Irwin Gratz
Morning Edition ProducerIrwin was born and reared in New York City and, while he never hiked miles to school, he did walk up six flights of stairs every day to the apartment his family lived in until he was nearly 19. Irwin remains a lover of subway rides, egg creams, and the New York Mets.
He moved to Maine in 1978 and worked a dozen years in commercial radio in Sanford, then Portland, before beginning to freelance for Maine Public Radio in 1990. He has been the local anchor of Morning Edition since September 1992.
Irwin served as chairman of the Maine Association of Broadcasters in 2015. From September 2004 to October 2005, Irwin served as national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, the nation’s largest and most broad-based journalism organization. He holds a master’s in journalism from New York University. Irwin won a Yankee Quill Award in 2011 from the New England Newspaper and Press Association for his “broad influence for good, both inside and outside the newsroom.”
Irwin also has an interest in astronomy, which he indulges to this day as an occasional show presenter at the Southworth Planetarium in Portland. And he swims, a lot. Irwin has completed seven Peaks Island-to-Portland swims. Irwin is married and has a teenage son.
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Most of Maine has been breathing easier, according to the latest State of the Air report from the American Lung Association. -
The Bangor Daily News and the Maine Sunday Telegram/Portland Press Herald have partnered for a series of stories looking at the lack of accountability for police misconduct among the Maine State Police.
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Maine added 4,100 jobs in March. State Labor Department official Glenn Mills says it was the biggest such gain since last September.
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First-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell last week, but not as sharply as the figures nationally.
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He served as U.S. Attorney for Maine during the Obama years. In 2015, Delahanty joined drug treatment providers and others to create the Maine Opiate Collaborative.
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Maine's hospitality industry has reason to hope this summer will be better than last year, when the state forced restaurants to limit hours and tourists faced testing and quarantine requirements. This summer, those restrictions are expected to be gone — but challenges remain.
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The Mills administration on Thursday defended its decision to drop enforcement of a residency requirement for recreational marijuana business owners. It acted in the face of a lawsuit.
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Maine rocket company bluShift Aerospace says it has raised more than $200,000 in the first phase of a crowd-sourcing campaign.
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Unemployment rates declined in Maine's three federally recognized metropolitan areas in February.
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Leonard Pitts, Jr., the Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald, is being honored Tuesday night by Colby College with its Lovejoy Award for Courage in Journalism.
