The number of children in state custody increased by 17 percent and the number of children in foster care rose by 20 percent from 2017 to 2018, according to a new report. Additionally, Maine led the nation in 2017 for the highest rate of children diagnosed with anxiety disorders and was third for the rate […]

Maine’s top court has ruled against a Canadian company that has been removing rockweed from the state’s coast for decades, saying the plant is on private property and can no longer be harvested without permission from the landowners. The Supreme Judicial Court issued its decision Thursday, upholding a lower court’s ruling and siding with the property owners. […]

PORTLAND — The state’s highest court on Thursday vacated the convictions of a Lisbon man found guilty of attempted murder of Auburn police stemming from a 2008 high-speed chase.  The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled unanimously that Bartolo Ford’s trial attorney, Daniel Lilley, was ineffective counsel because he hadn’t allowed Ford to testify in his own defense […]

Long before anyone could be held to account, the death of 4-year-old Kendall Chick – followed closely by the death of another Maine girl – became a flash point for exposing an overburdened state child protective system. Chick’s December 2017 death in Wiscasset, coupled with the February 2018 death of 10-year-old Marissa Kennedy in Stockton Springs, spurred both internal […]

TOPSHAM — The Maine School Administrative District 75 school board appointed Shawn Chabot Thursday as the district’s new superintendent. Chabot begins on July 1. Chabot, 48, is currently in his second year as the assistant superintendent for Lewiston Public Schools, the district he’s been working with for 14 years. During his time in Lewiston he’s […]

BATH — On Thursday, most 5th graders in Maine were sitting in class, reading textbooks, listening to a lecture or studying for a test. Their peers from West Bath School, meanwhile, were showing off a pair of wooden skiffs they’ve been building for weeks at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath. The students were there […]

BRUNSWICK — Walter Wallace, principal of Brunswick Junior High School, resigned from his position this week to pursue a different administrative position, having recently earned his superintendent certification. His last day is April 5. “The possibilities are exciting, and I’m looking forward to a new setting to help problem-solve the challenges of today’s schools,” he […]