Hampden, Maine — The students at Weatherbee Elementary School in Hampden, Maine, may seem peaceful enough.
But start a war on a chessboard and these rookies — with their knight moves — become a royal pawn in the chess to anyone who dares try to dethrone their king.
Which is how they became the new Maine state chess champions. In fact, the only thing more unlikely than their success, is where they found it: in the broom closet.
School custodian David Bishop used to play chess as a kid. So, when years later he found himself cleaning the hall outside the Weatherbee chess club, he said he felt drawn to the game, as he had been when he was a child.
“And at the time I didn’t really have any thought of how to teach,” Bishop told CBS News. “I’d never done that before.”
“I didn’t really think he had a good background, like for doing it, but he obviously does,” one student said.
“His name is Mr. Bishop, which is pretty cool,” another added.
The chess club has become a community of intensely focused little minds who play like a real kingdom is at stake. And although no one here is a master, Mr. Bishop has convinced every last one of them that they have the potential.
“What I tell them is, if you love it, you’re going to be better than the top player we have,” Bishop said. “They say, ‘No, that can’t be.’ I say, ‘Yes, if you love it, you’ll never give up and you’re going to get better and better as the months and years go by.”
Some can make the mistake of thinking their job descriptions are a box, confining who they are and what they do. Bishop sees it differently. He said that when they told him to make the school shine, they never said how.
What is more unlikely than the success of the chess champions at Weatherbee Elementary School in Hampden, Maine, is where they found it — in a broom closet. Steve Hartman has their story in “On the Road.”
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In December 2022, $1,981 was the typical monthly rent in the United States — a 7.4% increase from the year prior. But while rent has begun to stabilize nationwide, rent affordability remains difficult for many Americans.
“There’s literally nowhere in the country where a tenant is not burdened by their rent,” according to Leah Simon-Weisberg, an adjunct professor of law at UC San Francisco.
In response, support for rent control policies has gained traction.
But this isn’t the first time such policies have had widespread support. After the massive economic disruption caused by World War II, the federal government imposed rent control on roughly 80% of rental housing between 1941 and 1964.
Over time, it was abandoned because prominent economists unanimously argued against the policy. That sentiment mostly continues today.
“There are various surveys of economists. One done by IMG showed that only 2% thought that rent controls in places like New York and San Francisco were having a positive impact on affordable housing,” said Jay Parsons, chief economist at RealPage.
Economists argue that rent control would deter developers from building more homes, which would only worsen the housing supply crisis in the United States.
America already suffers from a deficit of 3.8 million homes, especially at low-income price points, according to Habitat for Humanity.
“We have not invested as a nation in building the supply of housing in a variety of communities, in a variety of different price points. We’ve instead relied on the private sector to do so,” said Sharon Wilson Géno, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council. “But unless that money comes into the market and investors see that as a better investment than some other kind of equity or some other kind of investment, they’re not going to come.”
Watch the video to find out why so many economists are against the idea of widespread rent control.
The East St. Louis-area restaurant server and single mother of three said she works doubles, meaning two eight-hour shifts in a 24-hour period, to make up the money when she or one of her children gets sick.
“You can’t let your kids see you break down because you’re tired and exhausted, ’cause you gotta keep pushing. You got to. And if you don’t, then who’s gonna do it?” she said.
She may not have to for much longer. Expansive paid leave legislation, known as the Paid Leave For All Workers Act, requiring Illinois employers to give workers time off based on hours worked, to be used for any reason, is ready for action by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who said he will sign it. The Act passed both chambers of the Illinois legislature on Jan. 10.
Requiring paid vacation is rare in the U.S. — just Maine and Nevada have similar laws — although common in other industrialized nations.
Reason for absence not required
Fourteen states and Washington, D.C., require employers offer paid sick leave via similar laws, although employees may only use it for health-related issues. What sets Illinois’ new legislation apart is workers won’t have to explain the reason for their absence as long as they provide notice in accordance with reasonable employer standards.
Maine and Nevada also allow workers to decide how to use their time, but substantial exemptions apply. Maine’s Earned Paid Leave law only applies to employers with more than 10 employees, and Nevada’s exempts businesses with less than 50. Illinois’ will reach nearly all employees and has no limit based on the business size.
Seasonal workers such as lifeguards will be exempt, as will federal employees or college students who work non-full-time, temporary jobs for their university.
Effort to ease challenges for working families
The legislation would take effect on Jan. 1, 2024. Employees will accrue one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked up to 40 hours total, although the employer may offer more. Employees can start using the time once they have worked for 90 days.
“Working families face enough challenges without the concern of losing a day’s pay when life gets in the way,” Pritzker said on January 11, after the bill passed both chambers.
Ordinances in Cook County and Chicago already require employers to offer paid sick leave, and workers in those locations will continue to be covered by the existing laws rather than the new bill.
Johnae Strong, an administrative worker at a small media company in Chicago, said paid sick time helps her take care of her two children, a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old. But expanding the time to be used for any reason would be helpful.
“Life happens,” she said, adding that she hopes Chicago will update its law to be more flexible, like the state bill.
Johnae Strong helps her 6-year-old daughter Jari Akim with her coat as they ready for school and work Friday, Feb. 10, 2023, in Chicago.
AP Photo/Erin Hooley
“Detrimental effect” on small businesses?
The Chicago and Cook County ordinances served as pilot programs for the statewide legislation, and assuaged critics who predicted mass business closures that didn’t come to fruition, said Sarah Labadie, director of advocacy and policy at Women Employed, a nonprofit that has fought for paid leave since 2008 and helped push through the legislation.
“Obviously we had some strange things happen during the pandemic, but pre-pandemic that was not the case. Chicago was a thriving economic engine,” she said.
Peoria Democratic Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth sponsored the bill, which she said will “help to uplift working families” and “immediately help people.”
Newly-elected House Republican Leader Tony McCombie said the mandated benefits could have a “detrimental effect” on small businesses and nonprofits “in an already unfriendly business climate.”
“We all want a great working environment with an equitable work/life balance,” she said in an emailed statement. “However, Senate Bill 208 failed to address the concerns of those providing that work environment.”
Leslie Allison-Seei, who runs a promotion and sweepstakes management company with her husband in DuPage county, said that while taking care of their three full-time employees is a priority, it is “difficult” to compete with corporate paid time off policies.
“We’re thrilled that this is getting passed and that it’s going to be signed. But it’s also a little bit frightening because, you know, a week’s worth of time — I don’t know what that would do to our business,” Allison-Seei said. “I think a lot of businesses are just doing the very best that they can to stay afloat.”
Leslie Allison-Seei, who runs a small promotion and sweepstakes management company with her husband, stands with some of the promo cards at their office Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023, in Villa Park, Illinois.
AP Photo/Erin Hooley
Clash of interests
Small business advocacy organization National Federation of Independent Business opposes the bill, saying that it “imposes a one-size fits all mandate on all employers.”
