Nearly 3,200 defendants have been charged with COVID-19 relief fraud, according to the U.S. Justice Department. About $1.4 billion in stolen pandemic aid has been seized.
COVID-19 pandemic
Posted inNation & World, News
Food insecurity shot up last year with inflation and the end of pandemic-era aid, a new report says
Analysts and food security professionals point to the dual impact last year of high inflation and the gradual expiration of multiple pandemic-era government assistance measures.
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Posted inHealth, Local & State, News
Having a harder time accessing health care? You’re not alone – and it’s making us sicker
The health care workforce shrank at the same time demand exploded, and patients say finding a provider is ‘pretty much impossible.’
Posted inHealth, Local & State
COVID vaccine supply still lagging more than a month after rollout
Appointments can be hard to get, but health officials are urging people to be persistent and get the vaccine to protect against the most severe effects of the disease.
Posted inLocal & State, Schools and Education
Some criticize uneven distribution of pandemic debit cards for groceries
More than 20,000 Maine students were left out of the pandemic relief program that provided up to $120 per child to spend on food.
Posted inLocal & State
Rollout of pandemic food benefit cards to schoolchildren confuses many Mainers
‘All I could think of is that this was a scam,’ Betsy Mayo, of Gray, said of the EBT card her 11-year-old daughter – and roughly 150,000 other schoolchildren in the state – recently received.
Posted inOp-eds, Opinion
Commentary: American industry may pay a high price for remote work
Even Zoom is asking its workers to stop using Zoom and get back to their desks. There’s a reason for that.
Posted inHealth, Nation & World, News
This latest COVID variant could be the best yet at evading immunity
While only about a dozen cases of the new BA.2.86 variant have been reported worldwide – including three in the U.S. – experts say this variant requires intense monitoring.
Posted inNation & World, News, Schools and Education
Schools lost track of homeless kids during pandemic. Many face steep path to recovery
Homeless kids often fell through the cracks during the tumult of the COVID pandemic, when many schools struggled to keep track of families with unstable housing.
Posted inTimes Record
Midcoast man receives federal civilian service medal for actions in U.S. pandemic response
An emergency management professional from southern Midcoast Maine, Eric Sawyer, has received the COVID-19 Pandemic Civilian Service Medal for exemplary service to the nation as part of the federal medical response to the pandemic. Sawyer serves as a member of an Incident Management Team within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for […]