Northeast
HHS expands Title IX probe in Maine to include state association governing athletics, embattled high school
FIRST ON FOX: The Trump administration expanded its Title IX investigation into Maine, citing violations of the president’s executive order mandating that educational and athletic institutions bar biological males from competing in women’s sports.
The Maine Principals Association, the state’s primary governing body for high school athletics, and Greely High School, which has been a centerpiece in the debate over transgender sports participation in Maine, are both now being added to the list of Maine entities the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department is investigating over alleged Title IX violations, according to an HHS spokesperson. The department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) launched an investigation into the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) last month, “based on information that Maine intends to defy” President Donald Trump’s order to keep biological males out of women’s sports. Four days later, the agency issued MDOE a “Notice of Violation.”
“HHS will investigate and enforce Title IX to the full extent permitted by law to uphold fairness, safety, dignity, and biological truth in women’s and girls’ educational athletic opportunities,” Andrew Nixon, a department spokesperson, told Fox News Digital. “Men have no place in women’s sports. Maine must comply with Title IX or risk losing federal funding.”
MAINE GOP URGES DEMS TO REPEAL TRANSGENDER ATHLETE POLICY FOLLOWING FEDERAL TITLE IX VIOLATION FINDING
High school transgender athletes compete in the Connecticut girls Class S indoor track meet at Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Connecticut. The Trump administration is expanding its Title IX probe. ((AP Photo/Pat Eaton-Robb, File))
Republican state legislators in Maine called on Democratic Gov. Janet Mills on Thursday to stand down her open defiance of Trump’s Feb. 5 transgender sports executive order, which threatens hundreds of millions in federal funding to K-12 schools in the state, according to numbers obtained by the Portland Press Herald. MDOE received nearly a million dollars from HHS sub-agencies alone, Maine House Republicans said in a press release Thursday.
“Enough is enough, it is time to put away radical ideology and put the future of our kids first,” said Assistant House Minority Leader Katrina Smith, R–Palermo. “The Mills administration’s policy of allowing biological boys in girls’ sports has physically and mentally mistreated our young ladies and now this same policy will harm every child and teacher with the loss of federal funds to our schools.”
“If Maine Democrats continue to double down on allowing biological males to participate in girls’ sports, our students stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding. Gov. [Janet] Mills and legislative Democrats have a renewed opportunity to do the right thing, to ensure restored funding and a fair and level playing field for Maine girls,” added state Rep. Laurel Libby, R–Bangor, Thursday.
Last month, Libby was censured by Democrats in the Maine state legislature after posting on social media that a Greely High School pole vaulter, who competed as recently as June of last year as a biological male, won a statewide championship meet competing as a woman.
MAINE HOUSE SPEAKER DELETES X ACCOUNT AFTER CENSURING LAWMAKER OPPOSED TO TRANSGENDER ATHLETES IN GIRLS SPORTS
Libby was censured specifically for posting a picture of the high school athlete from Greely competing as a male, contrasted next to an image of the athlete winning the women’s pole-vaulting competition at Maine’s Class B state indoor championship meet in February. The athlete was a minor.
Maine state Reps. Laurel Libby, R–Bangor, left, and Katrina Smith, R–Palermo, right, pleaded with Gov. Janet Mills to change her stance on transgender sports participation, fearing it will result in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding. (Maine State Legislature/Fox News)
“State leaders have failed our female athletes and there needs to be repercussions for their neglect,” said Zoe, who competed in shot put at Maine’s Class B state indoor championship meet, told Fox News Digital.
Trump began calling out Maine for defying his executive order shortly after Libby began sounding the alarm about the transgender athlete at Greely High School winning a statewide girls’ track meet. During a public spat with Mills at the White House, Trump threatened the state’s funding unless they “clean that up,” to which Mills responded that she would “see [him] in court.”
HIDING KIDS ‘GENDER IDENTITY’ FROM PARENTS IS COMMON IN BLUE STATE FIGHTING TRUMP ON TRANS ISSUES: WATCHDOG
Sarah Perry, a civil rights attorney with extensive experience litigating Title IX issues, said she believes Maine would be unsuccessful in court on this matter for a variety of reasons.
In addition to federal law, Maine is also flouting directives from the Department of Education and previously established precedent from a slew of cases that overturned former President Joe Biden’s Title IX regulations allowing athletic eligibility to be determined by one’s preferred gender identity, according to Perry.
