Maine Currents | WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives

WERU News & Public Affairs Manager Amy Browne with the latest local news and mutual aid resources. The post WERU Coronavirus Updates 3/24/20 2:30pm first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives .

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Studio Engineer: Joel Mann This is the Elections 2020 edition of Maine Currents, so we start off with a discussion of how the coronavirus is impacting the campaigns and how it might affect the general election in November. We’ll also look at what Professor Amy Fried calls the “delegate math” following the Maine primaries. Later in the program station manager Matt Murphy p...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Studio Engineer: John Greenman Part 1: (Approx 6 minutes) “Reducing Jail Populations in Maine”, a workshop to be held in Bangor on 3/28/20. We talk with Doug Dunbar, one of the organizers. FMI: www.nopenobscotjailexpansion.com Part 2: Station Manager Matt Murphy and Studio Engineer join me, and we open the phone lines for a Super Tuesday call in- and start an...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Audio recorded by: Matt Murphy Production assistance: Zoe Sifnakis “Immigration Law in These Challenging Times”, a talk sponsored by the MDI Racial Equity Working Group, recorded at the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor on February 12th. The panelists were Anna Welch, Sam L Cohen Refugee and Human Rights Clinical Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, and...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Studio Engineer: John Greenman Our monthly discussion of Elections 2020 related issues. Today we also discuss the League of Women Voters – celebrating their 100th anniversary this year- with Ann Luther. Guests: Professor Amy Fried is the Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Maine. She also oversees the Maine Policy Scholar Program at UMa...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne On January 28th, the Penobscot County Commissioners (PCC) unanimously passed a resolution in support of refugee resettlement in the county. The vote comes at a time when there are no plans to resettle refugees in the area, and likely would have not taken place had State Rep Larry Lockman (R-Bradley) not raised the issue at the commission’s previous meeting- where he...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Studio Engineer: John Greenman Call in show discussion of the upcoming 2020 elections and the ongoing impeachment process. Some subject areas covered include: What are your thoughts about how the impeachment process is going to impact the 2020 elections? Should the 1st primaries be held in states more diverse than Iowa and NH? Primaries vs caucuses In which elections will...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Studio Engineer: John Greenman Production assistance: Meredith DeFrancesco, WERU-FM & Sunlight Media Collective Audio provided by: North American Megadam Resistance NOTE: The first audio file (below) is this program, and the second is a full, unedited recording of the Megadam Resistance tour speakers in Augusta in November 2019, used with their permission. If you com...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Audio recorded by Phelan Gallagher Award-winning author Terry Tempest Williams, speaking about, and reading from, her new collection, called “Erosion: Essays of Undoing”, on November 16th, 2019 at an event sponsored by Blue Hill Books, the Bay School, and WERU-FM. Catch the award-winning Maine Currents, independent local news, views and culture, on the 1st Thursday of eve...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Audio recorded by Matt Murphy and edited by Amy Browne Last weekend the Belfast Creative Coalition and Restorative Art Works (RAW) held the first of what they hope will become an annual, Arts in Action Conference at the University of Maine Hutchinson center in Belfast, Maine. The focus was “summoning the power of the arts to address our opioid epidemic”. Today on Maine Cu...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Audio recorded by John Greenman and edited by Amy Browne Storytelling fans and local history buffs are in for a treat today as we bring you some of the “Voices from Still Mill”, recorded on July 21st at the Alamo Theatre in Bucksport, Maine. The event was based on the book, STILL MILL, Poems, Stories & Songs of Making Paper in Bucksport, Maine 1930-2014 edited by Pat...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Note: Maine Currents will return to our regular time slot – the 1st Thursday of each month at 10, in September. PLEASE BE ADVISED: This program features women telling their stories of surviving domestic abuse. Some of the descriptions of abuse and violence are graphic. According to the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence, here in Maine a domestic violence assau...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Note: We were off the air on 8/1/19 when this originally was scheduled to air. Maine Currents will return to our regular time slot – the 1st Thursday of each month at 10, in September. PLEASE BE ADVISED: This program features women telling their stories of surviving domestic abuse. Some of the descriptions of abuse and violence are graphic. According to the Maine Co...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Studio Engineer: Joel Mann Guests Connie Jenkins, Meredith Bruskin, Dud Hendrik, Robert Shetterly and Russell Wray are members of an affinity group that has been engaging in what they call “civil resistance”, as well as using other strategies, to call attention to the impact of the war ships built at General Dynamic’s Bath Iron Works – including th...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Audio recorded by: Meredith DeFrancesco Last week a panel of Maine-based activists spoke in Belfast at an event called “Connecting Our Struggles: Corporations or Communities?” Panelists Nickie Sekera of Community Water Justice; Matt Wagner of No to NECEC; Ellie Daniels of Local Citizens for SMART Growth; and John Banks, Natural Resources Director for the Penob...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Listen as Representative Chloe Maxmin, sponsor of LD 1282 “An Act To Establish a Green New Deal for Maine”, presents the bill at a public hearing before the legislature’s Joint Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology last week, and members of the public testify, followed by updates from the subsequent work session and a comment from Maxmin on where...

