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Warning! Warning!

There will be an overlap of two events at Kennedy Park later today, the Auburn-Lewiston Rotary Club Criterium and a Pokemon Go! hunt hosted by the Lewiston Public Library. The crit — a fast-paced one-mile bike race around the park — will go off in eight different waves starting at 9:30 a.m., most about an […]

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There is real harm in a government of secrets, schemes

What’s with all the secrecy? The noble concept that public officials are conducting our business in public and in our best interest is taking a beating in Maine. Secret #1 The Department of Health and Human Services recently proposed a rule change that severely restricts how infectious disease data is released to the public. Right […]

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Incompetent defendants pose danger, need help

Tyron Calhoun is a 23-year-old Lewiston man who has been repeatedly charged with drug crimes in which there was overwhelming evidence for prosecution. Yet, in each case the charges were dismissed because Calhoun does not have the mental capacity to stand trial. Meaning, his IQ is at a level where he cannot understand the consequences, […]

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Our View: Killing the innocent will not bring justice

What happened in Dallas at 8:58 Thursday night was unspeakable. Five officers shot dead and seven wounded on the job. Shot because they were doing their jobs. And, from all reports, doing their jobs well. They were on site at a protest but hands off, allowing those gathered to exercise their constitutional right to peaceably […]

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Honoring the boys from Maine

Clem Bechard is an inspiration. On a recent trip to Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania, where a three-day battle in 1863 changed the course of the Civil War, Bechard searched out a granite monument commemorating the courage and tenacity of the 20th Maine Regiment. In the sloping woods on the back side of Little […]

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Declaration of independence and fortitude

Imagine, if you can, what it might have been like to wake up in this country on July 3, 1776. The colonies had been at war with the Crown for more than a year. Colonists were living in turmoil, chafing under English rule. Dozens of battles had already taken place up and down the Eastern […]

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Lewiston: Planning for the future

If you didn’t get a chance to roll or stroll down Canal Street in Lewiston Thursday, you missed something good. It was a glimpse of the future, a glimpse of the possible. As part of the third Build Maine Conference held in Lewiston in as many years, the street was converted to a single travel […]

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Assault weapons ban must become a priority

Guns. There are few topics more hotly debated in this country, from our constitutional right to bear arms to the wrongs committed by some while bearing those arms. The overwhelming majority of gun owners are responsible, careful and law-abiding people. The criminal actions of the active minority are fueling the debate, pitting our rights against […]

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Please vote: Tuesday is decision day

On Tuesday school budgets will be decided. Registrars of probate will be elected. Boards of selectmen will be established. Municipal spending on special projects, such as a new fire station in Peru, will be decided. The town of Paris will decide whether to keep its police department or contract with the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office […]

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It’s a little thing called the First Amendment

At the RSU 9 budget meeting in Farmington Wednesday night, School Board member Nancy Porter passed a beautifully hand-written note to two women sitting in the front row asking them to hold their questions on the proposed budget until after the first two articles were presented. This was a district-wide budget vote on $32 million […]