The Martindale Hotel & Golf Club has a nice ring to it. The 18-hole golf course alongside the Little Androscoggin River, established in 1921, is a challenging course with expansive views of the Twin Cities. A hotel could offer upscale accommodations and dining, plus space for corporate meetings, weddings and ...

NATO’s “victory” in Libya, senior U.S. officials recently wrote, was a “model intervention,” a “teachable moment.” “The first lesson is that NATO is uniquely positioned to respond quickly and effectively to international crises,” the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Ivo H. Daalder, and NATO’s supreme allied commander, Adm. James G. Stavridis, ...

The 401(k) concept always looked good on paper. The thinking went that workers would have the discipline to save enough money to more than match Social Security in their retirement years. The facts show, however, that the actual outcome for most American workers will be far different. More than 40 ...

According to Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., it is “intrusive,” “an inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars,” “unconstitutional,” and “the very picture of what’s wrong in D.C.” What manner of predatory government prompted Mr. Webster — supported by nearly all House Republicans — to issue such categorical condemnation? That intolerable federal boondoggle ...

Now DC is the subject, but it’s not unique. This is happenin’ round the country and it makes me freak. I wonder how things could get so out of control, and how hearts can turn so very cold. Set to the percussive rhythms of the go-go genre he pioneered, those ...

Two weeks ago we praised Auburn public schools for offering a free breakfast to any student wanting one. The goal was to erase the stigma of the income-based breakfast program. But we chided the district for including sugary cold cereals of dubious nutritional value. Lewiston city schools deserve applause for ...

The world knows the basic biography of Chen Guangcheng, a blind dissident who slipped away from government thugs, holed up in the American Embassy in Beijing, and after negotiations won a get-out-of-jail card to study in the United States. The result helped the Obama White House on the ever-sensitive issue ...

The United States Postal Service is taking a curious path as it struggles with budget and operational reforms in desperate pursuit of financial stability. Alienating customers as loyal and old as the postal system itself is an odd business choice, but that is what the USPS ensures with a negotiated ...

The formation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a new coalition comprising a parliamentary supermajority prompted hawks to conclude that he was laying the groundwork for a military strike against Iran. Doves speculated that the new cabinet was well positioned to reopen peace talks with Palestinians. In reality both ...

Special Rapporteur Robert Falk of the United Nations, having completed a visit to jails where the Palestinians are held, said that Israel was not treating the hunger strikers in line with international standards. He said he was appalled at Israel’s continuing abuse of the human rights of their prisoners. Falk ...

“This Legislature will not repeat the mistakes of the past by using a one-time windfall to put a Band-Aid over our broken system in the hopes that the problem will go away,” House Speaker Robert Nutting, R-Oakland, told reporters last week. Whew. That’s a relief. Until you consider what the ...

“The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” So wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1967 ruling in Loving v. Virginia, the landmark case declaring unconstitutional the anti-miscegenation laws on the books ...

Social Security reform can’t wait. If you are at the age when you are planning for retirement, consider this: Unless something changes, it is entirely possible the Social Security program will be insolvent while you still need help from it. Trustees of the Social Security program reported recently that, at ...

President Barack Obama is right about one thing: The American people are weary of war. They are weary of an Afghan war that began righteously, in pursuit of the evil-doers who plotted the 9/11 terrorist assault, but whose capital was frittered away with the sideshow of unnecessary war in Iraq. ...

Bravo to U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, and others in the community for persuading the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department not to backpedal on the health care services to be provided at its outreach clinic in Lewiston. The VA had promised to provide primary care, mental health, phlebotomy and electrocardiograms in ...

The military-commissions trial at the Guantanamo Bay prison of five men accused in the 9/11 terrorist attacks devolved May 5 into a circuslike display that insulted victims’ families and made a mockery of justice. The presiding judge, Army Col. James Pohl, must restore a higher standard over future proceedings. Pohl ...

President Barack Obama picked an easy — but important — issue to share with college students recently. The interest rate on the popular Stafford student loans is due to double at the end of June from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. Underwriting that portion of student debt costs the federal ...

Reading police stories is sometimes reading the chronicles of stupidity. You just have to shake your head. To wit: A 19-year-old Mount Desert Island man was charged with reckless conduct after someone threw a can of gasoline on a bonfire at 3 a.m. Sunday, according to a story from the ...

It’s a crying shame that more than half of parents of Maine’s newborns are not taking advantage of the $500 gift that is the Harold Alfond College Challenge. According to a story published in the Bangor Daily News on Wednesday, only 40 percent of eligible parents have ever signed up ...

The number of immigrants coming illegally to the United States has been declining for several years. Demographers have repeatedly said as much, and now a report by the Pew Hispanic Center confirms it — illegal migration from Mexico is virtually at a standstill. Last year, about 6.1 million Mexicans were ...