. Steve Foster (R-Dexter) on behalf of his Mennonite constituents. [RELATED: Bill to Let Mennonites Self-Insure Vehicles to Comply With Religious Requirements Narrowly Fails in House] The bill would have allowed the Mennonites to self-insure their horse-drawn carriages instead of having to…

If The New York Times ever had any pretense of journalistic balance, it has now fully outed its true liberal self in the Mills v. Trump WWE match. The paper’s national political “reporter,” Caitlin O’Keefe, posted on Reddit – admitting she’s seeking to interview Mainers to help Democrat Gov. Janet Mills savage President Trump. No pretense there whatsoever. Just a pure unabashed effort by O’Keefe to full-bore sandbag Trump’s attempts to bring Janet’s woke vassals to their senses in the ongoing Mills v. Trump feud over the state’s policy of forcing female athletes to complete against males. “Looking to talk…

Wiscasseteers who long ago trademarked their town “prettiest village in Maine” apparently haven’t been to Camden. To see the waterfall torrent that rips its way beneath Route 1, under rickety storefronts held up by wooden pilings, across from a natural tree-shaded amphitheater, eventually dumping into the Atlantic Ocean is an experience to behold, many residents and almost all visitors agree. But all the beauty on God’s great earth inevitably must become a sitting duck for environmental wrath. Witness the controversy flowing from the Montgomery Dam responsible for the eye-catching falls of the Megunticook River to really understand the imperfect human…

The guy who put Bangor on the map has been bumped off as Maine’s most internationally famous person amid claims one of his books inspired school shootings. Actors Anna Kendrick of Portland and Patrick Dempsey of Lewiston, along with Bill Belichick’s flame Jordon Hudson of Hancock and college b-baller phenom Cooper Flagg of Newport are among the Mainers now considered more en vogue than Stephen King. All because of a book he wrote called “Rage,” which allegedly first inspired a school shooter who killed three, followed by other school shooters over the past 20 years who blamed King for their…

An ex-Portland Press Herald scribe who calls Trump “an authoritarian threat” will soon be joined on a Maine stage by a co-conspirator. After all, Colin Woodard and Rachel Maddow were already joined – at the hip – in their shared venom for the Republican president. So their joint appearance Saturday night at the State Theater in Portland will be just more of the same. Go ahead, call it Trump Bashing 2.0. Last month, The Rachel Maddow Show hosted First District Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME) to rail against the Trump administration’s recent actions in Maine, which it characterized as “petty and…

Biddeford’s hard work to usher in an urban renaissance has been challenged of late by one family where murder appears to run in the bloodlines. In this still-randy mill city, the sister of a guy who shot and killed her boy toy has now pleaded guilty to her own, violent form of enforcing her own brand of Biddeford-Saco silence. Ariana Tito, 19, of Biddeford pleaded guilty to elevated aggravated assault with the use of a firearm in the shooting of her brother’s gal pal. An attempted-murder charge was dropped as part of a plea deal. A judge ordered Tito, who…

When Wells town officials tried to defend being the only Maine town working with federal immigration officials, guess who quickly invoked “religion.” None other than a woman using the vague title of “bishop” in a roomful of townspeople – with the help of the Portland Press Herald, which anointed her the mouthpiece for the anti-Trumpers. “I’m here to express my strong opposition to the police department collaborating with an agency that … operates in ways that are immoral, inhumane, unconstitutional, illegal, and just plain sloppy and cruel,” Rosemary Ananis lectured town councilors earlier this week. “My faith tells me that…

If the aging members of Congress are too old to be in touch or effective, they have a role model – Grampa Joe. Former president Joe Biden reminded Americans of his infirmity this week when he launched a full-scale denunciation of President Trump during in his first interview since leaving the White House, accusing Trump of conduct “beneath” the presidency. “What the hell’s going on here,” the former president asked — apparently rhetorically, though it may in fact have been a sincere question about why he was sitting for an interview in a strange room in the first place. In…

A midcoast Maine city that went from raucous motorcycle gangs to boutique coffee houses has now once again flipped the scales. The Rockland police chief is calling for portable concrete “Jersey barriers” for public protection at outdoor community events. In particular, Chief Tim Carroll suggested that stronger barricades be erected to prevent motorists from driving into pedestrians at events. How far we have been. Carroll was just a glint in his mother’s eye when the fishing capital of Maine had already been transformed into the veritable arts capital. Before arts became fashionable the town had been literally odorous, known more…

A disciple of a legendary Washington sports reporter originally from Maine has manufactured a new arena for bashing Trump – the Kentucky Derby. By all logic, Kevin Blackistone, who says his beat “focuses on the intersection of sports, race, and politics,” shouldn’t be one complaining about freedom. After all, he grew up privileged, an admirer of acclaimed Washington Post sports writer Shirley Povich, whose family immigrated – legally – to Maine in the early 1900s from oppressive Lithuania. (Shirley’s son, Maury, became a TV personality in his own right). Former president Richard Nixon once told the owner of the Washington…

If Maine’s anti-gun crowd resents the fake award the Portland Press Herald is boasting about possibly receiving for doing nothing, it’s for good reason. The Press Herald in cahoots with Maine Public and PBS is trumpeting the “award” nomination they received from National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences for their lame coverage of the 2023 mass killing in Lewiston. What the pre-party celebrants – no awards yet, just nominations – fail to point out is that the aftermath-news coverage by the liberal press didn’t move the anti-gun law needle an inch. Democrat Gov. Janet Mills – who otherwise is…

Twenty-five years ago famed conservative David Horowitz got invited to lecture at Bates College – and then got scolded by the dean who’d brought him to campus. The dean had actually wanted to expose students to the conservative viewpoint so he bravely invited one of the world’s best-known rightists to campus. Horowitz, a native of New York City, died this week at age 86 at his Colorado home after a long battle with cancer. From 1956 to 1975, he was an outspoken adherent of the New Left, later rejecting progressive ideas and becoming a defender of neoconservatism. Horowitz recounted his…

A Maine “journalist” who says he “goes places – and tells stories – that other media won’t” also does something other media don’t – gives away free pot. Now there’s journalism we can get behind! Or heck, get high on. That Crash Barry, he’s a Cracker Jack! Seems Barry, who prides himself on journalistic independence, decided one way to increase his numbers – or “hits,” so to speak – is giving away, well, hits. To wit, Crash announced on his Facebook page that he’s awarded his latest freebies to a guy named Noel Kirwan, who bills himself on Facebook as…

If the Portland Press Herald could credibly blame the vice president of the United States for banning adults from a Maine children’s museum then sugar-plum fairies would be real. Well, sugar-plum fairies are real, judging from a new line of attack on Republican J.D. Vance from your favorite losepaper. And, to quote Jerry Seinfeld, “not there’s anything wrong with sugar-plum fairies..” The paper’s newest culture columnist had to pick a foil to complain about the Children’s Museum of Maine’s policy denying entry to adults not accompanied by children. After all, if you’re going to pick a nonsensical fight with a…