Latest news with #MarianneMoore
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Maine may legalize more forms of online gambling
Jun. 5—AUGUSTA — Maine may legalize more forms of online gambling under a bipartisan bill that would grant expanded gaming rights to federally recognized tribes in Maine. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Ambreen Rana, D-Bangor, and Sen. Marianne Moore, R-Calais, would expand upon the tribes' exclusive access to online sports betting. LD 1164 was recommended for passage by the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee in a party-line vote, despite opposition from health care professionals, established casinos and the Mills administration. The bill was scheduled to be taken up in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, but was tabled. Lawmakers considered a similar bill last session, but the measure failed in the House, 74-71, and in the Senate, 20-14. The current bill would grant exclusive rights to four federally recognized tribes in Maine — the Passamaquoddy Tribe, the Penobscot Nation, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians and the Mi'kmaq Nation — for online games such as roulette, blackjack and others. The state would receive 18% of the gross receipts, generating millions of dollars annually for a variety of programs, including gambling addiction prevention and treatment, opioid-use prevention and treatment, Maine Veterans' Homes, Fund for Healthy Maine, school renovation loans, and emergency housing relief. At a public hearing in late March, proponents argued that the bill is needed to promote economic growth and development for tribes in Maine, which unlike hundreds of other federally recognized tribes are not treated as sovereign nations but more like municipalities because of a pair of state and federal laws enacted in the 1980s to settle tribal claims to two-thirds of the state. William Nicholas Sr., chief of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Motahkomikuk (Indian Township), said that online gambling is already being provided illegally to people in Maine, and the state receives no financial benefit. "The lost business opportunity for a legal and state regulated entity is in the tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars per year," Nicholas said in written testimony. "Those revenues should be benefiting Mainers, not shadowy offshore companies or whoever runs the many apps that are currently available for illegal internet gaming." But opponents, including the heads of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Gambling Control Unit, said the bill should be rejected, citing public health concerns with gambling and the relative infancy of the online sports betting program, which came online nearly two years ago. Maine CDC Director Puthiery Va said lawmakers should not expand online gambling until they fully understand the effects of the online sports gambling, which went live late in 2023. "Internet gambling is a format that can be isolating, and isolation is a risk factor for poor health outcomes," Va said in written testimony. "Electronics, including computers and cellphones, are also isolating and addictive devices, and for that reason there are public health concerns about increasing access to gambling in such a manner that allows for play at all hours with opportunity for impulsive and problem gambling behavior." Copy the Story Link
Irish Times
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Infinity Pool by Vona Groarke: Subtle observations take readers on journey of the senses in accomplished collection
Infinity Pool Author : Vona Groarke ISBN-13 : 978-1917371094 Publisher : Gallery Press Guideline Price : €11.95 If poets are to be either 'visual' or 'haptic', as Randall Jarrell once suggested in a review of Marianne Moore, then Vona Groarke (like Moore) is visual. Her latest book, Infinity Pool , exemplifies this. The starting point of these poems is inevitably how a subject strikes the eye: the dense clouds above Knock as seen from an aeroplane window; a future passed through, 'like a car through fog'; or the poem itself – the 'infinity pool' of the title – a blue rectangle held against blue, so the viewer can't quite 'tell the edge'. This is a depiction of the watched world and the effect for the reader is an immediacy of vision: a scarecrow 'derided' by the wind; a butterfly that 'chases itself down, very lightly, between stalks/ of cow parsley up to my neck'; 'Antique dusk/ with its yellowing pages'. I imagine the cow parsley as Sligo – the poet's county – on a May afternoon; while the antique dusk is surely England , the yellowish glow of Cambridge where Groarke is poet-in-residence. The writing inhabits both places with focused and tender attention. READ MORE There is a third place also, the place of poems, a complicated realm into which the poet climbs 'through tears in the brocade'. This strange state of existence – described in Hindsight as a 'pipe of light I pull myself through/ like a rag through the barrel of a shotgun' – is tested and questioned throughout. The result, as always with Groarke, is exciting intellectual exploration. [ The Illegals by Shaun Walker: The Russian agent who couldn't get Irish