Trump as the Real Manchurian Candidate

MEDIUM: • February 16, 2025

One of the most alarming aspects of Trump’s presidency is his administration’s neglect of environmental issues. Ignoring environmental challenges can have catastrophic consequences, and Trump’s rollback of environmental regulations is a clear example of this danger. By withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and dismantling protections for air, water, and public lands, Trump has prioritized short-term economic gains over long-term sustainability. As the world grapples with the escalating climate crisis, the absence of American leadership creates a void that other nations, particularly China, are eager to fill. The long-term consequences of this neglect – rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and resource scarcity – will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations, exacerbating social and economic inequalities.

Explore the underwater world of Maine’s lakes and ponds with this hobbyist

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 16, 2025

Jason Smith of Milo grew up hunting and fishing in Maine. He saw the underwater drones and his curiosity was hooked. The camera on the drone sends a live feed back to Smith, which he views on his iPad but could also see on his phone. Chase has worked with state biologists, especially on Arctic char. His YouTube channel Maine Freshwater Exploration Going Deep has more than 3,200 subscribers. He also posts his underwater videos on Facebook, where he has about 3,500 followers.

Letter: Cutting climate-related funding will harm Maine

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 16, 2025

As a scientist, I am deeply alarmed by the news that NOAA was asked to supply a list of active climate-related grant funding to the Trump administration. This request raises alarms about potential cuts to critical climate research and mitigation efforts. Climate-related research funded by federal agencies supports climate monitoring, weather forecasting, and cutting-edge science. This research highlights vulnerable resources where the need for intervention is highest and is critical to mounting an effective response to climate change and understanding the potential risks. I urge policymakers, scientists, and the public to push for continued federal funding of climate research and, in doing so, reaffirm that scientific research is essential for safeguarding our communities from climate change. ~ Alexis Garretson, Hampden

These huts deep in the woods offer skiers hot homemade meals

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 15, 2025

Deep in the frozen woods of western Maine, more than 50 miles of trails thread between four backcountry lodges. This system, run by the nonprofit organization Maine Huts and Trails, is an opportunity for adventure and to enjoy small luxuries in the woods. Grand Falls Hut, the most remote in the system, is closed temporarily for bridge and trail repairs. But Flagstaff Hut, Poplar Stream Hut and Stratton Brook Hut, all connected by trails, are open for business. You’ll need to reserve a room to stay the night, and you can opt for your stay to include dinner, breakfast and a bagged lunch during the winter. They also offer shuttle services for your gear.

A huge lobster fought a Mainer in 1902 and almost won . . . so the story goes

SUN JOURNAL • February 15, 2025

Back in 1902, a fisherman named Charles McVane — who lived on Long Island in Casco Bay — is said to have barely survived a midnight encounter with a huge lobster. After a long day, McVane pulled his dory onto a sandy spit and hunkered down for a night’s sleep. During the night the water rose unexpectedly high and McVane felt a sudden wave that carried both him and his dory off. Knocked unconscious by driftwood, he found himself lying on a different stretch of sand. He felt like a huge vise had clamped across his throat as he struggled for air. He felt “the cold shell of a monster lobster.” Finally, the lobster released its grip. He spent the rest of the night whittling wooden pegs from driftwood to drive into the creature’s claws to render them useless. McVane had a taxidermist mount the 4-foot-long lobster. Was it true? Two years earlier, the Portland Evening Express mentioned that McVane had been entertaining friends with his “famous stories.”

The life-threatening encounter with ‘the biggest lobster of them all’

SUN JOURNAL • February 15, 2025

The Lewiston Evening Journal detailed in 1895 a battle between fishermen and an 'enraged' supersize lobster. Elmer Staples said on a sunny September day in 1895 he was fishing in a dory off Newfoundland and the cod were biting. A hundred yards away, two other men – Nova Scotians Tom Massey of Pictou and a fellow named Reed from Antigonish – were doing the same. Staples heard a yell and looked over at the other boat in time to see it “lurch as if someone was climbing over the side.” He saw Massey hanging on for dear life while Reed was swinging an oar at “a great, green slimy-looking thing that was waving his long feelers above his head. We saw that the object was a huge lobster” with Massey’s right arm held fast “in one of its horrid claws. Fully three feet in length,” it seized the side of the boat with its pincer “and broke it out like paper. Reed seized a pike axe “and gave it a terrible jab in the back of the neck” that caused the creature to let go. “I hope…that I may never see or experience the like again,” Staples said.

