AUBURN, Maine – A gubernatorial debate that opened with promises of structure and civility quickly slid into sharp personal attacks, with Democratic candidate Troy Jackson repeatedly invoking former state Rep. Deqa Dhalac as he accused Republican Bobby Charles of “race baiting,” and later branding The Maine Wire “the main liar” during a blowup over fraud and corruption allegations.
A deadly shooting during a youth hockey game in Rhode Island last week has claimed a third victim, a grandfather whose daughter and grandson were also killed in the attack, authorities said.
Gerald Dorgan, who had been in critical condition, has died from his injuries, according to the Associated Press.
Dorgan’s daughter, Rhonda Dorgan, and grandson, Aidan Dorgan, were also killed in the shooting.
Police identified the shooter as Robert Dorgan, 56, who died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Dorgan, who had had a sex-change operation, also went by the names Roberta Esposito and Roberta Dorgano.
Robert Dorgan’s ex-wife was Rhonda Dorgan and adult son was Aidan Dorgan.
Maine State Police searched the killer’s storage unit in Brunswick earlier this month and found firearms, ammunition and firearm accessories.
At the time of the shooting, Dorgan was working on BIW’s cable crew.
Let’s hear it for Maine blueberries – you know, the ones that don’t get “recalled.”
Four states are facing a serious recall of blueberries produced not in the wild barrens of the Pine Tree State but in Oregon.
Maybe next time they’ll get Wyman’s on the phone and order from Maine’s finest.
Just a suggestion…
The Oregon-produced berries were recalled in Michigan, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as in Canada.
Nearly 60,000 pounds were recalled due to potential contamination with Listeria monocytogenes, a potentially life-threatening food-borne disease that can cause serious adverse health effects.
The FDA characterized the recall as a Class 1, its highest, most severe safety warning, meaning there is a reasonable probability that use of the product could cause serious adverse health consequences or death.
Maybe one way to avoid this problem is to order from Maine, which produces most of the wild (lowbush) blueberries in the world.
The majority of production occurs in Washington County, known for its blueberry “barrens.”
The best known supplier is Wyman’s Blueberries of Milbridge, which has been in business since 1874.
Wyman’s is the largest producer of wild blueberries in Maine and the U.S., managing over 17,000 acres of barrens and processing up to 2.3 million pounds of fruit daily during peak harvest.
The company got its start as a seafood-canning company, but switched to harvesting blueberries a few years later.
“We employ over 300 people year-round across our facilities in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes, and our aim is to be one of the world’s greatest companies to work for,” Wyman’s says on its website. “Above all, our goal as an employer is to enhance the lives of all who work here. We’re dedicated to enriching our employees’ lives while supporting communities we all want to live and work in.”
Though it’s known for its blueberries, Wyman’s harvests and sells several other fruits as well.
“We started out in 1874 canning sardines,” Wyman’s says. “But to our founder, Jasper Wyman, there was just something about the wild blueberry barrens surrounding his Maine cannery that compelled him.
“Eventually he realized you can package a sardine just about anywhere, but wild blueberries were unique to his little corner of the world.”
Take that, Oregon.
The Maine State Police arrested an Alabama woman on Tuesday after an I-95 pursuit through Androscoggin County.
[RELATED: Maine State Police arrest suspect in Skowhegan homicide after pursuit across three states…]
The Augusta Regional Communications Center received numerous calls at around 5:38 p.m. reporting an erratic driver.
Maine’s teacher hiring standards could become much stricter if a bipartisan bill aimed at protecting children, currently under consideration in the Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs, passes into law.
[RELATED: Kennebunk Teacher Who Hoped Charlie Kirk Would “Rest in Hell” Resigns…]
Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell has gone from being a metaphorical international peace-making God to his word having no credibility.
The Democrat from Maine allegedly having had sex with a 17-year-old girl at pedo Jeffrey Epstein‘s request was enough to erase Mitchell from his historic reputation helping bring peace to Northern Ireland.
But as bad if not worse, people don’t believe him when he says he didn’t.
For George Mitchell, that’s really the tragedy – that his word is no longer reliable.
Even his own Maine institute doesn’t believe him.
Not even necessarily because he allegedly had sex with a child – but because the leaders of his own institute believe he’s lying.
