Press Herald
With fewer workers around Congress Street and rent increases on the way, Bay Club Fitness, a gym once considered a ‘mini country club’ for making business deals, can’t afford to stay. After 36 years, the owner says she'll close and consult with a bankruptcy lawyer to find a way forward. Read more.
Mainers may soon be able to install small-scale, portable solar energy systems in their homes under a bill backed Thursday by the Legislature. If signed into law, it would allow electricity customers to use certain small systems, plugged directly into wall sockets, similar to gas generators – meaning homeowners and renters could also take them along when moving unlike traditional, permanent solar panel systems. Read the story here.
Amid Iran conflict, Platner re-ups criticism of Collins for Iraq vote. Here’s the background.
Janet Mills says she approves of ‘millionaire’s tax’ passed by Maine budget panel
How modular housing can help solve Maine’s affordable home shortage
Tito’s Vodka maker must pay $749K in Maine taxes and fines, court rules
If the Maine Legislature passes the proposed budget, Maine would be among the first states in the country to provide a comprehensive safety net to make up for volatile federal funding for reproductive care services.
Secretary of State and Governor candidate Shenna Bellows - Things have escalated significantly, and I want you to hear directly from me about what’s happening, and why it matters: First: Trump's DOJ demanded Maine share the sensitive, personal voter information of every voter in Maine. I refused, because your privacy matters. Then: The DOJ sued me and the State of Maine. Again, I refused to back down. Now: Trump has signed a sweeping executive order trying to take control of our elections – targeting vote-by-mail, pressuring states to hand over more data, and threatening officials like me who won’t comply.
Let me be clear: I will fight to protect your voting rights. I will not be intimidated. And I will not allow anyone – including the President – to undermine our elections here in Maine.
The Hill - Graham Platner, an oyster farmer with a plainspoken style, isn’t a typical Senate candidate. But in a cycle where political outsiders are increasingly gaining traction, candidates like him are no longer outliers — they’re becoming contenders.
Platner’s candidacy is an early test of that shift. In Maine, where Sen. Susan Collins (R) has long defied political gravity, some early polling suggests he could mount a credible challenge — and outperform more traditional candidates like Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) in the process.
Mills, who is 78 and a familiar face to Mainers, has put out a string of negative ads against the 41-year-old Platner, including highlighting insensitive comments he made about rape. To date, it hasn’t moved the needle in polls.
An Emerson College poll released in late March, for example, showed Platner ahead of Mills by about 27 points, with Platner receiving support from 55 percent of those surveyed, while Mills received 28 percent. The poll said 17 percent of those polled were undecided.
“I think it’s not as much an anti-Mills phenomenon as a pro-Platner one,” Democratic strategist Christy Setzer said. “Fairly or not, Mills represents the current Democratic Party to voters — too old, too weak to fight [President] Trump, [which] may be unfair, but the rep nonetheless, not understanding where the base is.
“Platner, meanwhile, reads as ‘outsider,’ younger, anti-establishment at a time when even the Democrats kind of hate the Democrats.”