Deep-sea diver insists a huge lobster nearly killed him

SUN JOURNAL • February 15, 2025

In April of 1863, the Anglo Saxon, stuffed with emigrants from England and cargo, ran ashore in thick fog on the tip of Newfoundland, claiming nearly 300 lives. Not long after, three divers were sent down to try to recover valuable items. One told a Bangor newspaper in 1893 what happened next. He saw “a huge creature moving toward the vessel. It seemed to be several feet high and about eight feet long and it had on each side an enormous arm.” It had countless little legs, a mottled brown color and two shining black eyes, along with two “supple horns, each resembling an enormous whip. The monster threw out one of its arms and seized me below the shoulder. I felt as if my bones were being crushed.” Desperate, he plunged the knife into one of the eyes. The pain grew unbearable and he blacked out. The next thing he knew, he was in a skiff on the surface, hauled out by his comrades. His rescuers told him they had seen “an awful, deep-sea lobster.” Did it really happen? There is no way to know.

Wolfe’s Neck Farm’s $35 million climate grant caught up in funding freeze

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 15, 2025

A popular Freeport demonstration farm that was awarded a $35 million climate-smart agriculture grant to promote sustainable practices at 400 farms across the country finds itself in financial limbo as a result of President Donald Trump’s federal funding freeze. Despite a signed contract, the USDA told the Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment it would not be issuing any reimbursements at this time. Wolfe’s Neck will have no choice but to shut the program down if it isn’t reimbursed by the end of the month.

Dover-Foxcroft stares down massive tax hike to maintain ailing dam

MAINE MONITOR • February 14, 2025

Residents in Dover-Foxcroft could see their property tax bills increase by hundreds of dollars each year if the town commits to maintaining its ailing dam on the Piscataquis River to federal standards. In June, voters rejected plans to remove the Mayo Mill dam. Removing the dam would likely have been funded with outside grants; there are likely far fewer outside funding opportunities available for ongoing maintenance. Maintaining the dam to federal standards would run the town just under $10 million. Eileen Bader Hall, of The Nature Conservancy in Maine, said, if the town wants to reconsider “dam removal and river restoration, we stand ready to partner with them to help plan and implement a solution.” Meanwhile, federal funding options for fish passage could be the next allocation axed by President Donald Trump.

Lawmaker wants to make federal drinking water PFAS limits the legal standard in Maine

MAINE PUBLIC • February 14, 2025

A Hallowell lawmaker said he will introduce a bill to make the current federal drinking water limits for PFAS the legal standard in Maine. Democratic Rep. Dan Shagoury said the bill would assure residents that Maine's drinking water is safe, regardless of what the Trump Administration might do to the regulations. “If the federal standards go away it's a guarantee, then that there will be a mechanism that says we still have to meet that standard," Shagoury said. The state limit for PFAS is 20 parts per trillion, while EPA regulations introduced last year set a limit of 4 parts per trillion. Hallowell's public drinking supply has PFAS levels beyond safe federal limits. So, the Hallowell Water District installed a filtration system that provides safe drinking and cooking water to residents. The town plans to build a new water treatment system.

Maine to eye protecting limits on PFAS in water as Trump scraps rules

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 14, 2025

A Maine legislator plans to introduce a bill soon that would require the state to meet current federal limits on forever chemicals in public drinking water as fears mount that the White House will roll back the stricter safe-drinking levels set last year. The Trump administration already has rolled back some limits on the toxic forever chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. In January it withdrew a pending Biden administration plan to set PFAS discharge limits for chemical manufacturers.

Augusta park, minus controversial statue, proposed for former YMCA site

KENNEBEC JOURNAL • February 14, 2025

A new proposal from a landowner could turn the prominent former YMCA site at the intersection of State and Winthrop streets into a park. The proposal takes the place of a previous plan of the site’s owner to develop the same spot as a museum housing a statue of the owner’s relative, a former U.S. chief justice from Augusta who presided over a ruling that maintained racial segregation. The new plans, from philanthropist and seasonal resident Robert Fuller, do not involve the statue of Melville Fuller. Instead it would feature flower gardens, landscaping, a playground, picnic tables, benches, a parking lot and walking paths on a site across the street from the Capital Judicial Center and Lithgow Public Library, in a part of the city where parks aren’t currently allowed.

Farmers and rural businesses spent big on improvements. Will promised rebates arrive?

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 14, 2025

A freeze on federal loans and grants is creating turmoil for rural U.S. business owners who fear they won’t get reimbursed for new, cleaner irrigation equipment or solar panels they purchased with the promise of a rebate. In Cherryville, Maine, Hugh Lassen and family grow organic blueberries on their Intervale Farm. Last year they purchased solar panels to run their home, a blueberry sorter and 14 freezers. They did it thinking they’d get an $8,000 grant through the Rural Energy for America Program. President Donald Trump ordered a freeze on giving out these funds, but federal judges have said departments can disburse them. Yet many departments have not resumed writing checks.