Small business owners face steep inflation, increased fuel and energy costs and an absence of qualified workers, and the requirement will be an “additional burden,” NFIB state director Chris Davis said in a statement following the bill’s passage. “The message from Illinois lawmakers is loud and clear, ‘Your small business isn’t essential,’” Davis said.
However, the potential burden on small businesses clashes with the needs of their workers, particularly those with children.
Van, the restaurant server, is also a parent leader with Community Organizing and Family Issues. Van said she has no paid leave until she has worked for one year, and that knowing she will miss a day of pay when she or one of her kids gets sick is a constant stress. Guaranteed PTO “would be awesome,” offering her peace of mind and alleviating some financial worries, the Belleville mom said.
Molly Weston Williamson, paid leave policy expert and senior fellow at think tank Center for American Progress, called the Illinois legislation “a huge step in the right direction.”
In addition to establishing workers’ right to paid time off, the bill forbids employers from retaliating against employees for using it. This is key to making sure “low-income workers or other folks who are more vulnerable are really, practically able to take the time,” Williamson said.
Paid leave is both a labor rights issue and a public health issue, Williamson said. Service workers like Van who handle food and beverages without paid time off are more likely to go to work sick and to send their children to day care sick, “at which point they get everyone else sick,” she said.
“Especially now that we are three-plus years into a global pandemic, I think all of us have a much more visceral understanding of the ways that all of our health is tied together,” Williamson said.
Claire Savage is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Tens of thousands of homes and businesses across multiple states in the Northeast were without power early Tuesday after a winter storm dumped more than a foot of snow across areas from central New York to the Maine-Canada border.
And while the region is expected to get a slight reprieve from heavy snow Tuesday, another storm system is forming in the southern region of the country that’s forecast to move into the Northeast later this week.
“A large-scale winter storm will move into the southern Plains Monday night and Tuesday, producing areas of heavy snow from eastern New Mexico through Oklahoma,” the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center said on Twitter.
“The storm is expected to strengthen and track northeastward from the lower Mississippi Valley to the Great Lakes Tuesday night and Wednesday, and produce a stripe of moderate to heavy snow from the Ozarks to the Great Lakes,” the agency added.
On Tuesday, parts of New England, especially southern parts of Maine, may experience light snow, National Weather Service said on its website. Meanwhile, areas across the Northeast are expected to see cold, dry air and windy conditions.
And those conditions are persisting as thousands across Massachusetts and New Hampshire are without power after wind and snow from the previous storm knocked down power lines.
“York County, Maine, has been most impacted by today’s long duration storm as leftover snow on trees and power lines from (last) Friday’s storm resulted in downed trees and blocked roads throughout the area,” Central Maine Power spokesperson Jon Breed told CNN Monday.
As of early Tuesday morning, more than 30,000 homes and businesses were in the dark in Maine’s south westernmost York County, according to the PowerOutage.us.
Snow already packed on trees from recent storms along with strong winds are likely to exacerbate damage to the electric system and bring additional outages, New England’s largest energy provider Eversource said in a statement Monday on the status of power outages in New Hampshire.
“Our system has continued to take damage into tonight, and we are actively assessing and clearing damage while also supporting public safety efforts,” Eversource spokesperson William Hinkle told CNN Monday night.
Eversource is tapping into its regional resources, bringing in additional crews from its Connecticut and Massachusetts based operations to support restoration efforts in New Hampshire, where more than 66,0000 homes and businesses were also without power Tuesday morning, according to PowerOutage.us.
About 17 inches have fallen across parts of Maine and New Hampshire while some areas in Vermont and New York saw about 14 inches of snow.
The next storm is expected to impact the country for several days beginning Tuesday, when more than 15 million people are under the threat of severe storms. High wind alerts have also been issued for more 20 million people as gusts could reach as high as 55 mph.
There is an enhanced risk of severe storms (level 3 of 5) from southeastern Texas to the western Florida Panhandle, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Mobile, Alabama. The main threats are damaging winds, large hail and several tornadoes, a few of which could be strong.
A slight risk for severe storms (level 2 of 5) surrounds the enhanced risk area and includes Houston, Beaumont, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana – which could also see tornadoes, damaging winds and isolated large hail.
Meanwhile, there is also a marginal risk (level 1 of 5) for the middle Texas coast, across southern Louisiana into Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle, including Corpus Christi, Texas, and Jackson, Mississippi.
On Wednesday, the severe storm threat will continue as it shifts to the east.
A slight risk of severe storms has been issued for the region of southeastern Alabama and northern Florida and expands through Georgia and the Carolinas into Virginia and includes Jacksonville, Florida, north to Virginia Beach. That region is expected to see a few tornadoes and damaging winds.
At least half a foot of snow fell on parts of New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont on Friday, while another storm system brought snow to parts of Arizona, and is set to hit New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas. The Weather Channel’s Mike Bettes has the forecast.
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Sampriti Bhattacharyya is bringing a 30-foot electric yacht to the upcoming CES gadget show in Las Vegas.
The co-founder and CEO of electric hydrofoil startup Navier said she hopes her company’s debut line of luxury boats helps spark a broader shift to a cleaner maritime industry, much like Tesla did for electric cars.
Headquartered along San Francisco Bay in Alameda, California, the startup’s influential supporters include Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Its first boats are being built in Maine, with composite parts from Rhode Island and other U.S. boating hubs. Bhattacharyya spoke about her company with The Associated Press. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How would you describe your first product?
A: We just launched the Navier 30. It’s a 30-foot electric hydrofoiling boat. Our goal is to be the longest-range electric boat at cruising speed. It has a 75 nautical miles range. And hopefully in the next year, we aim to push it to 100 nautical miles. This is really America’s first all-electric hydrofoil boat.
Q: How much does it cost?
A: $375,000, starting base range.
Q: How many have you sold?
A: Our first year, we are only making 15. Those are all sold out. But we have a pretty massive waitlist.
Q: Is there a parallel to Tesla where you’re launching the luxury vehicle first and down the road looking at more accessible options?
A: I love being out in the water and I don’t think it should be limited to just a few. So there will be more announcements on that. The big picture is the N30 is really a technology platform, where we are perfecting our hydrofoil control and parts of our autonomy technology. Then you’ll be seeing much more scalable options, even for recreational boaters.
Q: How important is autonomy?
A: Most recreational boaters enjoy driving a boat but what’s been most requested in terms of autonomy is auto-docking. Docking can be pretty overwhelming, especially if you’re a beginner. Even for experienced boaters, some slips can be really tight. It can be pretty challenging to do it singlehandedly. So if you think about a 6-passenger water taxi, you have to have a commercial captain license. That’s very expensive, like a $50-an-hour job. So removing the captain has a huge cost benefit in making water taxis accessible.
Q: How does this relate to your research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?
A: I was an aerospace engineer who always thought I was going to go to space. Then at MIT, I started working on underwater drones for monitoring energy systems, like nuclear reactors or boiling water reactors. But when the Malaysian airliner got lost (in 2014), my attention turned to the ocean. We are talking about going to Mars and we cannot find a massive plane that gets lost in the ocean. That’s crazy. This is 70% of the world — the future of food, energy — and we are thinking of settling outside of this planet. But why wouldn’t humanity expand beyond the shores of land? I saw the opportunity for building a next-generation maritime company.