An Americans Who Tell the Truth Event: Bree Newsome and Maulian Dana on the legacy of systemic racism in the US and what can be done to dismantle it Producer/Host: Amy Browne Audio Recorded by: Matt Murphy Bree Newsome, then 30 years old, became famous in June of 2015 when she climbed the flagpole outside the State House in Columbia, South Carolina and took down the Confederate Flag. Maulian Dana...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Studio Engineer: John Greenman Maine AllCare – Working to Bring Universal Healthcare to Maine A call-in show discussion of universal healthcare: how it works, how it’s paid for, and how it might be implemented, with Lynn Cheney (Board Member) and Phil Bailey (Executive Director) of Maine AllCare. FMI: maineallcare.org/ www.facebook.com/MaineAllCare/ Catch the...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne An Ambitious Plan to Address Homelessness in Maine Mainers may have a chance in November to vote on a bond issue that would authorize $15 million to build housing for homeless people in the state: LD 48, “An Act To Authorize a General Fund Bond Issue To Invest in Housing for Persons Who Are Homeless”. The plan is to expand a “Housing First” model that has proven suc...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Studio Engineer: John Greenman Ranked Choice Voting in Maine: Bruce Poliquin’s legal challenges to the process, and what would be involved in extending RCV to statewide races. A call-in show discussion of yesterday’s hearing on Poliquin et al’s case in the US Superior Court in Bangor, and where things could go from here. Guests: Ann Luther of the League of Wom...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Studio Engineer: Joel Mann Maine’s Ballot Question 1: Home Care for All or “Scam”? Ballot Question 1 reads “Do you want to create the Universal Home Care Program to provide home-based assistance to people with disabilities and senior citizens, regardless of income, funded by a new 3.8% tax on individuals and families with Maine wage and adjusted gross in...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne The Impact of Trump’s Economic Policies on Maine Garrett Martin, Executive Director of the Maine Center for Economic Policy (MECEP), speaking at the University of Maine on October 11th. More information about MECEP can be found at mecep.org The post Maine Currents Special 10/24/18 first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives .

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Studio Engineer: John Greenman Local journalist Lawrence Reichard joins us with a report back from his recent trip to the home of Nordic Aquafarms. He traveled to Norway and Denmark to learn more about the company that plans to build a giant land based salmon aquaculture facility in Belfast. We hear what he discovered, and take questions and comments from listeners. Reich...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne The Public Speaks at “Maine Speaks on Climate and Cars: The Citizens’ Hearing”, an NRCM event held in Bangor on August 28th, 2018 In August, the EPA announced plans to weaken fuel efficiency standards by freezing them at current levels– rather than following rules passed during the Obama administration that would make them tougher over time. The plan would also prev...

Producer/Host: Amy Browne Audio recorded by Matt Murphy Americans Who Tell the Truth presentation featuring Robert Shetterly, Kelsey Juliana and poets from George Stevens Academy Recorded in Blue Hill, Maine on June 3rd, 2018 by Matt Murphy FMI: www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/kelsey-juliana The post Maine Currents 8/2/18 first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Pu...