Moscow banned solar farms. A developer wants to change that.

MORNING SENTINEL • February 14, 2025

A former military radar base in a remote part of Somerset County could soon be the site of a large solar farm. But first, the developers proposing the project need to convince voters in the small town of Moscow to change an ordinance passed in 2023 that effectively banned such projects. Cianbro Corp., headquartered in Pittsfield, and Patriot Renewables, headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts, have plans for a 60-megawatt solar farm in Moscow and Caratunk at a former U.S. Air Force Over-the-Horizon Backscatter Radar base once used to detect incoming aircraft and missile threats.

Why proposed limits on riprap along Maine’s shore are controversial

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 14, 2025

The major storms that hit Maine in the winter of 2024 damaged large sections of the coast, eroding bluffs, banks and beaches while also harming docks, piers and other waterfront infrastructure. The resulting effort to rebuild has inundated the state’s environmental regulators, fueling a roughly 50 percent increase in the number of applications they’ve had to process. The bulk of that uptick has been from landowners wanting to stabilize their sections of coastal shoreline. Now, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection has proposed rules that are meant to streamline the handling of those applications, by allowing more of them to be approved through an expedited process known as permit by rule.

Republican legislators pushing for possible nuclear energy comeback in Maine

MAINE MORNING STAR • February 14, 2025

Though Maine decommissioned its only nuclear power plant at the turn of the century, Republicans seem to be laying the groundwork for the energy source to make a comeback. In arguments against solar tax credits and other forms of renewable energy, Republican leaders have said the state should be more open to considering nuclear energy as a low-emission power source. Proponents of nuclear energy would like to see it play a larger role in discussions around the transition to clean energy since it doesn’t emit pollution nor is it subject to the same intermittency of solar and wind. However, critics say those benefits come with other health and environmental hazards. And despite advances in technology, nuclear projects can be expensive.

Column: Here’s how the bird flu is affecting nesting colonies in Maine

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 14, 2025

The current outbreak of avian influenza has been making a lot of headlines. Gulls are being hit hard locally. We observed this in 2022 when hundreds of dead gulls were found on nesting islands. The Greater Portland Christmas Bird Count in mid-December saw the lowest total of both American herring gulls and great black-backed gulls in the history of the count: 1,055 American herring gulls and 78 great black-backed gulls, way down from record highs of 12,773 and 893. The “backyard birds,” like chickadees and woodpeckers, are very unlikely to contract avian influenza, so there is no need to stop feeding those birds. Think about the things you can do to help birds around your yard, be it during an avian influenza outbreak or not. Keep your cats indoors, treat your windows to break up reflections and reduce strikes, support the next generation of birds with native plants. ~ Maine Audubon Staff Naturalist Doug Hitchcox

Maine beer prices likely to rise from Trump’s aluminum tariffs, brewers warn

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 14, 2025

Mainers should expect to pay more for local craft beer if aluminum tariffs take effect next month, brewers and industry officials warn. President Donald Trump signed executive orders Monday that impose 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. Most of the aluminum used in Maine comes from Canada, including the metal used for beer cans.

Column: You won’t want to miss these birding festivals in Maine

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 14, 2025

Bring out your calendar. It’s time to plan which birding festivals you’ll be attending this year. There are four major ones. Feel free to attend more than one. Over the weekend of May 16-18, Deer Isle and Stonington host their annual Wings, Waves & Woods Festival. The Downeast Spring Birding Festival is scheduled over Memorial Day weekend; this year it will be held May 23-26. The Acadia Birding Festival is the biggest and longest-running Maine festival. It’s scheduled for May 29 - June 1. Save June 5-8 for the Rangeley Birding Festival. ~ Bob Duchesne

Developers give up permits for controversial Deer Isle glampground

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 13, 2025

The saga of a high-end campground proposal that stirred opposition and prompted zoning discussions on Deer Isle may have reached an end. In a letter to the town’s Select Board dated Feb. 12, developers behind the Fox Hollow campground project voluntarily revoked their own permits and gave up any future development rights on the 48-acre property overlooking Crockett Cove on the island’s southwestern stretch. First proposed in 2022, the project was met with organized resistance from residents and eventually a lawsuit. It also led the town to consider strengthening its zoning laws to prepare for future proposals as development pressure on the island grows.