The guy who brought what people thought could never happen – peace in Northern Ireland – is now considered a fraud.
If Mitchell’s memory is faulty then one would expect either him or, if it’s due to dementia, someone on his behalf to say that he doesn’t remember having sex with a child.
But then the implication is, well, he may have. But can’t remember.
“I didn’t know her. I didn’t have contact with her. I didn’t meet her. I didn’t talk to her.” Mitchell the seasoned lawyer has a way of parsing his denials.
So even if Mitchell’s denials are true, the problem is the people who matter aren’t buying any of it.
That is the true tragedy of what has happened to George Mitchell – that his very word, once something as solid as granite, is now nothing more than trash.
“How should we react when we discover that someone, once accorded almost god-like status, turns out to have feet of clay?” the commentator Alex Kane asked in the Irish News, a Belfast daily. For the institutions and public figures that once feted President Bill Clinton and his envoy Mitchell, it is an agonizing question.
“Mitchell, a Senate majority leader until 1995, was an inspired choice to chair multiparty talks. Indefatigable, affable and astute, he steered negotiations to an agreement in 1998 that drew a line under a brutal conflict and saved countless lives,” reports TheGuardian.com.
Mitchell returned last June for the premiere of a film about his negotiating triumph. “It was like the return of the hero,” said Noel Doran, a former editor of the Irish News who attended the screening. “It almost felt like a privilege to be in the same room as him.”
The reverence had persisted despite an allegation by Virginia Giuffre in 2019 that she had been forced to have sex with Mitchell in the 1990s, and despite his name appearing multiple times in the “Epstein files.”
Mitchell denies any wrongdoing or ever meeting Giuffre but this month, after another release of Epstein material, former supporters wrenched off the halo.
The US-Ireland Alliance announced earlier this month that its George J Mitchell scholarship program would no longer bear his name.
“We are not a court of law. We are an organization which must make decisions that reflect what we stand for,” the alliance’s founder and president, Trina Vargo, said this week. “Given all the new information that has come to light, we felt we could no longer ask our alums and future applicants to wear the name Mitchell.”
Queen’s University Belfast, which forged a close partnership with Mitchell during and after his term as the university’s chancellor from 1999 to 2009, followed suit. It erased his name from its Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, scrubbed laudatory articles from its website and removed his bust – estimated to have cost $47,000 – from the campus.
The moves followed information from the latest Epstein files, Queen’s said in a statement. “Senator Mitchell previously provided public reassurances regarding his contact with Epstein. The recent files have shown this to be incorrect and in light of this information, the university acted accordingly.”
To add insult to injury, and perhaps the worst blow to George Mitchell, the George Mitchell Institute in Maine dropped his name from its banner.
His own institute has banished George Mitchell.
The Belfast city council now is considering rescinding Mitchell’s key to the city, a proposal backed by nationalist and unionist parties.
“It is a poignant irony – even in disgrace, the former envoy from Maine has brought both sides together,” TheGuardian.com said.
Mitchell has claimed Giuffre’s identification of him was a case of mistaken identity.
“In 2021, Ms Giuffre supplied a photograph to OK! Magazine, which incorrectly captioned it as depicting Senator Mitchell standing behind Jeffrey Epstein,” the ex-senator’s spokesman said. “The individual in the photograph was not Senator Mitchell. The publisher acknowledged the incorrect caption and removed it.”
From there, Mitchell’s mouthpiece went on to the rehearsed boilerplate denial – that the senator had never met or had any contact with Giuffre or any underage women, and had learned of Epstein’s criminal activity through media reports about his 2008 prosecution and conviction, after which Mitchell “declined or deflected” invitations from Epstein’s office.
“Senator Mitchell profoundly regrets ever having known Jeffrey Epstein and condemns, without reservation, the horrific harm Epstein inflicted on so many women,” his spokesperson said.
No one believes George Mitchell anymore.
That’s the sad legacy of the Waterville native who, after breaking through the chains of an impoverished blue-collar upbringing, reaching the highest pinnacles of public life, became known at age 92 for lying about sexually trafficking a teenage girl.
A new video promo of the upcoming Charlie Kirk documentary “Bride of Charlie” has ignited a firestorm of controversy.