Q: Who do you see as Navier’s customers 10 years from now?
A: There is a huge untapped opportunity in boating. Today, boats are looked at something like a wealthy person’s toy. With technology, making the waterways more accessible will open up a huge new mode of transportation that we have never imagined before. If you are able to make small vessels move things and people on the water, suddenly the waterways are no more an obstacle and every marina can turn into a train station stop, essentially.
Q: Why aren’t water taxis more popular?
A: One reason is cost, including fuel cost. Another is ride quality. People get seasick. There is nobody who would want to be on a choppy water taxi twice a day. With the hydrofoil boat, you’re flying above the water. So it’s really the feeling of being on a jet plane. You can have a wine glass and it does not spill. And it’s quiet, extremely quiet. You can have a conversation, unlike on a gas boat.
Q: Who are your main competitors?
A: There are other hydrofoil boats, obviously, but that’s not what we see as competitors. We’ve got to transition to cleaner options. So the main competitors would be your gas boats that are out there that are polluting our waterways. That’s what we want to replace. Electric boats are still a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of the total number of boats.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — State and military police were sent Tuesday to keep people off Buffalo’s snow-choked roads, and officials kept counting fatalities three days after western New York’s deadliest storm in at least two generations.
Even as suburban roads and most major highways in the area reopened, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz warned that police would be stationed at entrances to Buffalo and at major intersections because some drivers were flouting a ban on driving within New York’s second-most populous city.
More than 30 people are reported to have died in the region, officials said, including seven storm-related deaths announced Tuesday by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown’s office. The toll surpasses that of the historic Blizzard of 1977, blamed for killing as many as 29 people in an area known for harsh winter weather.
Greg Monett turned to social media to beg for help shoveling a 6-foot (1.8-meter) pile of snow from the end of his Buffalo driveway so he could get dialysis treatment Tuesday.
“This has been a nightmare,” he said in an interview Monday. Power had been out for a time at his family’s home, he said, so relatives ran a gas stove to keep warm, a practice he acknowledged was dangerous.
“We had to do what we had to do,” said Monett, 43. “We would have froze to death in here.”
He ultimately made it to dialysis after climbing through the snow and having neighbors help dig out his buried vehicle, sister Maria Monett said.
The National Weather Service predicted that as much as 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) more snow could fall Tuesday in Erie County, which includes Buffalo and its 275,000 residents. County Emergency Services Commissioner Dan Neaverth Jr. said officials also were somewhat concerned about the potential for flooding later in the week, when the weather is projected to warm and start melting the snow.
The rest of the United States also was reeling from the ferocious winter storm, with at least an additional two dozen deaths reported in other parts of the country, and power outages in communities from Maine to Washington state.
On the Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s reservation in South Dakota, there were plans to use snowmobiles Tuesday to reach residents after food boxes were delivered by helicopter and trucks over the weekend, the tribe said.
In Buffalo, the dead were found in cars, homes and snowbanks. Some died while shoveling snow, others when emergency crews could not respond in time to medical crises. Poloncarz, a Democrat, called the blizzard “the worst storm probably in our lifetime,” even for an area known for heavy snow. More bodies are expected to be found as the snow is cleared or melts.
The winter blast stranded some people in cars for days, shuttered the city’s airport and left some residents shivering without heat. More than 4,000 homes and businesses were still without power late Tuesday morning.
President Joe Biden offered federal assistance Monday to New York, allowing for reimbursement of some storm-relief efforts. Gov. Kathy Hochul toured the aftermath in Buffalo, her hometown, and called the blizzard “one for the ages.” Almost every fire truck in the city became stranded Saturday, she said.
Hochul, a Democrat, noted the storm came a little over a month after the region was inundated with another historic snowfall. Between the two storms, snowfall totals are not far off from the 95.4 inches (242 centimeters) the area normally sees in an entire winter season.
The National Weather Service said the snow total at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport stood at 49.2 inches (1.25 meters) at 10 a.m. Monday. Officials said the airport will be shut through Wednesday morning.
Roughly 3,000 domestic and international U.S. flights were canceled Tuesday as of about 2 p.m. Eastern time, according to the tracking site FlightAware.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said it will look into Southwest Airlines flight cancellations that left travelers stranded at airports across the country amid the winter storm. Many airlines were forced to call off flights, but Southwest was by far the leader.
———
Peltz reported from New York. Associated Press journalists Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, and Julie Walker in New York contributed.
BATH, Maine — Making the switch from building corporate jets to building Navy warships has been reinvigorating for a soldier-turned-business executive who’s leading Navy shipbuilder Bath Iron Works.
Charles “Chuck” Krugh said he wasted no time in getting his hands dirty, meeting daily with workers on the ships’ “deck plates.”
“I’m a hands-on guy that likes to get into the details,” he said.
Shipbuilders weren’t so sure at first whether it was just an act, but after six months they’re now accustomed to him regularly chatting with shipbuilders to get a handle on their workflow, at all hours of the day and night.
Labor relations have improved along the way.
“It’s all been good. We’re moving in the right direction. We’ve just got to keep moving that way,” said Rock Grenier, president of Local S6 of the Machinists Union, which represents production workers.
Krugh, 58, arrived in June after the abrupt departure of former Bath Iron Works President Dirk Lesko, who led the General Dynamics subsidiary through a difficult period that included a pandemic and a two-month strike, both of which lengthened construction delays.
The future USS Carl M. Levin that completed acceptance trials this month is more than a year behind schedule. The silver lining, Krugh said, is that the warship earned the highest marks for a Bath-built ship in years in a review by the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey.
Krugh said he’s encouraging the shipyard’s 7,000 workers to rethink processes to ensure they can complete tasks as efficiently as possible. A big part of that is ensuring proper planning before a task even starts.
“We show people that you can do the impossible, or the seemingly impossible, if you spend enough preparation time to get things ready. So that’s the good news side of what we’re doing, and we’re seeing a momentum building now,” he said.
The Army veteran formerly served at Gulfstream, another General Dynamics subsidiary, which builds business jets, before being tasked with overseeing a historic shipyard that dates to the late 1800s.
He said he was taken aback by labor relations and the condition of the company upon his arrival.
Part of the improvement in relations with the union and in shipbuilding efficiency was the rehiring of shipyard veteran, David Clark, from Marinette Marine, to serve as vice president of manufacturing, Grenier said.
“We’re doing everything we can to keep building those ships faster and more efficient,” the union president said.
The shipyard is continuing to hire hundreds of new workers to replace older workers who are retiring, and Krugh said they’ll picking up the necessary skills to build the latest versions of the Arleigh Burke destroyer along with the next-generation destroyer in coming years.
Continual improvement made possible by cooperation is necessary to assure the shipyard’s survival, said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute.
