But the statewide biotech training program teaching them how to tackle local scientific challenges like this in the laboratory faces an uncertain future because of federal budget cuts.
Penelope Overton
Staff Writer
Penny 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 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.
Groups launch $62M conservation project in western Maine
Four environmental groups are teaming up on a fundraising drive to conserve 78,000 acres of forest along the Magalloway River.
Unsafe levels of forever chemicals found at Brunswick golf course
The state is calling on the Navy to test more wells in the area of Mere Creek Golf Course, which is about 1.5 miles from the site of Maine’s largest firefighting foam spill.
Forecast for National Weather Service in Maine still cloudy
But staff meteorologists admit the interruption of weather balloon launches will undermine the accuracy of the agency’s weather modeling and forecasts.
Removal of contaminated sediment has begun along Portland waterfront
With the Portland Harbor disposal pit completed, dredging at 3 waterfront sites will begin.
Bills to find and destroy Maine’s toxic firefighting foam win over legislative committee
The Environment and Natural Resources Committee unanimously endorsed bills to catalog, collect and dispose of Maine’s stockpike of toxic firefighting foam.
Maine makes first purchase of farm contaminated by forever chemicals
The state tapped its PFAS relief fund to spend $333,000 to buy a Palermo hay field where sewage sludge was once spread as fertilizer that tested 3 times above the state’s recommended level for safe dairy forage.
Who are Maine’s lawmakers taking to Trump’s address to Congress?
Every member of Congress can bring one guest to the presidential address, and they often use the privilege to honor a local hero or send a political message.
Maine lawmaker wants state to help farmers affected by federal funding freeze
A proposed bill would create a state-funded no-interest loan program for Maine farmers whose federal contracts are frozen by the Trump administration.
Maine must prepare for storms and climate change, lawmakers told
A proposal formed in the wake of last winter’s back-to-back storms to help communities prepare for bad weather and climate change was presented at a legislative hearing on Thursday.