Firebrand podcaster Candace Owens released the trailer Tuesday of her alleged documentary into Kirk’s savage killing.
Owens has been accused of suggesting that Kirk’s widow may have had a hand in his September murder so that she could take over Turning Point USA, his organization.
Judging from the trailer, critics believe Owens is once again stoking conspiracy theories surrounding Kirk’s assassination, including whether Erika Kirk had something to do with it.
“Owens uses dramatic clips from news coverage of the shooting, leaked audio from TPUSA calls, and shadowy visuals to question Erika’s actions since the tragedy,” reports Yahoo Entertainment. “The title plays on ‘Bride of Chucky,’ which many see as a jab at Erika’s marriage and her quick rise to CEO of the organization her husband built.”
The trailer hints at allegations ranging from Erika’s past work with Romanian orphanages linked to trafficking claims to her time in China and online interactions with a teenager years ago.
“Owens stresses she is not accusing crimes, just raising questions, but the tone feels pointed and personal,” Yahoo says.
Episode one of the alleged documentary premieres February 25, and the teaser racked up views fast, splitting opinions in conservative circles.
“Some call it a bold push for truth, while others label it outright harassment of a woman still mourning her husband,” according to Yahoo.
Owens is an American political commentator and author her political positions having mostly been described as conservative or far-right.
She has promoted conspiracy theories on a wide range of subjects throughout her career. Since 2024, she has espoused antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Owens has raised the possibility that Israel was at least partly behind Kirk’s murder, allegedly because he was reluctant to speak out defending Israel.
Kirk was fatally shot in the neck on September 10, 2025, while on stage at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, for a TPUSA event, “The American Comeback Tour.”
Since then, Owens has piggybacked on the murder, some argue, just to promote her cause, whatever it is.
Breeze Airways will kick off a new service between the Akron-Canton, Ohio Airport and Portland, Maine, this summer.
At the same time, the carrier is discontinuing service from Akron-Canton to Los Angeles, deeming it too costly.
Portland will be the carrier’s 16th destination from Akron-Canton, according to Cleveland.com.
Flights to Portland will run Thursdays and Sundays starting July 2. Eastbound flights will leave Akron-Canton at 8:18 p.m., landing in Portland at 10:09 p.m. Return flights will leave Portland at 7 a.m., arriving at Akron-Canton at 9:01 a.m.
The seasonal route is expected to run through late October.
No other airline currently flies from northeast Ohio to Maine’s largest city.
As if the nation’s top defense official doesn’t have enough on his plate…
Pete Hegseth told reporters he just learned about a site on “X” that monitors pizza orders coming from the Pentagon.
The originator of the “Pentagon Pizza Report” determined that he could figure out whether there was a major military movement being planned depending on how many pizzas were being ordered in the vicinity of the nation’s defense headquarters.
“Various pizzerias nearby the Pentagon are reporting above average traffic,” the site – which has 376,000 followers – reported Tuesday night.
It also shows bar graphs indicating the rate of business at each pizza parlor near the Pentagon, including Domino’s, Papa John’s Pizza and Wiseguy Pizza.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday he’s going to have to start ordering pizzas on random nights just to throw off the monitoring app, according to FromTheHill.com.
Hegseth jokingly said any surge in takeout deliveries to the Pentagon – a phenomenon that has accurately predicted the start of major geopolitical events – could be him ordering pizza “just to throw everybody off.”
Asked about the “Pentagon Pizza Report,” Hegseth said he was aware of the account.
“I’ve thought of just ordering lots of pizza on random nights just to throw everybody off,” he said Sunday on Fox News. “Some Friday night when you see a bunch of Dominos orders, it might just be me on an app, throwing the whole system off so we keep everybody off balance. We look at every indicator.”
The Pentagon Pizza Report tracks “popular times” data on Google Maps for pizzerias near the Pentagon and other major military installations under the idea that sudden surges in evening or late-night activity suggest high-level officials are working later than usual – an indication of potential or current military action around the world.
Hours before news broke on Israel’s major attack on Iran on June 12, for example, Pentagon Pizza Report noted a surge in Google Maps activity from four pizza places near the Pentagon around 7 p.m. – a signal military leaders were staying in place to monitor unfolding events.
