The Maine Monitor

Facts are important. Our nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization ensures that Maine's state government and institutions are held accountable. Our dedicated team of investigative journalists utilizes documents, data, and tough interviews to create impactful stories.

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Can seaweed be organic?

1 week ago | themainemonitor.org | Julia Tilton

Editor’s Note: The following first appeared in The Maine Monitor’s free environmental newsletter, Climate Monitor, that is delivered to inboxes every Friday morning. Sign up for the free newsletter to stay informed of Maine environmental news. A few weeks ago, I wrote about what goes into the organic food label. But I left out an important category: seaweed. Species like kelp and rockweed, which grow off Maine’s coast, are used in a variety of foods, crop fertilizers, and even skincare.
Maine's lawmakers, judicial branch clash over disciplining judges

2 weeks ago | themainemonitor.org | Josh Keefe

The legislature’s judiciary committee defied a warning from the chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday, pressing ahead with efforts to examine how the judicial branch handles ethics complaints against its judges. In a work session on, the committee considered how to address what one lawmaker called a “gap” in the judicial branch’s system for disciplining high court justices. But the legislators’ options appeared limited.
Maine lawmakers advance dam safety legislation

2 weeks ago | themainemonitor.org | Emmett Gartner

Editor’s Note: The following first appeared in The Maine Monitor’s free environmental newsletter, Climate Monitor, that is delivered to inboxes every Friday morning. Sign up for the free newsletter to stay informed of Maine environmental news. Two bills that would strengthen Maine’s lax dam safety regulations and replenish a long-depleted loan program for municipal dam repairs cleared their first hurdle when lawmakers voted them out of committee earlier this month.
Higher staffing requirements removed from assisted living bill

2 weeks ago | themainemonitor.org | Rose Lundy

Editor’s Note: The following story first appeared in The Maine Monitor’s free health care newsletter, Health Monitor, that is delivered to inboxes every other Thursday. Sign up for the free newsletter to stay informed of Maine health care news. Lawmakers have scrapped proposed increased staffing ratios for assisted living and residential care facilities, replacing the measure instead with reporting requirements and a stakeholder study group.
A teenager’s immigration arrest started with a Maine traffic stop

3 weeks ago | themainemonitor.org | Callie Ferguson

This story appears as part of a collaboration between The Maine Monitor and Maine Focus, the investigative team of the Bangor Daily News, a partnership to strengthen investigative journalism in Maine. Read more about the partnership. The sun had just begun to rise over the Maine Turnpike when Trooper James Anstett noticed a black Chrysler minivan with Massachusetts plates going too fast and staying too long in the left lane. He decided to pull the van over.
Maine bill wants to automatically seal certain criminal records

3 weeks ago | themainemonitor.org | Emily Bader

A bill introduced in the Senate earlier this month that would automatically seal certain criminal records has set up a debate between supporters who say the legislation would give people with a criminal history a second chance to “reach their full potential” and opponents who worry this blanket approach goes too far.
Lawmakers consider bills to improve regional transportation options

3 weeks ago | themainemonitor.org | Adrienne Washington

At the Penobscot Community Health Center in Bangor, Muriel Emerson spends her days working with patients as a community health assistant, sharing resources and connecting those in need with health and social services in the area. Every day, she works with local transportation agencies to coordinate rides for her clients, who are often elderly or disabled and require accessible options — it’s a need, she said, that is growing, and one she’s familiar with herself.
Maine resilience projects face yet another funding setback

3 weeks ago | themainemonitor.org | Emmett Gartner

Editor’s Note: The following first appeared in The Maine Monitor’s free environmental newsletter, Climate Monitor, that is delivered to inboxes every Friday morning. Sign up for the free newsletter to stay informed of Maine environmental news. Just a month after the Trump administration cancelled a popular grant program and millions of dollars for local Maine climate resilience projects along with it, Maine municipal officials are facing yet another potential federal funding setback.
As Maine diversifies, so does its health care workforce

4 weeks ago | themainemonitor.org | Rose Lundy

Amanda Karomba’s family fled the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and immigrated to Maine when she was an infant. Three decades later, Karomba operates nearly 30 group homes in the Lewiston-Auburn area serving adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, staffed primarily by people of color who are recent immigrants and identify as “New Mainers.” Karomba’s organization, Happy Haven, is an example of the growing racial and ethnic diversity of Maine’s health care workforce.
Maine lawmakers considering new dam safety reforms

4 weeks ago | themainemonitor.org | Emmett Gartner

After decades of understaffing, underfunding and dire warnings about the condition of Maine’s dam safety agency, state lawmakers are now considering expansive legislation that would revamp the office in charge of overseeing hundreds of aging Maine dams and set aside funds to fix them.