BIDDEFORD — During a season when many are on vacation, Maine’s five gubernatorial candidates ”“ one Democrat, one Republican and three independents ”“ are busy campaigning, with a view toward the November election. On Monday, one of those candidates, independent Eliot Cutler, spent the day in Biddeford visiting small businesses and listening to the concerns […]

Maine gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler, left, listens to Atoka Dumont, Human Resources manager for the Volk Packaging Corporation, talk about her company while giving a tour of the Biddeford facility on Monday. (JEFF LAGASSE/Journal Tribune)

Nate Leary sits next to Gromit, one of the cows on his family’s dairy farm in Saco. The Leary family gave tours of their farm on Sunday during Open Farm Day. (LIZ GOTTHELF/Journal Tribune)

SACO — At the Leary Farm on Flag Pond Road, cows have been milked twice a day every day since 1947, when Jim Leary started the business. Even so, times have changed. Leary said when he began, there were 50 dairy farms in Saco. Now his family’s farm is the only one. The Leary family […]

Mikvat Shalom President Ellen Foncek displays the new renovated mikvah, a small pool used for Jewish rituals, in Portland, Tuesday. The mikvah is being leased by Mikvat Shalom, a non-profit group of Jews from various sects that is seeking to raise awareness of traditional and non-traditional uses of the ritual bath. -KRISTEN SCHULZE MUSZYNSKI/ Journal […]

Pictured, left to right, are Carolyn Goss, a senior from Southborough, Mass.; Sean Soman, a junior from Cincinnati, Ohio; and Kristen Raskauskas, a junior from Brighton, Mich., working on their final presentation for a two-week marine science class at the University of New England in Biddeford. -DINA MENDROS/ Journal Tribune

BIDDEFORD — A seal dissection and learning about the marine mammal’s anatomy was one student’s favorite part of a marine science course for high school students taught at the University of New England. Capturing sea forms by net, studying them and then releasing them was a favorite activity of another student, while another person in […]

Two folding chairs have been set up over the openings for the bins of water that are used in the Portland mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath, as seen Tuesday. One holds rainwater, the other city water, which are mixed as they flow into the mikvah in an adjoining room. -KRISTEN SCHULZE MUSZYNSKI/ Journal Tribune

PORTLAND — Southern Maine Jews who are seeking the waters of healing and rebirth in a traditional mikvah no longer have to travel for hours. The last remaining mikvah, or ritual bath, in the area has been restored by Mikvat Shalom, a non-profit group made up of several sects of Maine’s Jewish community. A grand […]

The newly renovated mikvah, a small pool used for Jewish rituals, in Portland, Tuesday. -KRISTEN SCHULZE MUSZYNSKI/ Journal Tribune