Press Herald - Each year, Maine allocates a small percentage of moose tags for sporting camps, which have long been destinations for hunting and fishing trips in the most rural parts of the state. Hunters pay anywhere between $10,000 and $33,000 for packages that include a guaranteed tag, lodging, meals and guiding services. Officials, guides and outfitters say loose guidelines have allowed some sporting camps to access tags through a lucrative secondary market. Now, state officials are pushing for changes to a system that some say takes opportunities from other guides and limits availability for nonresidents seeking tags in the Maine's prime hunting season.
Over the past 25 years, an influx of men, women and children originally from Somalia settled in the old mill city of Lewiston and, like the many immigrants before them, changed it. Since 2001, the Somali community in Maine’s second-largest city has gone from a small refugee group to a prominent demographic that has played a major role in shaping the region’s identity. Here's a look at how that community has grown, the challenges it has faced, and the significant impact it has had on the city and the state.
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Maine Morning Star - As Maine lawmakers enter the final weeks of the legislative session, a bill to expand ranked choice voting is awaiting a judicial opinion to help determine whether it becomes law.
In turn, that means the ruling could decide if voters will use ranked choice voting in November’s contentious governor’s race.
“Ranked choice voting is not just a great way to ensure voter satisfaction, it just makes a lot of sense for Maine in particular: we have a lot of independent voters, we have a lot of voters who do not identify with the major political parties,” said Jen Lancaster, deputy director of the League of Women Voters of Maine.
The League has been advocating for ranked choice voting in Maine since the issue initially arose with a successful statewide referendum in 2016, but since then its application has been limited.
.... The Maine Supreme Judicial Court will hear oral arguments on Wednesday in Portland, first on whether the Legislature’s request meets the threshold of a “solemn occasion” — under which lawmakers ask the court to produce a nonbinding decision on the legality of pending legislation —and then on the constitutionality of the bill itself.