people to shut up, and other spy stories Opens in new window ] [ The fall of an ancient tree is a sad occasion. It marks the death of a living monument Opens in new window ] Hers is a 'thinking eye', to borrow Klee's phrase: the immediacy of the visual is always joined and powered by the working-out of an idea. The Future of the Poem, for instance, is a verse-essay in miniature, each brief section a prophesy, or a dare: 'Watch it become something smaller./ Watch it rot.' Although the book closes with a magnificent sequence written after reading Chinese love poems, Groarke, again like Moore, favours anti-Romantic subject matter: a maths copybook; a ball of lint; a coin game where 'the batten sweeps forward to nudge them all in'. In this poem (Tipping Point), a skilful play with negatives leads us towards its heartbreaking conclusion – just one triumphant example of the subtle manipulations of light and surface that illuminate the whole collection.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Feds cut $9M for Down East coastal restoration project
May 8—Maine has lost $9 million it was awarded to reduce flooding and restore fish habitat Down East, making the project another victim of the Trump administration's continued efforts to cut federal spending. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration notified the Maine Department of Marine Resources in April that the project was an "overuse of taxpayer dollars" and no longer "relevant" to the administration's priorities. The grant funding was meant to elevate a road in Addison so it wouldn't flood and to add a culvert that would help fish and lobster swim from the ocean into a salt marsh along the Pleasant River. The effort is part of a larger, $30 million to $40 million project to restore tidal flow in that area after it was blocked in the 1940s. The termination has alarmed state legislators who say their Down East communities are among the "most vulnerable" in the state to rising sea levels. "The towns in the project area are not only dependent on fisheries but are also critically underserved communities," state Sen. Marianne Moore, R-Washington, and Rep. Tiffany Strout, R-Harrington, wrote in a letter to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, urging her to help reinstate the funds. "(These) recent actions by the U.S. Department of Commerce will harm our communities in Maine." The Department of Marine Resources also receives around $20 million annually from the federal government for its scientific work. Deirdre Gilbert, the department's director of policy and management, told lobstermen at a recent meeting that the department is worried that it will soon take more hits to its federal funding. SLASHING AWAY Timothy Carrigan, the acting director of NOAA, said in the April letter that the agency was rescinding the Maine grant "to streamline and reduce the cost and size of the federal government." "The stated goal and description of the program — restoration of salt marsh and related effects — fall outside of the current direction NOAA is taking regarding habitat restoration at this time," Carrigan wrote. Several other NOAA programs have been frozen or cut, and a draft of the 2026 federal budget proposes reducing the agency's $6 billion budget by about 25%, according to NPR. That would include cuts to national grant programs for habitat restoration, KUOW reports. It is unclear whether Maine is the only state to have this kind of grant rescinded. NOAA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. WHAT'S GOING AWAY NOAA awarded the Department of Marine Resources the $9 million last July. The project would have focused on infrastructure improvements to the Addison Road in Columbia — west of Jonesport — where an offshoot stream of the Pleasant River is causing "significant roadway flooding" due to critical structural issues with the crossing's two culverts. And as sea levels continue to rise, the Department of Marine Resources predicts there will be more flooding at nearby fire stations and, as a result, emergency response times will increase. The work would have replaced the road crossing, raised the adjacent roadways, and relocated wells and septic systems. "The rebuilt crossing would have also allowed for future upstream passage and increased nursery habitats for recreationally and commercially valuable fish species such as rainbow smelt, American lobster, groundfish and shellfish," said Carl Wilson, Maine's new marine resources commissioner. The Department of Marine Resources had not yet spent any of the $9 million, Nichols, the department's spokesperson, said. TAKING ACTION Collins, a Republican, has so far intervened on a handful of funding cuts aimed at Maine. She stepped in when the Trump administration rescinded funding for the Maine Sea Grant and U.S. Department of Agricultures grants for the University of Maine — both of which were restored. And on May 2, she publicly expressed "serious objections" with Trump's 2026 budget proposal. Strout and Moore, the Down East legislators, have called on her to step in once again. "We have been very impressed in your successful intervention to get funding reinstated for the Maine Sea Grant and other programs," they wrote. "There is no advocate more effective for our state than you and your office. We would appreciate your efforts getting the ... grant funding reinstated." The flooding, they said, has harmed local ecosystems and led to the death of a constituent in back to back storms in January 2024. "Addison and Columbia are ranked as "most vulnerable" in Maine's Coastal Risk Explorer that shows social vulnerability to sea level rise in coastal communities," they wrote. It is unclear whether Collins is taking action; her office did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. Copy the Story Link
