Press Herald - An analysis by researchers from Cornell University, Yale University and Microsoft Research predicts that former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav Shah will win in almost all of the 1,000 ranked-choice voting simulations in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. It also showed a close race between Jordan Wood and state Sen. Joe Baldacci in the Democratic primary for the 2nd Congressional District seat.
A new website launched by immigrant rights advocates features a map that tracks and verifies ICE sightings across the state. LighthouseME.org was released alongside a report that found a majority of the people in Maine who were arrested by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year had no criminal histories or convictions.
Troy Jackson - I’m deeply proud to have cosponsored and passed some of the strongest and most progressive reproductive health protections anywhere in the country. We made Maine the first state in the country to expand abortion access later in pregnancy after Dobbs. We eliminated criminal penalties for healthcare providers doing their jobs and strengthened privacy protections. We made sure no town in the state could restrict access through local ordinances, tackled cost barriers, and expanded access to birth control and prenatal and postpartum care. While I was Senate President, Maine proved to be a national leader in reproductive rights
WMTW - A strip mall that is located across from the Maine Mall will eventually be torn down to make way for new hotels. The Mall Plaza in South Portland, which was sold last year, is home to a number of businesses, including Dick's Sporting Goods, Mr. Bagel, Petco, Hunt's Photo & Video and House of Nails. New Gen Hospitality, the same company that owns Home 2 Suites, plans a $13 million development at the Mall Plaza that will include two hotels. South Portland city officials said New Gen Hospitality plans to build the hotels in the lot over the next several year
Maine Morning Star - On Wednesday, gubernatorial candidate and former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson was joined by representatives for Maine nurses, teachers and labor unions outside Maine Medical Center in Portland, who all vouched for his plan to regulate AI.
“AI may be new, it certainly is new to a lot of us, but the political question is old: Who benefits, who pays and who decides?” Jackson said “Under the Jackson administration, I can assure you that tech billionaires will not be deciding this alone and not be getting their way.”
His proposal, called “Agency over AI,” bans corporations from using the technology “as cover for throwing workers out on the street.” Any major employer that attributes mass layoffs to AI will lose every state contract and tax break, the plan states. It also bans routine use of AI in classrooms or for homework. The plan notes that he’d support a comprehensive law to stop companies “harvesting, selling and exploiting Mainers’ data,” but did not say how his proposal would or would not differ from earlier iterations the Maine Legislature has failed to pass.
Under Jackson’s plan, in his first 100 days he will regulate data centers, which power the technology, so they don’t “raise power bills, drain the local water supply or make nearby homes unlivable.”
Kelli Brennan, a nurse at Maine Medical Center and co-president of the nurses union that has endorsed Jackson, said that nurses have demanded transparency on AI usage and asked MaineHealth to cancel its contract with Palantir, a tech company specializing in AI that has powered federal immigration enforcement surveillance.
“It is essential that we have elected officials who are willing to stand up to the tech billionaires and protect the working class from the serious threats of unregulated AI,” Brennan said. “When Big Tech gains access to vast amounts of healthcare data, patients and nurses worry about who can see that information and how it is being used.”
.... On the same day, gubernatorial candidate Nirav Shah released a similar plan to address AI use, proposing a moratorium on data centers until they can be regulated, require educator approval before any AI tool is used directly with children and ban AI from making final decisions about a person’s benefits, healthcare, education, housing, public safety or access to state services.
“AI is moving faster than Maine families, schools, workers and communities can keep up with,” Shah said in a statement. “Maine can use innovation where it helps people, but we cannot let Big Tech write the rules, exploit our kids, surveil workers, replace human judgment or stick ratepayers with the bill.”
Maine Morning Star - The Maine Department of Transportation plans to cut up to $400 million from its planned projects due to a funding gap... The department will do so by cutting or delaying another $150 million in bridge, highway, intersection and multimodal improvements this month, at the start of Maine’s peak construction season, as well as cutting an additional $200 million or more from other projects planned for the state’s next three-year work plan.
Portland Weekly - In City Hall news, the City Council approved next year's $364 million budget on Tuesday following several hours of debate over amendments. For Portland residents' wallets, the biggest change will be a 4.9% increase in property taxes and the expansion of metered parking until 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Oh, and all meters will be 50 cents more per hour.