The future isn’t assured for the shipyard beyond the current decade unless the shipyard continues to become more competitive, Thompson said. Bath Iron Works competes with the larger Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi for contracts to build destroyers, the workhorse of the Navy.
“It is imperative for the union and management to get along because if they don’t, the long-term consequences for the yard could be fatal,” he said.
As for Krugh, he said some outsiders mistakenly suggested he’d struggle with the transition from aerospace to shipbuilding.
But he said he’s rejuvenated by being closer to the military — and urged any critics to watch and see what happens at the shipyard before casting judgment on the shipyard’s abilities.
“This is really personal for me. This is our country. We don’t build mixers here. We’re building the warships that are going to protect my family, your family and other Americans,” he said.
Despite fierce pushback from environmentalists, congressional leaders have included a controversial rider in the $1.7 trillion federal government funding package that would block stricter federal rules meant to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale from becoming entangled in fishing gear.
As HuffPost first reported Friday, Maine’s congressional delegation, including Sen. Susan Collins (R), championed the provision and lobbied for its inclusion, arguing that it would provide relief to a lobster industry that they say has been the target of unfair and misguided regulations.
Collins’ office called the proposal “a simple compromise.” Environmentalists have warned it could drive the right whale to extinction.
In July, a federal judge ruled that a 2021 regulation that established new requirements for lobster traps to reduce the risk of entangling whales didn’t go far enough. Among other things, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rules limited the number of vertical fishing lines that could be deployed in Maine waters and set new seasonal zone restrictions. The judge ruled that the regulations fell short of fulfilling two key environmental laws: the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The Maine delegation’s measure effectively voids the judge’s ruling and blocks stricter rules that the court ordered federal agencies to finalize by 2024.
An initial draft of the provision would have cemented the 2021 regulation for 10 years. The measure was modified during negotiations, with the exemption reduced from 10 years to six. The provision also sets aside grant funding — $50 million per year through 2032 — to reduce the risk of entanglement, vessel strikes and other threats to the imperiled whale species. That includes $40 million earmarked for “innovative gear deployment and technology.”
The changes did little to satisfy environmentalists, who rallied over the weekend in an effort to block the proposal.
Brett Hartl of the Center for Biological Diversity ― one of three organizations that sued the federal government to force stronger safeguards for right whales ― said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Appropriations Committee Chair Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) had “heartlessly put special interests above our nation’s beautiful natural heritage.”
“Sacrificing a great whale to extinction in exchange for funding the government is immoral,” Hartl, the organization’s government affairs director, said in a statement. “Doing so just to give Sen. Schumer another political chit in his pocket is simply pathetic.”
The office of Sen. Susan Collins (R) called the provision “a simple compromise.”
Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images
Connor Fagan, federal policy manager at ocean advocacy group Oceana, called the move “a bridge too far.”
“Environmentalists won’t soon forget the last-minute nature of this enormous carveout of our foundational environmental laws,” he said. “The effect of this shortsighted giveaway is likely to be disastrous for the whales.”
Over the weekend, more than 70 organizations, including the Center for Biological Diversity and Oceana, signed a letter urging Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders to reject the measure. They said the provision “would set a damaging precedent for the political override of science-based decisionmaking under the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Act; undermine active federal litigation and reverse judicial orders; and further threaten the survival of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.”
The North Atlantic right whale is among the most critically endangered species on the planet. Its population has been steadily falling since 2010, and fewer than 350 of the whales are estimated to be alive. Entanglements in fishing gear, vessel strikes and climate change are the biggest threats to their survival.
An endangered North Atlantic right whale entangled in fishing rope as it swims with a newborn calf off Cumberland Island, Georgia.
Georgia Department of Natural Resources/NOAA via Associated Press
In a separate letter to Democratic leadership on Sunday, members of the Atlantic Scientific Review Group, which advises federal agencies on marine mammals on the Atlantic coast, said the Maine delegation’s amendment “would likely doom the North Atlantic right whale to extinction.”
Maine lawmakers have dismissed conservationists’ concerns.
“Maine’s lobstering community has consistently demonstrated their commitment to protecting right whales,” Collins’ spokesperson Christopher Knight previously told HuffPost. “If these groups are unwilling to agree to something so straightforward, it shows an utter disdain for the men and women who make their living from one of the best managed and sustainable fisheries on earth.”
Asked if environmental groups were considering future legal action, Hartl said the provision’s language precludes litigation and likely can’t be overturned. He expects the measure will ultimately shift the burden of protecting right whales to other ocean users.
“To stop the slide towards extinction, the National Marine Fisheries Service must reduce the cumulative harm and impacts to right whales,” he said. “If it is prohibited from addressing the impacts of the lobster fishery, it must address the other threats more aggressively, including offshore wind, vessel strikes and all other fisheries-related impacts.”
Airport security agents stopped a traveler at Portland International Jetport in Portland, Maine, last week, as the man attempted to pass through the checkpoint with a homemade gun and hatchet packed into his carry-on luggage, the Transportation Security Administration said.
Recounting the incident in a tweet shared to the official TSA New England account, spokesperson Dan Velez said local law enforcement officers were ultimately called to the scene.
“Yesterday @portlandjetport, @TSA officers detected this homemade firearm in a man’s carry-on bag,” Velez wrote on Twitter. “They also found a hatchet in the bag.”
Yesterday @portlandjetport, @TSA officers detected this homemade firearm in a man’s carry-on bag. They also found a hatchet in the bag. Portland Police responded and confiscated the firearm. This was the 3rd firearm detection at PWM this year. #Travelfailpic.twitter.com/QMpKaMYXIQ
The Portland Police Department was contacted following the agents’ discovery, and officers dispatched to the airport confiscated the homemade weapon, the TSA spokesperson said, noting that the recent find marked the third “firearm detection” at Portland International Jetport this year.
TSA agents also flagged other weapons that airline passengers attempted to improperly transport at Connecticut’s Bradley International Airport recently.
“A couple of nice carry-on bag detections by our @TSA officers @Bradley_Airport yesterday,” Velez wrote in another message shared to Twitter on Friday. “This double-edged knife and replica gun lighter are items that should be properly packed in your checked bag.”
A couple of nice carry-on bag detections by our @TSA officers @Bradley_Airport yesterday. This double-edged knife and replica gun lighter are items that should be properly packed in your checked bag. #travelfailpic.twitter.com/AOcvyTDBe5
Traveling with firearms is legal in the U.S., as long as people looking to fly with guns and ammunition abide by TSA guidelines for proper transport. Anyone who wishes to board a plane with weapons must first unload them before packing the items in hard-sided containers and placing them in their checked bags. Weapons must be declared at the airport ticket counter when travelers arrive at airports for their flights.
Airport security agents confiscated a record-high number of weapons at checkpoints across the U.S. in 2022, the TSA announced on Friday. According to the agency, its officers confiscated 6,301 firearms — 88% of which were loaded — from passengers since the beginning of this year, and expects that another 500 will be confiscated before 2023. The number of weapons confiscated so far represents more than a 10% increase from the 5,972 firearms seized last year.
