Press Herald - Speaking to a crowd of about 400 people in Bangor, Vice President JD Vance said healthcare fraud in Maine was robbing taxpayers and that Gov. Janet Mills has "fought back against" efforts to identify fraud in Medicare and Medicaid programs. Mills called it a "weak attempt" to distract from the war in Iran and the rising costs Mainers are facing daily.
Over 11,000 Mainers are no longer receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. The decline comes only months after Congress enacted sweeping changes to the program that slashed benefits for certain groups and ended work requirement exemptions for many others. Hunger prevention advocates say rural areas of Maine are being hit especially hard.
The Portland Tenants Union says a recent audit of online rental listings shows not only widespread rent control fraud, but also the city’s failure to enforce its own rules. A team of union volunteers surveyed 271 rental listings that appeared on the real estate website Zillow throughout the month of March and compared those listings to the city’s rental requirements. According to the union, an analysis of the listings found that 130 of the 271 listings they audited — just shy of 50% — were out of compliance with city rental regulations, alleging overcharged rent, registration issues and false claims of owner-occupancy among other violations.
Maine Morning Star - A statewide poll from Schoen Cooperman Research on behalf of 314 Action Victory Fund, which is backing the public health leader, found Shah with 28% support, nine points ahead of the others on the first ballot. The survey, which spoke to 522 Democratic primary voters from April 30 to May 4, found King following with 21%, Bellows at 16%, Pingree with 15% and Jackson at 13%. When the ranked-choice ballot is taken into account, Shah’s lead grows to 16 points on the final ballot.
Down East Magazine - Forty years ago, Jeff Aumuller sailed into Portland Harbor, and he’s lived aboard his boat ever since. In the spring and summer, he moors at Centerboard Yacht Club, in South Portland. When cold weather hits, he docks in a friend’s spot on Maine Wharf, on Commercial Street, or sails down the coast. Around him, the city skyline has become more congested, the boats sleeker and zippier. But Aumuller, a musician, isn’t interested in keeping pace. He wants little more than a deck to strum his guitar on and a tiny cabin to retire to at the end of the day. “I’m here until I die,” he says.
Aumuller has fulfilled a childhood dream of exploring the world by sailboat. “Some winters I’d take off for Bermuda, play music. It was the life I wanted and I led it,” he says. At age 85, Aumuller still rows out to his mooring, but getting into the dinghy takes some doing. He starts off lying sideways along the edge of the dock, then swivels his legs, boom-like, over the belly of the boat before lowering himself slowly inside. A couple of years ago, he traded Grebe, the 40-foot wooden sailboat he had for five decades, for Tyn’Lyne, a 31-foot fiberglass sloop that’s easier to maintain. He calls it “a Clorox bottle.” “It’s a retirement boat,” Aumuller says with a shrug. “I don’t have to cross oceans anymore.”