As a part of its strategic efforts in local journalism, Maine Public presents a year-long series of news reports on Maine Public Radio and digitally that highlight the benefits, challenges, and opportunities of life in today’s rural and western Maine.
Reporting on rural and western Maine is decreasing. Most local media outlets have diminished in size, capacity, and reach, to only cover the higher profile stories from Augusta, Portland, Lewiston and Bangor. This shrinking level of coverage widens the gap in what listeners, viewers, and readers know about their fellow Mainers. And the need to connect with our neighbors and understand people everywhere in our state is entirely evident now, more than ever.
This series will showcase the best that rural Maine has to offer, while also featuring the stories that show how these communities have challenges unique to each.
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The Maine Public Utilities Commission on Thursday terminated its deal with LS Power, which had won a contract to build a billion-dollar powerline from southern Aroostook County to central Maine.
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Although Maine is known for its diverse fly fishing opportunities, anglers themselves are not so diverse. A group called Confluence Collective aims to change that with its Outcast Campouts.
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When you imagine opening a fishing catalogue, who do you see?In this Borealis story, we'll hear from people who seek to change representation in fly fishing through a coming together of identities. Maine Public reporter Murray Carpenter heads on down to the Wild River in Bethel, ME to meet with organizers and guests of "Maine Outcast Camp," a program hosted by the Confluence Collective. Attendees discover creative and informed ways of approaching how to tie a fly, and along the way, they uncover new things about themselves.
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Community members in Fort Kent who are concerned about recent changes at Northern Maine Medical Center have formed a new group called 'Save NMMC.'
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A group of Maine lawmakers has called on Quebec Premier Francois Legault to “help dispel the myth that Quebec has so much power that it doesn’t know what to do with it all, which is clearly not accurate.”
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The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is lifting its suspension of construction of the controversial 145-mile transmission project known as the New England Clean Energy Connect.
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An advisory committee is considering a plan to spend millions of dollars from a new state PFAS response fund to provide farmers with loan assistance, research, land purchases and medical monitoring and support.
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More than 13,000 acres on two parcels of land in the western Maine Mountains have been permanently protected by the Trust for Public Land, The Nature Conservancy in Maine and the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands.
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According to a report from the USDA, farmers produced about 78 million pounds of wild blueberries in 2022, a 26 percent drop from 2021.