Star Weekly Digest

By Lauren McCauley | Editor

By Emma Davis

The winner of Maine’s U.S. Senate seat might not be known for days or weeks after the Nov. 3 election. That’s because the odds favor a ranked-choice runoff.  

“We think there’s a huge likelihood that it’s going to happen,” Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told Maine Morning Star. 

By Eesha Pendharkar

All three candidates for governor are concerned about Maine students’ declining test scores. But not all of them are willing to change the key policy experts say is holding the state back from widespread academic reform.

By Emma Davis

“The House and the Senate have always been institutions of the ruling class. What this institution tries to do is protect it from being intruded upon by working class Americans,”  Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told a packed State Theatre Thursday afternoon. “So they call people communists, they call them this, they call them that. But really what it is is they’re afraid of a waitress in the House, and a logger in the Senate.” 

By Kaitlyn Budion

With no clear definition from the state for ‘environmental justice,’ a Penobscot County Superior Court justice said he can only consider state lawmakers’ intentions for the standard. And under that narrow interpretation, he has ruled that the state’s initial approval of the Juniper Ridge Landfill expansion will hold, despite concerns raised by neighboring Penobscot Nation. 

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