— Angela Harwood of Orland, whose plan to take over a farm from her retiring employers has been delayed by the federal funding freeze, staffing cuts at federal agencies and additional reporting requirements ordered by the Trump administration.
Donald Trump’s fight with Maine is based on an untested legal theory. The president's threats to withhold federal money because Maine allows transgender girls and women to compete in female sports hinges on a new interpretation of Title IX, the 1972 law barring discrimination “on the basis of sex” in education.
Small Maine farmers struggling with federal funding freeze. Almost every farmer in Maine works with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and many are now facing delays and uncertainty about the federal loans, grants and contracts they’ve built their businesses around.
An American bald eagle surveys from a bank of the Penobscot River. Credit: Courtesy of Bob Duchesne
From the Opinion Pages
“The last major [spruce budworm] outbreak in the 1970s and 1980s destroyed more than 7 million acres of spruce and fir, severely impacting Maine’s timber industry and wildlife habitats. The economic toll was in the hundreds of millions, and extensive salvage logging reshaped Maine’s forest landscape.”
