Maine desperately needs the jobs and investment the industry is likely to bring.

It says this is not a time for conflict, but for rejoicing and celebrating what we have in common.

A local church provides food for the hungry and also food for thought.

A lack of progress on the MERC issue can be traced to City Hall and the mayor’s reversal.

Gov.-elect Paul LePage read the spirit of the times and decided that a big party can wait.

The city will have to monitor and enforce its standards to protect the working waterfront.

It was only three years ago, when Portland was reeling from a self-inflicted fiscal crisis.

Before the economic collapse that squashed state and local revenue collections, Portland school officials were trying – and failing — to explain how they’d overspent their budget by nearly $2 million, making it abundantly clear that the people in charge had a very vague idea of how much money they had going in and how much was going out.

A chemical used to avoid illness may be making people sick unnecessarily.

When a nation is involved in something as important as a war, it is more than worthwhile for its leaders to step back from day-to-day concerns and evaluate strategy.

That is exactly what President Obama and his top advisers did last Thursday, in their “Afghanistan-Pakistan Annual Review.”

Details of the conference, attended by the president, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other aides and advisers, are secret.