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WASHINGTON — Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he won't support ending the Senate filibuster that has enabled the Republican minority to block key portions of President Joe Biden's agenda, further complicating Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's drive to pass voting rights and other measures.

NEWRY — The richest known hard rock lithium deposit in the world lies a few miles northeast of the ski slopes of Sunday River and not far from Step Falls, where swimmers can wade in shallow pools formed by hundreds of feet of cascading granite ledge. Smaller deposits have been known in Maine for decades, but this recent discovery, just north of Plumbago Mountain in Newry, is the first to have a major resource potential.

A hospital in Maine announced it would suspend emergency-level care at its walk-in location due to a staffing shortage, coming about a week after a facility in Minnesota suspended its urgent care and emergency room service. York Hospital said it is suspending emergency care at the Wells, Maine, facility starting Oct. 25. “York Hospital in Wells will temporarily suspend emergency-level care,” the hospital said in a statement. “Wells Walk-In Care will continue to offer urgent care to all patients” seven days per week but won’t operate 24 hours per day. “If you are experiencing life-threatening symptoms (severe pain, difficulty breathing)...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to hear an emergency appeal of vaccine requirements for Maine health care workers. The high court has previously rejected a challenge to a vaccine mandate for New York City teachers. Vaccine mandates have been challenged across the country over the pandemic. The US Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stop a state-imposed COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers in Maine that's expected to take effect next week. The high court declined to hear an emergency appeal of the Maine vaccine requirement. The order was handed down by Justice Stephen Breyer, a Democratic appointee...

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear an emergency appeal of a vaccine requirement imposed on Maine health care workers, the latest defeat for opponents of vaccine mandates. It was the first time the Supreme Court weighed in on a statewide vaccine mandate. It previously rejected challenges of vaccine requirements for New York City teachers and Indiana University staff and students. Justice Stephen Breyer rejected the emergency appeal but left the door open to try again as the clock ticks on Maine’s mandate. The state will begin enforcing it Oct. 29. The Maine vaccine requirement that was put in...

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday refused to issue an emergency injunction to stop Maine’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.The three-judge panel of the Boston-based court issued a one-sentence statement saying the request was denied without an explanation, The Bangor Daily News reported.A final ruling will likely be issued next week, according to Liberty Counsel, an organization representing more than 2,000 health care workers across the state in the lawsuit.“We look forward to a decision from the Court of Appeals. If that decision is not favorable, we will request emergency relief from the Supreme Court,” Liberty Counsel Founder and...

WATERVILLE, Maine (AP) — Colby College is banning discrimination based on caste, a system of inherited social class, becoming one of the nation’s earliest colleges to do so. The private liberal arts college revised its nondiscrimination policy to add caste to its list of protections for the campus community. The efforts were led by a professor who took an interest in caste discrimination across the country and realized the college needed to recognize it as a form of discrimination, the Bangor Daily News reported. “You have to first name what it is to say: This exists, we name it, we...

There will be no state unemployment benefits for health care workers who are fired for refusing to get employer-mandated vaccinations against COVID-19, state officials said Thursday. Already, a small number of workers have quit rather than be fully vaccinated ahead of the deadline at month’s end. “Refusing to comply with an employer’s policies, including a health or safety policy, typically disqualifies a person from being eligible to receive unemployment benefits,” Jessica Picard, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Labor, said Thursday.

Chinese media: Maine lobster shipment was ‘Pandora’s box,’ spreading covid Guest Author:Mark Godfrey Reports appearing across China’s tightly controlled media suggest the origin of covid-19 in the country came in 2019 via a shipment of lobster from Maine. “In November 2019, a shipment of frozen Maine [lobster] arrived in Wuhan, and shortly afterwards several people working in the market fell very ill with a strange pneumonia,” noted an article published this week in the New Observer, a state-owned periodical. The article suggests the shipment from Maine was a “Pandora’s box” that spread the virus around China. It also states the...

BANGOR, Maine (AP) — The headlining event of this year’s Maine Science Festival will be a musical exploration of climate change. The organizers of the festival said they commissioned composer Lucas Richman to create a symphony about hope in the era of climate change in the Gulf of Maine. The gulf is warming faster than most of the world’s oceans. The organizers said the Bangor Symphony Orchestra will perform the premier of the work, called “The Warming Sea,” at the Maine Science Festival on March 19. Festival organizers said Richman’s work was informed by discussions with scientists, researchers, experts and...