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Maine House advances budget, but deal hits a snag in Senate
Feb. 11—AUGUSTA — Lawmakers in the Maine House of Representatives voted to advance a $121 million supplemental budget proposal Tuesday, but without the two-thirds support needed for the plan to take effect immediately. The House voted 73-71 on the proposal, which would fill a shortfall in the budget for the current fiscal year ending in June. The spending package adds to the current $10.5 billion biennial budget and is primarily aimed at closing a $118 million gap in MaineCare costs this year. It also includes $2 million for spruce budworm remediation in Maine forests. The Senate took up the proposal Tuesday afternoon, but lawmakers decided to recess after an unexpected vote to consider an amendment from Sen. Marianne Moore, R-Calais, to implement cost-of-living pay increases for direct care workers. When Democrats tried to effectively kill the amendment, four Democrats joined with Republicans to reject the motion to indefinitely postpone it. Senate President Mattie Daughtry, D-Brunswick, then announced the Senate would break and resume debate later Tuesday after leaders of both parties meet with their members. Two-thirds support is needed in both chambers of the Legislature in order for the proposal to take effect immediately upon getting the governor's signature. The proposal won bipartisan support in committee last week, but Republicans later criticized the deal and signaled that they were unlikely to lend support to the proposal. On Tuesday, Republicans stood firm in their plan to reject the budget, arguing in House and Senate floor debates that they were disappointed to see the proposal from the committee not include Gov. Janet Mills' plan to limit housing assistance through the General Assistance program to three months in a 12-month period or the cost of living pay increases for direct care workers, which had been scheduled to take effect last month but that were revoked in Mill's budget proposal. "This supplemental budget is critical to Maine's future," House and Senate Republicans said in a joint written statement. "However, Democrats failed to demonstrate even a basic level of fiscal responsibility." Republicans also took issue with the procedure that led to Tuesday's floor votes, criticizing the fact that the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee met late into the night Tuesday in order to vote on the proposal, and that Democrats opposed reconsidering the proposal Thursday after Rep. Ken Fredette, R-Newport, was absent for the vote and was prevented from casting his vote the next day by a newly adopted legislative rule. The House voted Tuesday to amend the rule to ensure that lawmakers who are absent for a vote can vote against a bill the next day, but may not register a new minority report with new amendments or versions of the bill. Democrats on Tuesday stressed that the supplemental budget is aimed only at addressing emergencies and said they planned to revisit some of the things it did not include, such as the cost-of-living increases and the General Assistance proposal, when they debate the 2026 and 2027 biennial budget. They said that if the budget doesn't take effect immediately, it could have dire consequences. Mills also weighed in, saying in a written statement that Republicans reneged on a deal approved by members of both parties who were present for a committee vote last week. "If they continue their opposition and do not support enactment of the supplemental budget, Republicans will force the Maine Department of Health and Human Services into the extraordinary position of having to cap payments to health care providers," the governor said in a statement. "I want to be clear: there is absolutely no need to obstruct a two-thirds passage of this bill. It will only hurt Maine people. The Maine Department of Health and Human Services on Monday issued a notice saying the MaineCare funds included in the budget proposal will be used to leverage additional federal funds, for a total of $414 million — money that will not be available immediately if the budget is not passed as an emergency. That means the department would need to withhold certain MaineCare payments from providers starting in March in order to ensure that at least a percentage of claims are paid until the department receives sufficient funding. "The Governor and the department are continuing to strongly urge all members of the Legislature to support the supplemental budget request so that the capping of payments is not needed," the notice read. This story will be updated. Copy the Story Link
