November 4, 2022 Largest-Ever Race Discrimination Verdict in Maine On November 2, 2022, a jury in the Bangor federal courthouse returned a verdict of $3,000,000 for David Ako-Annan against Eastern Maine Medical Center. This verdict found that EMMC engaged in unlawful racial discrimination when it terminated his employment; it also awarded $1,500,000 in compensatory damages and $1,500,000 in punitive damages for EMMC’s reckless disregard for Mr. Ako-Annan’s right not to be discriminated against because of his race. Plaintiff David Ako-Annan has lived in Milford for about ten years and is age 46. He was the practice manager between June 2013 and April 2019 at a primary care medical office in Orono operated by EMMC. Mr. Ako-Annan is a Black immigrant from Ghana who moved […]

11/17/2022  Maine households may order a kit of five rapid COVID-19 tests for home delivery every month from Project ACT AUGUSTA— The Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is encouraging Maine people to order free, at-home COVID-19 tests as part of their planning for upcoming gatherings and travel to protect relatives and friends and help limit the spread of COVID-19 this holiday season. Households that order through Project Access COVID Tests (Project ACT) may receive one free kit of five rapid tests mailed to their home address every month. Project ACT, a partnership between DHHS and The Rockefeller Foundation, has mailed 170,897 free, at-home COVID-19 test kits – for a total of 854,485 tests – to Maine households since its launch in January […]

Friday, Nov. 18 Workers at the Woodland Pulp mill in Baileyville, Maine are demanding that the company present a contract offer that provides high enough wage increases to keep up with the cost of living. The members of USW Local 27 will be projecting the union’s “Bat Light” on the side of the tissue machines at the mill today with the message “Essential Workers Deserve a Fair Contract.” Union members are scheduled to take a vote on whether to strike or accept the company’s final after their bargaining session with the company on November 28. “Whenever there was trouble in Gotham City, they would project the Bat Light on a building to summon Batman. The USW Bat Light signals that […]

November 17, 2022 Augusta, MAINE – The Mills Administration announced today that many Maine businesses will see a significant reduction in unemployment taxes next year thanks to strategic investments by Governor Mills in Maine’s unemployment trust fund. In 2020 and 2021, Governor Mills directed that $382 million in Federal COVID relief funding be invested in Maine’s unemployment trust fund to prevent tax increases on Maine’s small businesses caused by unprecedented pressure on Maine’s unemployment compensation system. Because of these investments, Maine’s unemployment trust fund remained solvent during the pandemic, unlike many states that had to borrow and repay billions of dollars with interest to the federal government. As a result of these investments and Maine’s strong economic recovery, the unemployment trust fund currently […]

November 15, 2022 AUGUSTA – Attorney General Aaron Frey today announced that Maine along with 39 other attorneys general, has reached a $391.5 million multistate settlement with Google over its location tracking practices relating to Google Account settings. This is the largest multistate Attorney General privacy settlement in the history of the U.S. Maine will receive over $4 million from the settlement.  “Google users were misled into believing they had control over their location data when they did not. Consumers have a right to know whether their data is being collected and what it is being used for,” said Attorney General Frey.  Location data is a key part of Google’s digital advertising business. Google uses the personal and behavioral data it collects […]

November 16, 2022 By Ramona du Houx Hallowell, Maine –The Maine Public Utilities Commission accepted bids and set new Standard Offer electricity supply rates for residential and business customers of Central Maine Power Company (CMP) and Versant Power-Maine Public District (MPD).  For residential and small non-residential customers of CMP, the Standard Offer price will be 17.63 cents per kWh effective January 1, 2023.  The Standard Offer electricity supply amount accounts for about 60 percent of the total customer bill, therefore the total bill increase will be about 26 percent for an average customer using 550 kWh/month, or an increase of $31.98, from about $122.59 to about $154.58.  The standard offer price set last year was 11.8 cents per kwh, so the 17.6 cents […]

Fiction Thomas Votary, Medieval Oxford Coroner: The King’s Gold Double Leopards  Oxford has no law only landowners who try and control Votary so he won’t unveil their secrets but Thomas believes in justice & love. Soto’s SongTravel with Soto on his mystical journey through an imagined reality, where he gains perspective and listens to the wisdom in the air, water, fire, and earth. Art book. Conversations with Quetzalcoatl Humorous, lighthearted vignettes about pre-Columbian culture, with flashes of fantasy and wonder of the unexplained. The Proud andthe ImmortalTakes us into the world of a homeless community living in disused Amtrak train tunnels in New York City. My Tainted BloodFollows the author as a German/Jewish boy/teenager in wartime Breslau and post WWII […]

November 3, 2022  The new $400 million investment in a Houlton-area manufacturing plant by LP Building Solutions adds to the mounting evidence that consumer-owned electric utilities are very good for business development in Maine. When asked to comment on this new investment, Wayne Jortner, lead petitioner on the Our Power citizen initiative and retired Senior Counsel to the Office of the Public Advocate, said, “It’s not at all surprising that more well-paid jobs keep coming to towns like Houlton, Kennebunk and Madison; that’s because those towns are served by non-profit, consumer-owned electric utilities. Manufacturing is very energy intensive, and electricity rates for CMP and Versant are about twice as much as they are in towns served by non-profit electric utilities. […]

October 23, 2022 Augusta, MAINE – Maine small businesses and nonprofit organizations will soon receive a one-time electric utility account credit of more than $2,000 to provide relief from increased energy costs. This relief is the product of legislation sponsored by Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Aroostook, and signed into law by Governor Mills.   The program, created by LD 2010, Resolve, to Help Certain Businesses with Electricity Costs offers tiered relief based on electricity usage, and aims to assist small businesses and nonprofits in Maine facing increased costs due to volatile global energy prices following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Funding for the credit is provided through the Governor’s Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan, through funds allocated by the Legislature for small business relief.   […]