Quick takes on issues in the news this week in central Maine …

Almost 15 percent of Americans age 16-24 are out of school and out of work. That’s 6 million young adults who are building neither skills nor experience, putting them behind as they head into their most productive years.

Gov. Paul LePage’s energy policy rests on three principles: Renewable power is too expensive to be practical, access to natural gas is what will make Maine manufacturing competitive and Maine will be able to buy low-cost hydroelectric power from Quebec.

An American original died recently, a man who was a household name for a generation raised in an era when outer space was brought closer to Earth and anything seemed possible.

Now that the United States has narrowly avoided a disastrous default on its government obligations, its political class faces the much more difficult task of repairing the country’s reputation and restoring some modicum of trust between its two dominant parties.

You might think that House Republicans would have shown at least a touch of embarrassment after needlessly shutting much of the federal government for more than two weeks. Sadly, that proved not to be the case, as evidenced by Wednesday’s inquisition into the closure of national parks. The spectacle of a career government official being berated by Republican members of Congress for cuts in service that they had caused presented a nauseating coda to this dispiriting spectacle.

Quick takes on issues in the news this week in central Maine …

Suicide is an act reflective of private pain that has come to have enormous public health implications.