Edward Tomic is a reporter for The Maine Wire based in Southern Maine. He grew up near Boston, Massachusetts and is a graduate of Boston University. He can be reached at [email protected]
Interview with Jerry Leeman: Today we bring you a story about a handful of fishermen rallying against a billion-dollar green industrial project, shady foreign corporations, and our own federal and state government. All are conspiring to generate a cash cow for...
By Greg Yates The criminal case People v Gosselin took place in a little red house structure known as the “Town of Highland Justice Court” located in Sullivan County, New York. This little red structure is also known as the Barryville Town Hall, where court is...
The Maine Drug Enforcement Agency (MDEA) announced the arrest of two men on Tuesday at a residence in Dixfield following a two-month investigation into illegal drug trafficking. Kenneth McCoullum, 33, of Portland, and Joshua Campbell, 38, of Dixfield, face multiple charges, including aggravated trafficking in Schedule W drugs (cocaine), after a search warrant was executed
A 33-year-old Portland man is facing multiple charges after allegedly attempting to stab a victim and steal the victim’s car Wednesday night. Portland Police say they responded to the area of Commercial and High Streets shortly before 8:55 p.m. on Wednesday for a report of a motor vehicle theft and an attempted stabbing. The suspect
A Honduran national who was previously deported from the United States in 2015 after illegally crossing the southern border has now pleaded guilty to illegally reentering the country, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine announced on Tuesday. Jose Luis Matute-Duarte, 35, a citizen of Honduras, pleaded guilty on Tuesday in U.S. District
The Maine Legislature’s State and Local Government Committee held a timely public hearing before on Wednesday to allow for input on a bill with bipartisan support aimed at increasing transparency and accountability regarding the state’s issuance of sole-source non-competitive contracts. The proposed bill, LD 875 or “An Act to Increase Government Transparency in the Procurement
In a textbook case of swallowing government spin whole, the Portland Press Herald on Tuesday published a story on the resignation of Tarlan Ahmadov, the embattled director of Maine’s Office of New Americans (ONA), without so much as a whiff of skepticism. Ahmadov, who stepped down on Tuesday, cited “personal health reasons” in his resignation
Three people were arrested and over 250 grams of cocaine were seized by police on Sunday after a search Portland apartment complex. Portland Police say they executed a search warrant at 211 Cumberland Avenue, the Franklin Towers apartment building, at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday as part of an ongoing investigation into suspected drug trafficking at
Radically different testimonies from a politician and a prosecutor before a legislative committee in Augusta this week cast doubt on whether an initiative to ban life sentences in Maine will get far. After the Democratic state representative who proposed the measure told the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee that she did not speak to any victims of
A Medford man who is a lifetime Maine sex offender registrant for multiple convictions of sexual abuse against minors has been found guilty on new charges and was sentenced to over a year in jail. [RELATED: Lewiston Sex Offender Arrested in Undercover Sting While Attempting to Meet a Minor…] According to the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s
A Saco man has been charged with felony theft after allegedly stealing an ATM from a business in Westbrook. “In something you only think you see on TV, an ATM was stolen from a business during the middle of a busy weekday,” Westbrook Police wrote in a post to their Facebook page on Monday. Westbrook
A group of Republican Maine state senators on Monday sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi requesting an investigation into the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services (DAFS) and its Office of State Procurement Services (OSPS) following the release of a devastating audit. The letter, signed by 14 Republican senators, including Senate
A first-term Maine Democratic lawmaker has introduced a bill that would prohibit the state from investing public funds or entering into contracts with companies, persons or other entities associated with “perpetrator states” that have been found by international organizations to have committed “apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide or a war crime.” The bill, LD 1383, entitled
A bipartisan group of state lawmakers in Maine have sponsored a bill that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of psilocybin for persons 21 and older. Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in certain types of mushrooms, often called “magic mushrooms.” The proposed bill, “An Act to Decriminalize Personal Possession of Therapeutic
A Hartford man was shot and killed by Oxford County Sheriff’s deputies during a domestic assault incident after the man allegedly advanced towards the deputies with a knife. According to the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office, shortly after 4:40 p.m. on Sunday, Oxford and Androscoggin County deputies responded to 911 call from an 80-year-old man reporting
Portland Police say they are investigating a Sunday morning stabbing incident on Portland Street that left one man injured. Police say they responded to 45 Portland Street, the address of Dyer’s Variety Store in the city’s Bayside neighborhood, shortly before 6:30 a.m. on Sunday. [RELATED: Longtime Bayside Resident Says She was Victim of Brutal Mugging
Chief Patrol Agent Juan Bernal, the U.S. Border Patrol’s top official in Maine’s Houlton Sector, on Monday released a promotional video highlighting the agency’s commitment to combatting illegal immigration and human smuggling across the northern border. [RELATED: ‘Whiteouts, dangerous cold, and hazardous terrain’: Maine’s Chief Border Patrol Agent Warns Against Illegal Crossings…] “The time for
The Portland Public School Board will be considering changes to its multiple equity-related policies in order to avoid an appearance of racial discrimination in its hiring practices. Portland Superintendent Ryan Scallon foreshadowed the revisions to the district’s equity policy at the board’s March 18 meeting, saying that the policies, initially approved in 2021, would need
The Maine Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) has sponsored a pilot computer programming training project specifically targeted to “historically marginalized racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse youth.” The project, entitled “Pathways to Software Engineering,” is funded by a grant from the DECD to the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (MIRC), a statewide network of over
An Eddington man was arrested on Tuesday in connection to social media posts in which he allegedly made threats against Jews, politicians, the Supreme Court and others. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine announced on Tuesday that Thadius Wind, 50, of Eddington, was arrested and charged by criminal complaint with transmitting an
Tarlan Ahmadov, the director of the Maine Office of New Americans (ONA) who has recently faced calls for his resignation over his history of making anti-Armenian comments on social media and for taking several Maine lawmakers on a eyebrow-raising gift trip to Azerbaijan, appears to be vacationing at a ritzy lakeside Italian resort. [RELATED: Did
A former student at Bonny Eagle High School in Standish is facing two counts of gross sexual assault for allegedly raping a 15-year-old victim in the school bathroom. Ali Kareem Al Shammari, 19, of Buxton, was arrested in late February of this year on two counts of gross sexual assault and was booked at the