Hannah Pingree says Jay shouldn’t be data center ‘testing ground’
The governor elect’s comment comes a day after the owner of the former mill submitted permit applications to Maine regulators.
What is Maine Focus?
Maine Focus is the Bangor Daily News’ investigative team, telling important stories that hold public figures and institutions accountable and make an impact in communities across the state. Its reporters focus on bringing new perspectives to the forefront. The team began as a community engagement project in 2013. Its reporters have done the state’s most ambitious journalism since then, chronicling the life and death of a young man who was addicted to heroin, illuminating a culture of sexual misconduct in the Maine National Guard, and telling the story of a man who spent years in solitary confinement. In 2025, BDN partnered with The Maine Monitor to strengthen investigative journalism in Maine and expand public access to the reporting. All reporting from this collaboration is free to read on bangordailynews.com.
Maine Focus Staff
Callie Ferguson is the deputy investigative editor and a reporter who focuses on Maine’s criminal justice system. She was a finalist for the Livingston Award in 2022. The next year, she joined the inaugural class of local investigations fellows at The New York Times. Callie graduated from Bowdoin College and lives in Westbrook.
Contact Callie: cferguson@bangordailynews.com / 207-990-8258
Sawyer Loftus is a reporter covering housing as part of a fellowship with the investigative outlet ProPublica. He was named the state’s journalist of the year by the Maine Press Association in 2024. Sawyer is a University of Vermont graduate who is based in Bangor.
Contact Sawyer: sloftus@bangordailynews.com / 207-217-1450
Lori Valigra is the environment reporter. She was a Knight journalism fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has extensive international reporting experience in Europe and Asia. Lori graduated from Boston University. She designed the western Maine log cabin in which she lives.
Contact Lori: lvaligra@bangordailynews.com / 207-990-8272
Michael Shepherd is the editor who oversees Maine Focus. He has led the BDN’s political coverage since 2019. He is a University of Maine graduate with a masters degree from the Muskie School of Public Service. He lives with his family in Augusta.
Contact Michael: mshepherd@bangordailynews.com / 207-370-7652
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Latest Stories
Susan Collins is criticizing a Troy Jackson mortgage. She did something similar.
Records show the senator’s mortgage pledges on homes in Bangor and Washington, D.C., overlapped for eight months in 2004.
Trump officials say Maine ignores Medicaid fraud. Cases are sitting with his prosecutors.
Maine prosecutors are frustrated by federal delays in two fraud cases involving nearly $2 million in potential losses to taxpayers.
ICE detained a Maine immigrant’s wife, then let him trade places
More than anywhere else in New England, lawyers say Maine has stood out for federal agents tracking down one category of law-abiding immigrants at homes and jobs.
Penobscot dam owner replaces faulty poles on line where July failure killed fish
The work comes as federal regulators near a decision on renewing the dam’s license.
Waste buried in the woods shows how hard it is to rehab Maine’s abandoned factories
What does it take to bring an abandoned factory to life? In Hartland, it starts by cleaning up asbestos, PCBs and buried hides nobody can say who owns.
Maine sheriff’s election rival among 3 deputies alleging illegal retaliation
“It sounds to me like a political hit job by my opponent six weeks before the election,” Oxford County Sheriff Christopher Wainwright said.
Juniper Ridge wants to treat its contaminated wastewater 20 miles away
Juniper Ridge Landfill plans to move its PFAS treatment system off-site, requiring leachate to be trucked 20 miles to Hampden.
The family that fought a Maine landfill leaves their town behind
Five years after Debbie Cooper lost her fight against one of Maine’s most important landfills, her son’s family is also leaving Hartland.
Rick Bennett vows to fix Maine’s reading crisis. His rivals aren’t as specific.
The authors of a new report detailing the problem say fixing it will take leadership from the next governor and education commissioner.
Read Educate Maine’s report on Maine’s reading gaps
The report offers a rare look at why Maine students rank so low in reading.
Maine schools still teach reading in ways that aren’t proven to work
The findings offer some of the first hard evidence for something long suspected in Maine schools: reading instruction quality varies widely by district.
State troopers deny wrongdoing in lawsuit over violent southern Maine arrest
The court filings mark the first time the troopers have formally responded to the lawsuit brought by Justin Savage.
Police checks on Susan Collins’ home spike with high-profile Senate votes
The pattern traces Collins’ transformation from a popular figure into a polarizing one drawing strong Democratic campaigns against her.
Maine’s biggest dam owner faces reckoning after another Penobscot River fish kill
Brookfield Renewable is in the final stages of relicensing the Ripogenus Dam, located about 30 miles west of Millinocket.
Editor’s note on the BDN’s Kids Project
Maine used to be one of the best states for students but now we rank among the worst. The BDN will probe why, and identify solutions.
What 3 educators told us about the problems facing Maine schools
Three Maine educators told the BDN that schools try to do too much for too many students without consistent standards or adequate funding.
Troy Jackson punched a man and pushed his partner in 1988, police report says
Lana Pelletier, the U.S. Senate candidate’s partner of 40 years, now denies telling police that Jackson pushed her after a fight.
Maine’s new strategy to stop another insect disaster in the North Woods
After a 26-year outbreak devastated Maine’s forests, the state is testing a targeted attack on spruce budworms invading from Quebec.
The fungus that could save Maine’s trees one seedling at a time
A fungus found in surviving trees during a 1990s outbreak is now bred into 30 million seedlings planted in Maine since 2017.
ICE agent who killed Biddeford man left a trail of disputed arrests
The BDN reviewed records from four of David Brouillette’s past arrests to better understand his conduct during his first months on the job.
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