Maine Compass: Invest in students to secure future workforce

Ben Bragdon Kennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel

Ben Bragdon is deputy managing editor for local news, overseeing enterprise reporting projects for the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel. Ben was previously editorial page editor for those newspapers and Central Maine Sunday for more than 10 years. Before that, he was managing editor for weekly newspapers at Current Publishing in Westbrook. He began his career as a reporter at the Piscataquis Observer in Dover-Foxcroft and editor at the Moosehead Messenger in Greenville. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from Boston University.

Latest

Published
October 15, 2019

Maine Compass: Invest in students to secure future workforce

I am a proud, lifelong Mainer. I was born in Maine, attended undergraduate and business school in Maine, have built a career in Maine, and will eventually retire in this great state. As both the CEO of one of Maine’s largest companies and as a resident, I worry about the future of Maine’s workforce and […]
Published
October 14, 2019

Our View: New holiday a chance to tell new stories

Everyone knows the story of Christopher Columbus, but the history and cultural impact of Native Americans has been brushed aside.
Published
October 14, 2019

Let’s make it ‘Heritage Day’

Letter
Published
October 12, 2019

View from Away: The Supreme Court can and must protect gay and transgender workers

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled four years ago in favor of same-sex marriage, gay Americans in many parts of the country found that they could be married on Sunday only to be fired from their jobs on Monday because of their sexual orientation. This unjust situation endures today, but the court has an opportunity […]
Published
October 12, 2019

Gina Barreca: Trapped in the bathroom of double standards

There was some good news last week: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally announced that, having provided 110 million latrines in five years, India is now officially “open defecation-free.” There are worse ways to chronicle the history of the world than through plumbing. Archaeologists, paleopathologists and anthropologists have been writing about toilets with a sense […]
Published
October 11, 2019

Our View: Firefighters’ greatest risk comes after the call is over

Departments, lawmakers should take steps to protect firefighters from cancers caused by exposure to toxic fumes.
Published
October 11, 2019

Maria Panaritis: Smartphones are grenades in our kids’ pockets — and we’re not doing enough about it

Fireworks exploded first thing on a recent morning — and it was amazing: Twitter was crackling with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg blasting Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren, and Warren doubled down on a pledge to break up the social media behemoth to protect us all from the monopolistic company’s darker side. The smackdown began with […]
Published
October 11, 2019

View from Away: US betrays Kurds

President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeastern Syria, opening the way for a possible incursion by Turkish forces, is everything his critics say it is: impulsive, unwise and a betrayal of the Syrian Kurds on whom the United States relied in the war against Islamic State. Characteristically, the president is now engaging […]
Published
October 10, 2019

Cass R. Sunstein: Trump’s defiance of the House inquiry is hard to defend

The White House’s fierce response to the impeachment inquiry by the House of Representatives, calling the enterprise “an unconstitutional effort” and a violation of “constitutionally mandated due process,” seems to make one commitment: noncooperation. The key sentence in the eight-page letter, signed by White House counsel Pat A. Cipollone, is this: “Given that your inquiry […]
Published
October 9, 2019

View from Away: Internet’s future rests on California’s defense of net neutrality law

The future of the internet as we know it rests in California’s ability to defend what is widely regarded as the nation’s most robust net neutrality law. The stakes couldn’t be higher for consumers and small businesses seeking to preserve equal access to the internet: The outcome will determine whether users will have the ability […]