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ATLANTA — Forecasters are warning of treacherous holiday travel and life-threatening cold for much of the nation as an arctic air mass blows into the already-frigid southern United States.
“We’re looking at much-below normal temperatures, potentially record-low temperatures leading up to the Christmas holiday,” said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
The polar air arrives as an earlier storm system gradually winds down in the northeastern U.S. after burying parts of the region under two feet (61 centimeters) of snow. More than 80,000 customers in New England were still without power on Sunday morning, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks outages across the country.
The incoming artic front brings “extreme and prolonged freezing conditions for southern Mississippi and southeast Louisiana,” the National Weather Service in a special weather statement Sunday.
By Thursday night, temperatures will plunge as low as 13 degrees (minus 10.6 Celsius) in Jackson, Mississippi; and around 5 degrees (minus 15 Celsius) in Nashville, Tennessee, the National Weather Service predicts.
For much of the U.S., the winter weather will get worse before it gets better.
The coming week has the potential for “the coldest air of the season” as the strong artic front marches across the eastern two-thirds of the country in the days before Christmas, according to the latest forecasts from the federal Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
The center warned of a “massive expanse of frigid temperatures from the Northern Rockies/Northern Plains to the Midwest through the middle of the week, and then reaching the Gulf Coast and much of the Eastern U.S. by Friday and into the weekend.”
The arctic air was already pouring into Montana Sunday night, but that wasn’t deterring residents from ice fishing and hunting coyotes.
Ice fishing will continue through the cold blast, since the temperatures won’t scare away anglers there — “not the hard-core ones anyway,” said Jason Mundel, who runs the Ripp’n Lipps Guide Service in northeastern Montana.
Mundel said it was 4 degrees (minus 15.6 Celsius) there Sunday night, and a coyote contest was still going on in a nearby community. “Those guys are just out in the elements, just bundled up,” he said.
In Atlanta, where temperatures are set to drop below freezing early Monday morning, forecasters warn of even colder air by late in the week, according to the National Weather Service office in Peachtree City, Georgia. The low Friday night in Atlanta will be around 13 degrees (minus 10.6 Celsius) with the high temperature Saturday still below the freezing mark at around 29 degrees (minus 1.7 Celsius), the Weather Service projects.
Freezing temperatures can take lives in an instant — a heartbreaking reality that Atlanta homeless advocate George Chidi knows firsthand.
He went to check on a woman with severe mental health issues in downtown Atlanta earlier this year, and found she had died of suspected hypothermia just hours earlier. Her body was found outside the Greyhound bus station, which is open 24 hours in the heart of downtown Atlanta, he said.
“She died within 100 feet of three heated buildings,” Chidi said.
He said people without housing who die in freezing weather often do so because they are battling alcohol, drugs or severe mental illness, or they do not trust others and find themselves on the streets rather than a shelter with other people.
Homeless people in southern states are also vulnerable to its weather patterns that make it comfortable one week, but suddenly freezing the next.
“A main factor isn’t the temperature itself,” Chidi said. “It’s the speed with which the temperature drops.”
Florida will not have a white Christmas, but forecasters are expecting that weekend to be unusually cold throughout the state.
Northern Florida cities such as Jacksonville, Tallahassee and Pensacola have predicted lows in the 20s (minus 3 Celsius) on Christmas Eve, with highs of about 40 (4 Celsius).
In the Northeast, utility companies brought in extra workers from other states but were hampered by slick roads and dangerous conditions.
“This was a heavy, wet snow so that had impacts on both travel and the infrastructure,” said Frank Pereira, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Police across New England responded to hundreds of crashes or vehicles sliding off the road this weekend. Maine State Police said Saturday night they had responded to more than 180 crashes since Friday evening. There were only minor injuries.
Vermont officials said they’re finding locations for potential warming centers in the hardest-hit areas, in case they’re needed. State officials warned Saturday that some customers’ power may not be restored for two to three days.
“Last night we had some people come in who weren’t able to cook for themselves, and so we definitely made sure that we had room for them,” Becket Gourlay, a host at the Waterhouse Restaurant in Peterborough, New Hampshire, said on Sunday. “Even today we had some people who came in to watch the final match for the World Cup because their TVs were out.”
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Walker reported from New York. AP writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston and Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.
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Follow Julie Walker on Twitter: twitter.com/jwalkreporter
Apartment for rent sign displayed on residential street. It won’t be there for long.
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Rent Café has released its 2022 year-end report, which looks at the most competitive rental markets this year.
Although apartment construction is at a historic high, finding a rental in 2022 has been challenging. Nationally, the average renter had to compete with 14 other apartment seekers to secure a rental, which didn’t stay listed longer than one month.
With more than two-thirds of renters renewing their leases and an average occupancy rate of more than 95%, this year’s rental market was competitive, despite the autumn slowdown. And with demand climbing up in almost every metropolitan area, renters had the hardest time finding an apartment in Miami, Orlando, Grand Rapids and North Jersey.
Here are some highlights from the report:
Miami-Dade, Florida, was the hottest rental market in 2022, due to a high occupancy rate of 97.5% and a staggering 75% of renters deciding to stay put and renew their leases.As a consequence, despite the area’s supply of apartments growing by 2.8% in 2022 compared to the previous year, a record 32 renters competed for one vacant apartment, which got snatched in 25 days, on average.
In fact, Florida was this year’s renting hotspot: five of the nation’s hottest places to rent were in the Sunshine State, with Orlando being the third most competitive rental market nationwide, followed by Southwest Florida, Broward County and Tampa.
Apartment hunting intensified in the Midwest, especially in areas with slow construction like Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, Omaha and Lansing – Ann Arbor, all of which continue to attract young professionals from pricier metros across the country.
Despite a modest 0.8% uptick in supply, renters inGrand Rapids faced the second toughest market this year: no less than 18 people competed for a vacant apartment, which got filled in 28 days. Meanwhile, Grand Rapids’ occupancy topped at almost 97%, prompting around 70% of renters to renew their leases instead of looking for a new place.
The Northeast continued to lure remote workers seeking extra space and better deals — so much so that seven northeastern markets were among the 20 hottest.Harrisburg, where virtually no new apartments were added this year, emerged as the regional leader, ranking 4th nationwide for competitivity. This was primarily due to its lower cost of living compared to many of the larger metro areas in the Northeast, as well as its family-friendly community and proximity to the great outdoors. Another advantage to living in Harrisburg is its relative proximity to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Baltimore.
Central Jersey was twice more competitive than Manhattan this year. The area had the highest lease renewal rate in the nation (85%) and an average occupancy rate close to 97% (all the while its supply of apartments increased by a mere 0.9%). That said, finding an apartment for rent was quite challenging for most people in the area, as 15 renters competed for an apartment, on average. North Jersey renters were in a similar situation, despite an increase of 2.1% in apartments.