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Droughts that cause leaves to turn brown and wither before they can reach peak color. Heat waves prompting leaves to fall before autumn even arrives. Extreme weather events like hurricanes that strip trees of their leaves altogether. For a cheery autumnal activity, leaf peeping is facing some serious threats from the era of climate change. Leaf peeping, the practice of traveling to watch nature display its fall colors, is a beloved annual activity in many corners of the country, especially New England and New York. But recent seasons have been disrupted by weather conditions there and...

CARIBOU, Maine (AP) — Maine’s annual moose hunt will start soon with more permits for hunters than the previous year. The hunt begins on Monday in limited parts of the state. The late September and early October moose hunt mostly takes place in far northern and eastern parts of Maine. The moose hunt ends briefly on Oct. 2. Other stretches of the hunt take places in mid-October, late October and November. The state approved almost 3,500 moose permits for this season, and that was an increase of 11% from the previous year. The moose hunt is starting as the bear...

Former Maine Governor Paul LePage held a rally in Augusta on Wednesday to officially launch his 2022 gubernatorial election campaign. Video...

LEWISTON, Maine — Remember Paul LePage? Sure you do. He’s the former governor of Maine who has called himself, accurately enough, “Donald Trump before Donald Trump” — a hot-headed, vulgar and sometimes erratic figure who regularly made international headlines for doing things like celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day by telling the NAACP to “kiss my butt,” rushing up to a television crew at the State House to volunteer that a state senator liked “to give it to the people without providing Vaseline,” and leaving an unhinged, obscenity-filled message for a Democratic legislator which he said he wanted recorded and...

Former Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), who once described himself as a political forerunner to former President Trump, plans to formally announce his bid for a third term on Wednesday, four years after leaving the governorship. LePage will make his announcement at a rally at the Augusta Civic Center, just over a year ahead of an election that would pit him against his successor, Gov. Janet Mills (D). During two terms as governor, LePage feuded constantly with the state legislature, including members of his own party, and with the media. He became an early Trump backer and even racked up...

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) will endorse former Republican Gov. Paul LePage as he seeks a third term in the governor's mansion, the senator’s office confirmed to The Hill. “As Maine recovers from the pandemic, Paul is the best candidate to grow our economy,” Collins will say in a prerecorded one-minute video, according to the Portland Press Herald, which obtained the video and first reported Collins’s coming announcement.

Senate Democrats have reached an agreement on a new set of federal voting rules again, but this time it is more worrisome for Republicans because a key Democrat is on board. In fact, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who has not been a fan of previous voting bills, spearheaded this effort along with Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and a group of cosponsors, NPR reported. The package is the latest attempt by Democrats to counteract Republican-led measures at the state level to restrict voting access and alter election administration. The new legislation, unveiled Tuesday morning by Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar...

A recent SurveyUSA poll shows Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) could find trouble heading into the Democrat primary for her reelection as the 2022 midterms approach. The poll found that Maine’s Senate president, State Sen. Troy Jackson (D), has a strong standing in the hypothetical poll going head-to-head against Mills next June in the primary:

The Maine Whoopie Pie Festival in Dover-Foxcroft has been canceled due to rising COVID-19 cases in Piscataquis County. The festival, which celebrates the taste of Maine's Official State Treat, was to be held on October 2 at the Piscataquis Valley Fairgrounds. [The 2021 Fryeburg Fair will go on amid coronavirus pandemic] Piscataquis County has the highest percentage of positive COVID tests in the state over the past 14 days (9.5%) and the highest rate of cases per 10,000 (50.64). The county also has the second lowest rate of people who have received their final dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, at...

A Maine musical theater was forced to cancel its fall schedule after refunding $36,000 worth of tickets in the days since announcing a COVID-19 vaccination policy, according to a report. The Brunswick-based Maine State Music Theatre was buried in refund requests after saying on Friday that theater-goers would have to prove they’ve either been vaccinated or tested negative for the coronavirus, The Portland Press Herald reported. “Not selling a ticket is bad,” artistic director Dale Clark told the newspaper. “Having to refund a ticket that you have already sold, that’s a lot worse.” Clark blamed pushback against the new policy...