CDC Director Dr. Nirav Shah expects more cases but doesn’t see a major cause for alarm because of how the disease is transmitted.
Penelope Overton
Staff Writer
Penny Overton is excited to be the Portland Press Herald’s first climate reporter. Since joining the paper in 2016, she has written about Maine’s lobster and cannabis industries, covered state politics and spent a fellowship year exploring the impact of climate change on the lobster fishery with the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team. Before moving to Maine, she has covered politics, environment, casino gambling and tribal issues in Florida, Connecticut, and Arizona. Her favorite assignments allow her to introduce readers to unusual people, cultures, or subjects. When off the clock, Penny is usually getting lost in a new book at a local coffeehouse, watching foreign crime shows or planning her family’s next adventure.
Posted inLocal & State
Latest impact of PFAS contamination: Rising sewer rates
The looming cost to homeowners in public sewer districts is the latest impact of an expanding crisis that has contaminated agricultural fields and drinking wells, closed farms and left some fish and game unsafe to eat.
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Posted inLocal & State, Uncategorized
Mills acts to protect access to abortion and the health care workers who provide it
The governor issues an executive order barring state agencies from cooperating with another state’s investigation into people, organizations or providers who offer abortion care in Maine.
Posted inLocal & State, Politics
LePage: ‘I don’t have time for abortion’
Former Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican who has said he opposes abortion, said he would not try to overturn or restrict the right to abortion in Maine, but refused to promise that he wouldn’t sign an anti-abortion bill if he becomes governor again.
Posted inLocal & State
Maine prepares for increase in out-of-state abortion seekers
Within hours of Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England had already fielded calls from three women living in a so-called ‘dark state’ in search of an abortion appointment in Maine, a spokeswoman says.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Uncategorized
More than 1,000 march in Portland to protest abortion ruling
The ruling means women no longer have a constitutional right to abortion, but Maine state law protects that right within state borders.
Posted inLocal & State
Justice Department says Maine breaking law by over-institutionalizing disabled kids
The state lacks adequate community-based services for children who need mental health care or have developmental disabilities, according to the agency.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Schools and Education
State weighing impact of Supreme Court ruling on school tuition program
Interpreting the decision on Maine’s tuition program is complicated by a state law that bars schools that receive tuition from discriminating against students and staff based on gender or sexual orientation.
Posted inLocal & State
New federal PFAS advisory adds challenges to Maine’s costly PFAS cleanup
Water filtration systems that the state has been installing in Mainers’ homes appear to be removing detectable levels of harmful forever chemicals, but no one knows if they achieve the much lower levels deemed safe by the EPA.
Posted inHealth, Local & State
Even trace amounts of PFAS chemicals pose health risk, new federal advisory says
Under the new guidance, Maine’s PFAS problem would challenge public water districts that serve hundreds of thousands of customers, not just rural residents and farmers who rely on well water.