On the West Coast, California’s low-supply Orange County was the hottest renting spot, followed by San Diego, both of which continued to attract renters from Los Angeles and San Francisco. In fact, Orange County and San Diego were the only California markets to reach our top 20 this year.
Orange County was the 8th most competitive rental market nationwide.The low increase in supply (0.6%) failed to accommodate apartment seekers, mostly e-commerce workers, looking for rentals in a city where less than 3% of the apartments were vacant. Similarly, an average of 22 renters competed for a vacant apartment in San Diego, which ranked 13th nationwide.
Although large metros tend to offer more jobs and higher salaries, that doesn’t mean that smaller areas can’t be just as competitive in their own right— and Fayetteville, Arkansas is the perfect example. With a record-high occupancy of 98.3% and more than three-quarters of apartment dwellers opting to stay put this year, renters here had an extremely tough time finding an apartment for rent in Fayetteville. On average, it took just under two weeks for a vacant unit in Fayetteville to become occupied this year, with an astounding 28 prospective renters competing for one apartment.
Here, large employers like the University of Arkansas and Walmart, which is headquartered in nearby Bentonville, provide plenty of opportunities for both locals and newcomers. On top of that, the city is nestled in the Ozark Mountains, thereby making it a great place to live for nature lovers.
The second most competitive small market was Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, where lots of remote workers fleeing tighter restrictions in Philadelphia, New York City and New Jersey during the pandemic found larger apartments that better fit their budgets. At the same time, surging home prices forced many prospective buyers to keep renting until they could resume their house-hunting. Consequently, more than 80% of the people living in rental apartments in Lehigh Valley chose to stay in place this year.
Similarly, the expanding work-from-home trend led thousands of Boston, Manhattan and Washington, D.C, residents to reconsider their housing options in the last two years. Many of them chose to relocate to peaceful Portland, Maine, in search of a slower pace of life within reach of breathtaking scenery. This caused the average rental in Portland to be filled after 26 days, with a record 68 prospective renters competing for every vacant apartment this year. Of course, in all honesty, Bostonians have always had a soft spot for this charming corner of New England.
Other small markets that were highly competitive in 2022 included Lafayette, Indiana, Asheville, North Carolina, Madison, Wisconsin, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Providence, Rhode Island, Knoxville, Tennessee, North Central Florida, Little Rock, Arkansas, Columbus, Georgia, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Wichita, Kansas, Albany, New York, South Bend, Indiana, Fayetteville, North Carolina and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
BANGOR, Maine — A jury in Maine awarded a now-retired state trooper $300,000 Friday after finding that the state police retaliated against him when he raised concerns about the agency’s intelligence gathering work.
George Loder, 53, filed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that he was unfairly punished after he went to his superiors with concerns about a state police division that was gathering intelligence on people including power line protesters, gun buyers and employees at a camp for Israeli and Arab teens.
Loder claimed in the suit that after he spoke up, he was reassigned to a desk job two hours from his home and then improperly denied a transfer. He has since retired.
In his suit, Loder raised concerns about data gathering by the Maine Intelligence Analysis Center, which shares information it collects with other law enforcement agencies. The lawsuit prompted questions about the center’s work and a legislative effort to eliminate it.
The Bangor Daily News reported that a jury deliberated for more than five hours before finding that the agency had violated the state whistleblower protection act.
The state police have defended the data gathering and intelligence work and denied that any retaliation occurred.
LAS VEGAS — An ex-convict who led police on a chase around Las Vegas before officers found the severed head and dismembered body of his friend in a stolen vehicle he was driving was sentenced Thursday to at least 18 years in prison.
Eric John Holland said he was “truly remorseful” for killing Richard P. Miller, whose remains were found in coolers in the bed of a Chevrolet Avalanche in which Las Vegas police stopped Holland last December. Authorities found that Miller had been shot several times, including at least once in the head, before his body was carved up.
“It’s a terrible thing that happened and I’m just so sorry,” Holland said.
That provided little comfort to Miller’s daughter, who tearfully and haltingly told a judge she felt “very little relief,” that Holland pleaded guilty in July to a reduced charge and avoiding trial on an open murder charge that could have resulted in a life sentence behind bars.
“I don’t know how to make sense of it,” sobbed Amanda Dawn Potter, who traveled from Portland, Oregon, for Holland’s sentencing. She called her father’s slaying “the most bizarre thing to ever happen to my family.”
“My dad didn’t deserve this,” she said.
Holland, 58, has an extensive criminal history, mostly for forgery and embezzlement, but also including an attempted prison escape in Texas.
Before Clark County District Court Judge Tierra Jones sentenced him to 18 to 45 years for second-degree murder and felony theft, Holland said Thursday he hoped authorities would continue to investigate his motive for killing Miller.
“I was going to bring it up in court, but I’m not going to because of family members,” Holland said. “There was a reason, and I hope that they’ll get closure today.”
Holland’s attorney, Daniel Westbrook, told the judge he would not say more than what his client said. Westbrook declined additional comment after the sentencing hearing.
Holland was friends with Miller, 65, who lived on a houseboat at Lake Mead, the Colorado River reservoir about a 30-minute drive from Las Vegas.
Miller was reported missing in November 2021, and investigators later determined he was killed during an argument with Holland.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Thursday that in jailhouse interviews, Holland said he wanted police to investigate whether Miller was responsible for the disappearance of Miller’s ex-wife, Jing Me Zhu, in 2018 or 2019.
“I’m going to prison for the rest of my life, and I just want to make sure that she wasn’t forgotten,” Holland told the newspaper.
Holland said he believed Zhu lived in China and Canada before marrying Miller in 2018. In divorce proceedings less than a year later, Miller alleged in court documents that Zhu left him and moved to China. Records showed that Zhu could not be located to receive a court summons.
Westbrook told the newspaper that Holland believes Zhu is dead and that Miller killed her.
Holland did not provide details of Miller’s death, the Review-Journal reported.
Las Vegas police said Thursday they had no missing person investigation related to Zhu.
Police previously said Holland drove away from patrol officers trying to stop him on Dec. 23, 2021, in a stolen pickup truck and that he was seen switching vehicles before he was arrested in the second vehicle by officers who tracked him to an apartment complex west of the Las Vegas Strip.
Police later found receipts in the vehicles for items including a power saw and trash bags purchased from a home improvement store after Miller’s disappearance.
Holland had been sought since May 2019 on an arrest warrant in a 2018 case in Las Vegas accusing him of embezzlement, identity theft, issuing false checks and theft, according to court records. He had posted $5,000 bail in that case.
Records show Holland also used the name Eric Allen Holland and served prison time in Nevada for a felony theft conviction stemming from a 2000 forgery case in Las Vegas. He also used names including John Carl Hall, Phil Whidden, Robert Daniel Lauer and Steven Tauber, prison records show.
Holland had prior felony convictions dating to 1987 in California for embezzlement, assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest causing substantial bodily harm and property theft and false identification, according to a Las Vegas prosecutor, prison and court records.
