News in Portland

Geometry a hurdle for Portland hotel proposal

PORTLAND — Developers of a proposed 131-room hotel on the western edge of the Old Port are grappling with how to fit a square peg into a round hole. Or, rather, a parallelogram. In October, real estate company J.B. Brown & Sons announced plans to construct a six-story stru...

William Hall • News •

Monday, December 17, 2012 at 3:40 pm

Editor's Notebook: '... Don't worry, it'll change'

"If you're in a bad situation," someone once said, "don't worry, it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry, it'll change." That sense of constant change sums up the past year at The Forecaster, where we've welcomed several new staffers – William Hall, Will Graff, Maren...

Mo Mehlsak • Opinion •

Monday, December 17, 2012 at 12:10 pm

Out & About: ‘Phyzgig,' ‘Beauty and the Beast’ top choices

As the Christmas-New Year holiday period approaches, most performing artists do what everyone else does: Head home and take a break with the family. There’s a marked slowdown in the performing arts between Christmas and late January. So “Out & About” takes its annual ...

Scott Andrews • Lifestyle •

Monday, December 17, 2012 at 11:30 am

Unsung Hero: Nancy Marshall of Cape Elizabeth, giving lasting gifts

CAPE ELIZABETH — Shortly after Nancy Marshall was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer in 1997, her oncologist told her, “There will come a time when you will serve as an example to other people who are struggling with cancer.” His words proved most prophetic. But fi...

David Treadwell • News •

Monday, December 17, 2012 at 10:40 am

The Universal Notebook: Have yourself a cool Christmas

The Christmas gifts of my childhood in the 1950s are lost memories, but I vividly recall the Christmas gifts of my adolescence in the early 1960s because they were invariably the things every teen and pre-teen needed to be cool. Just how coolness managed to be communicated to the youth of ...

Edgar Allen Beem • Opinion •

Monday, December 17, 2012 at 10:10 am

Superintendent's Notebook: Portland High School students make a difference

Ten students from Portland High School’s Key Club spent a recent afternoon at the Good Shepherd Food Bank. They filled boxes with granola, soup, soy milk and other items to stock the high school’s new food pantry. The first of its kind in Maine, the pantry serves students who o...

Emmanuel Caulk • Opinion •

Monday, December 17, 2012 at 10:00 am

Speakers at Portland vigil call for gun control

About 100 people gathered at Monument Square in Portland on Sunday eventing for a candlelight vigil in memory of the victims of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting, and to call for tighter gun-control laws.

Seth Koenig, Bangor Daily News • News •

Monday, December 17, 2012 at 8:30 am

White House cancels Obama visit to Portland

PORTLAND — Just hours after announcing Friday that President Obama would visit Portland this week, White House officials called off those plans in the wake of the shootings in Newtown, Conn. Obama was to speak at the University of Southern Maine on Wednesday about the so-called "fisc...

• News •

Friday, December 14, 2012 at 1:50 pm

Portland honoree has dedicated life to helping the homeless

PORTLAND — To a young Josh O’Brien, they were “uncles and aunts.” To many others who passed by them on the street, they were drunks and vagrants. O’Brien, now 41 and the director of the Oxford Street Shelter, first experienced shelter life as a young boy taggi...

Seth Koenig, Bangor Daily News • News •

Friday, December 14, 2012 at 11:20 am

Topsham elementary school nominated for national award

TOPSHAM — Williams-Cone Elementary School is one of three Maine schools nominated as a 2013 National Blue Ribbon School. The Maine Department of Education announced the nominees – which also include Longfellow Elementary School in Portland and Yarmouth Elementary School &n...

Alex Lear • News •

Wednesday, December 12, 2012 at 12:30 pm