Jules Walkup

It’s one of several Amazon facilities in Maine that are in the town approval process, including one in Waterville/Sidney, one in Hermon and one in Calais.

Many Maine schools already restricted phone use in classrooms, but the law will now prevent students from using their phones outside of classes and at lunchtime as well.

The current fire building was built in 1976 and isn’t up to modern standards. It lacks decontamination facilities for carcinogens, appropriate bathrooms and board for female firefighters, appropriate training facilities and the ability to store the department’s tower truck.

Several last-minute amendments were made to the budget. Notably, councilors approved extending parking enforcement to 7 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, and increased the hourly parking rate by 50 cents.

Several other Maine municipalities, including Westbrook and Bangor, have taken action themselves after Gov. Janet Mills vetoed a bill in April that would have temporarily banned the construction of data centers with a load of 20 megawatts or more across the state.

The Lewiston school budget will increase the tax rate by 3.37 percent, according to city documents. The Portland school budget will increase its portion of the municipal budget by 5.68 percent.

The State Fire Marshal’s Office announced on Sunday that Searsmont Assistant Fire Chief Wayne Woodbury, died due to his injuries. Another firefighter who was severely injured, Jacob Spaulding, was discharged from Maine Med at noon on Monday.

The Payment in Lieu of Taxes program was meant to provide relief to people who pay property taxes in Portland. City documents say if the $4 billion tax-exempt properties in the city were taxable, the city’s property tax rate would be nearly 20 percent lower.

City document refer to the one-mile section of Brighton Avenue between City Hospital Drive and Wayside Road as “high-injury” and “high-risk.” To improve the safety of this intersection, the city council accepted a $2.1 million grant from the Federal Highway Administration.

The trend is likely to continue — the forecast is predicting above average levels of precipitation for the next three to four weeks. In fact, if these rains do continue, Maine could come out of the drought sometime this summer.