Records show that Holland was convicted in Texas in a federal counterfeiting case, and later of attempted escape and aiding in an escape.
Butch Phillips, an 82-year-old member of the Penobscot Nation, etches 18-inch long moose call horns from birch bark he harvests off tribal land. While some moose calls he gives away to local hunters, others have sold at auction for as much as $3,200 and some sit in museums.
“It’s very exciting calling a moose. You can hear them coming. Snuffing and grunting,” said Phillips, who hunts a moose each year on tribal land, the largest being 940 pounds. He also sometimes calls moose just to watch them and study them.
Based in Milford, Maine, Phillips has been making the moose calls, which are hornlike devices used to attract moose when hunting, for about 30 years with a wooden-handled knife his late wife bought him. He has more orders than he can keep up with, due in part to some local media coverage and word-of-mouth. He hopes to pass down his skills to his grown sons.
Phillips retired 31 years ago from telecommunications jobs with NYMEX and AT&T T, -0.49%,
and he’s been filling his time with his etching talents ever since.
“I just can’t imagine being retired with nothing to do. I think I’d go crazy,” Phillips said.
Plus, in the winter, etching gives him something productive to do to pass time.
“There’s not a lot you can do outdoors. It gives me something to do rather than just sitting around. Can you imagine doing that for 31 years?” Phillips said.
Phillips used to make moose calls by peeling a piece of bark off a tree and using it for the day and tossing it aside. Then he started tying spruce roots around the bark to help keep the shape and use it again and again. Hunters started asking for his moose calls and his work spread by word-of-mouth.
Phillips in a 14-foot birch bark canoe that he built.
Credit: Butch Phillips
“Some hunters will use a roadside cone to call a moose. I wanted to do it the traditional way. A large majority of native hunters use a birch bark call,” Phillips said.
He uses a variety of tools, but the knife given to him by his late wife is his most treasured tool.
“The blade’s pretty much worn down. But I treasure it. It’s very special,” Phillips said.
As he became more adept at making moose calls, Phillips started making more permanent models, refining the workmanship and using thicker bark that was suitable for etching.
“I decided to do etching like they did in the old days. Everything they used to make, they carved. My artwork evolved. I try to keep the older designs alive. I’ve taken symbols like the Wabanaki symbol and incorporated them into the art to keep them alive. I use plants and trees as fillers,” Phillips said.
“In most of my art work, I try to combine people, plants and animals. We always memorialize our ancestors. And plants and animals are what we owe gratitude to for keeping us alive,” Phillips said. “In our prayers, we always give thanks to ancestors, plants and animals. There’s a theme.”
Phillips said he writes up explanations of the symbols so each buyer knows what the designs mean. Diamond shapes, for example, represent wigwams, he said. More often these days his buyers are collectors rather than moose hunters.
Phillips is an expert in his materials.
“All bark is not created equal. There’s curly bark, thick, thin, white, dark, gray. I use bark that is thick and pliable and doesn’t separate into layers,” Phillips said.
With winter bark, it’s brown with a thick rind on the inside. He has to take it off the tree carefully and scrape away the rind to make designs. He can approach the etching in two ways – either scraping away the entire background and leaving just a thin image, or carve images onto rind. Summer bark has no rind and is just yellow.
His museum-quality pieces have used winter bark with an elaborate scraping process that leaves thin details for designs. Those are the toughest to do, he said.
Phillips approaches each moose call with an open mind and has no preconceived idea of what the designs will be. The bark just speaks to him.
“I never plan on paper what it’s going to look like. Most of the time I have no idea until it evolves,” Phillips said.
In the center of the device, he often puts an image of a moose or a moose head. For special orders, he might be asked to incorporate an image of a hawk or favorite dog or even a woodpecker, in one case. He adds touches like a flower, acorns or moose tracks to fill in blank areas.
“Each side is balanced because nature is balanced,” Phillips said. “Every design is unique.”
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Ballot measures in the U.S. to build more affordable housing and protect tenants from soaring rent increases were plentiful and fared well in last week’s midterm elections, a sign of growing angst over record high rents exacerbated by inflation and a dearth of homes.
Voters approved capping rent increases at below inflation in three U.S. cities: Portland, Maine, and Richmond and Santa Monica in California. Another measure was leading in the vote count in Pasadena outside of Los Angeles. In Florida, voters in Orange County, which includes Orlando, overwhelmingly passed a rent stabilization measure but a court ruling means it’s unlikely to go into force.
There were also dozens of proposals on the Nov. 8 ballot raising money for and authorizing construction of affordable housing, said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Many passed.
“Housing is a winning campaign issue. It’s one that voters show up for and it’s one that should cause policymakers at all levels to act,” said Yentel, adding that even a loss can be a win.
“The act of organizing itself builds strength, it builds power, and it builds connections and it builds momentum,” she said.
Calls for more affordable homes and policies to keep tenants housed have been growing as homelessness increases even in places outside coastal urban centers such as San Francisco and Los Angeles. Moreover, teachers, police and other public servants say they cannot afford to live in the places where they work, resulting in nightmare commutes and staffing shortages.
“The market is out of whack, the government needs to step in and regulate it so there can be stability,” said Leah Simon-Weisberg, a tenants rights attorney and chair of the rent board in Berkeley, California.
Opponents say rent control increases costs for landlords, the majority of whom are mom-and-pop operations with a handful of units each. Restricting rents will spur disinvestment in rental stock and discourage construction of affordable housing.
“Decades of empirical research have shown this policy does not help the underlying cause of the housing shortage that we have now. If anything, it makes the housing challenge more acute,” said Ben Harrold, public policy manager at the National Apartment Association.
Most states preempt cities and counties from enacting rent stabilization, the result of lobbying by the real estate industry in the 1970s. Still, in cities accustomed to rent regulation voters approved stronger rent caps and more tenant protections.
The California cities of Richmond and Santa Monica easily approved measures to tighten existing rent increase maximums to 3%, significantly less than the state cap of 10%. In Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco, voters expanded eviction protections for tenants.
In Portland, Maine, 55% of voters approved a measure to slim down an existing rent cap, from 100% of the consumer price index to 70%. The proposal also dictates a host of other tenant protections, such as limiting security deposits to one month’s rent and requiring 90 days notice for a rent increase or lease termination.
A ballot measure in Pasadena to cap annual rent increases at 75% of the consumer price index had more than 52% of the vote late Tuesday, and the campaign declared victory. The campaign’s finance coordinator, Ryan Bell, said organizers went all out to reach voters but also, the timing was right.
“The pandemic really made it clear that people who are renting their housing are insecure by definition. Their housing could be taken away from them in some cities for no cause and a massive rent increase is functionally an eviction,” he said. “There’s just more and more stories.”
Meanwhile, the rent cap overwhelmingly approved by voters in Orange County, Florida, is on hold. A court ruled it didn’t meet what it acknowledged was an “extremely high bar” set by a state law that requires a housing emergency be identified before a rent cap can be put in place.
Nearly 60% of voters approved the measure after rents that jumped 25% between 2020 and 2021 and another double-digit increase this year. The Board of County Commissioners in Orange was scheduled to meet Thursday to decide whether to appeal.
Tenant advocates and landlords do agree on the need for more affordable housing, and cities and counties in Arizona, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas and Ohio were among those that approved bond measures for more units, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
In Colorado, voters approved a sweeping measure to set aside roughly $300 million a year for programs that curb homelessness and promote affordable housing. But in Denver, where Zillow data shows median rental prices jumped $600 in two years, 58% of voters rejected a $12 million proposal to expand free legal counsel for all tenants facing eviction.
The eviction fund would have been financed by a $75 annual fee on landlords.
For Drew Hamrick, vice president of government affairs for the Apartment Association of Metro Denver, the opposing argument “that resonated the most was that this $12 million tax was going to end up being paid for by the consumer regardless of what political outlook you have.”
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Michael Casey in Boston, Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, and Jesse Bedayn in Denver contributed.
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Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Woman crashes car through Walgreens in York County
Updated: 10:19 AM EST Nov 11, 2022
A Walgreens in Cornish sustained major damage after a woman crashed her car into the building Thursday.Officials say Donna Letellier, 77, had left the store and got into her vehicle to drive away.According to deputies, Letellier placed her car into drive, instead of reverse, smashing her vehicle through the side of the wall and into the store on Maple Street. Neither Letellier nor anyone inside the store was injured. Authorities say the building remains closed at this time.
CORNISH, Maine —
A Walgreens in Cornish sustained major damage after a woman crashed her car into the building Thursday.
Officials say Donna Letellier, 77, had left the store and got into her vehicle to drive away.
According to deputies, Letellier placed her car into drive, instead of reverse, smashing her vehicle through the side of the wall and into the store on Maple Street.
Neither Letellier nor anyone inside the store was injured. Authorities say the building remains closed at this time.
The 2022 election cycle has found the GOP more competitive in New England than it has been in years. Former Providence Mayor Allan Fung (R), who is running to fill the open U.S. House seat currently held by Congressman Jim Langevin (D), is up in the polls heading into Election Day. In New Hampshire, meanwhile, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Don Bolduc, received financial backing in the primary from Senator Chuck Schumer because Democrats viewed Bolduc as a more beatable opponent in November. Yet Bolduc now has a very real chance to win, with the Real Clear Politics polling average showing him to be in a dead heat with incumbent Senator Maggie Hassan (D).
In Maine, however, the last poll released before the election has Governor Janet Mills (D) with an eight point lead over her Republican challenger, former Governor Paul LePage (R). Yet even if Mills wins reelection, there is a decent chance she’ll be forced to work with a Republican-led statehouse, at least partially, for the first time.
The Portland Press-Herald reported that a Mills reelection means Democrats “would have the power to implement policies on issues such as abortion, taxes, health care and energy.” Yet that’s only true if Democrats also maintain control of both chambers of the state legislature in Augusta and polling shows that’s far from certain.
The Maine Democratic Party and outside groups backing Democratic state legislative candidates have outspent Republicans in an effort to maintain control of the legislature. Of the 151 seats in the Maine House of Representatives, Democrats hold 76. With nine seats vacant and three held by Independents, Republicans will need to gain 13 seats to take control of the chamber.
Control of the Maine Senate, where Democrats hold 22 seats and Republicans have 13, is also in play. Most of the spending on state legislative races in Maine this cycle, in fact, has gone toward state senate races. Democrats have deployed resources to defend prominent members of their Senate caucus, including Senate President Troy Jackson (D-Allagash). In the race to oust the Senate President, whose district went for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020, more than one million dollars has been spent on both sides according to a November 3 report.
Louis Jacobson with the Center for Politics at UVA wrote on October 20 that the Maine Legislature is “one of the GOP’s prime opportunities for a legislative takeover.” Jacobson added that “openness to ticket-splitting, both in New England generally and Maine specifically, could produce a flipped legislative chamber or two.”
If Republicans win control of the Maine Senate, that will make it fives times in the past seven elections that partisan control of the upper chamber in Maine has flipped. Republicans would prefer to win back control of both legislative chambers and the governor’s mansion, no doubt. But even if the GOP takes control of only one legislative chamber, be that the House or the Senate, that would have significant policy implications that greatly affect the type of legislation to be enacted in Maine over the next two years.
2022 will be the third election cycle under Maine’s controversial ranked choice voting system for federal candidates, which no other state uses except for Alaska. Last year, Governor Mills and the Democratic-led legislature made Maine the first state in the nation to enact an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program, which will place a fee on all consumer goods sold in plastic packaging. Since the enactment of that bill in Augusta, Governors Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.), Kate Brown (D-Ore.), and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) signed similar legislation. One Illinois legislator liked the Maine EPR bill so much she introduced a version that even maintained the EPR fee exemption for frozen wild blueberries included in the Maine law.
The days of Maine Democrats implementing progressive policy proposals not yet tested anywhere else will come to an end if Republicans take control of just one legislative chamber. If Republicans capture only one chamber of the state legislature and nothing else, that would also mean tax hikes are likely off the table, at least for the next two years. That’s because Maine Representative John Andrews has worked hard to get fellow incumbents and candidates running for House or Senate to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Among current and prospective office holders, nearly 70 incumbents and challengers for a seat in the Maine House or Senate have signed the pledge this cycle, as has Paul LePage.
“We must elect a majority of legislators committed to lowering the tax burden on the hard working people of our state,” says Maine Representative John Andrews (R-Paris). “Thankfully, a record two-thirds of Republican incumbents in the Maine House have signed the Pledge and will be faithful to it. That is how we chart a course to prosperity in Maine.”
The commitment that these incumbents and challengers in Maine have made to voters is the same promise that Governors Ron DeSantis, Glenn Youngkin, Greg Abbott, and fourteen other governors have made. While 17 incumbent governors have signed a pledge to oppose and veto any bill that would result in a net tax hike, that number could grow in 2023. That’s because a number of 2022 gubernatorial candidates who polls show have a good chance of being sworn in come January — such as Tudor Dixon in Michigan and Kari Lake in Arizona — have also made that same commitment to voters.
If Republicans were to take back control of all of Maine state government, that will mean it was a phenomenal midterm election for the GOP. But Republicans don’t have to win back everything in Maine to change the direction in which the state is heading in from a policy standpoint. The way many see it, Maine is at a fork in the road when it comes to the direction of state governance. The outcome of the 2022 midterms will determine whether the future of policy and governance in Maine looks more like New Hampshire or Vermont.
“Maine faces a pivotal election on November 8th and every vote will matter,” Representative Andrews added. “It is imperative that liberty lovers and fiscal conservatives vote in record numbers to restore our foundational and economic freedoms.”
Maine won’t become a no-income-tax state like New Hampshire if Republicans only win back control of one legislative chamber. But winning one chamber will certainly prevent Maine from continuing to compete with the like of Oregon, California, and Vermont when it comes to the implementation of novel progressive reforms.