“Maine entered into a contract with the Department of Education, promising to follow that federal civil rights law. [Mills’] reliance on contrary state law will prove fatal to any continued recalcitrance,” Perry said.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills and President Donald Trump at the White House during a meeting with the nation’s governors last month. (Getty Images)
Mills and the Maine Principals Association (MPA) have argued that Trump’s executive order conflicts with existing state Human Rights law. The MPA said that, as a result, it would defer to state law, which allows athletic eligibility to be determined based on a person’s stated gender identity.
I’M A 3-SPORT HIGH SCHOOL FEMALE ATHLETE IN MAINE – I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO COMPETE AGAINST BIOLOGICAL MALES
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey confirmed to The New York Times on Thursday that his office received a “Notice of Violation” indicating MDOE was in violation of federal Title IX law as a result of its continued decision to allow athletic eligibility to be determined by gender-identity.
The letter arrived four days after HHS announced its Title IX investigation into MDOE on Feb. 21. Mills’ office told local outlet the Bangor Daily News that her staff had not been questioned by federal investigators prior to the violation notice being sent out.
“No President – Republican or Democrat – can withhold federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will,” Mills said in a statement. “It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws, which I took an oath to uphold.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Maine Principals Association and Greely High School’s principal and assistant principals for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.
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Pennsylvania
10-year-old stabbed Dollar Tree employee during robbery in Pennsylvania, police say
Generic police lights (FOX 9)
A 10-year-old boy who allegedly robbed a Dollar Tree store in Pennsylvania is also accused of stabbing multiple times one of the employees trying to detain him.
Big picture view:
The Swatara Township Police Department reported that its officers were called around 5 p.m. on Monday to the discount store in Harrisburg where they found the boy being held by store employees.
Timeline:
After speaking with witnesses, officers determined that the grade-school-age child went into the store holding a fixed-blade knife, threatened an employee, and told her to give him all the money.
Customs officers use Heimlich maneuver to save choking toddler
The employee’s co-workers jumped in to help her. As they struggled to subdue the boy, he stabbed one of them multiple times, the police department reported. Its statement did not indicate how badly that employee was injured, only saying that medical treatment was needed.
Dig deeper:
The suspect was taken by officers to a detention facility where he was booked on counts of robbery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and possessing an instrument of a crime.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from Swatara Township Police Department. This story was reported from Orlando.
Rhode Island
Three generations killed during driving lesson after car plunges into river
Three generations of a family, including a two-year-old girl, have been killed during a driving lesson after their car plunged into a Rhode Island river.
Police received a report that a car had driven into the Seekonk River in Pawtucket on Sunday evening at the small boat-launching area, The Boston Globe reported.
After hours of searching for the submerged car, authorities pulled it out of the water Monday afternoon. The 45-year-old woman, a 22-year-old woman and the two-year-old girl inside the car were found dead.
Pawtucket resident Josue Gomez told The Globe it was his wife, Floridalma Arceno, their daughter, Linora Sucely Gomez, and their granddaughter, Ana Sofia Garcia Gomez, who were killed in the accident.
Gomez said Arceno was teaching their daughter how to drive with their granddaughter in the car when his wife called him in a panic and said, “‘It won’t brake, it won’t brake.’’

“It was the last thing she said to me,” he said.
Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves told reporters that a “Good Samaritan riding a jet ski in the vicinity heard the car enter the water and attempted to help,” The Providence Journal reported.
“While this was occurring, another individual called 911, and first responders were on scene within 3 minutes,” Goncalves said.
Gomez said he hurried to the boat ramp Sunday evening, but the car was already submerged.
Police tried to find the car, but suspended the search around 1 a.m. Monday due to poor conditions, according to reports.
The search resumed Monday morning, and by around 2:30 p.m. ET, a tow truck pulled the car out of the water.
“They were good people,” Gomez told The Globe.

The Independent has reached out to the Pawtucket Police Department and the Rhode Island Office of the State Medical Examiners for comment.
Authorities called it a “tragic accident,” and said there were no indications of foul play, according to reports.
“Preliminary findings suggest the vehicle was in proper working order,” Pawtucket Detective Sergeant Paul Trout said in an email to The Globe.
Pawtucket Mayor Donald R. Grebien called the incident a “heartbreaking tragedy” in a statement shared with the media.
“Our community mourns alongside them, and we want them to know they are not alone during this unimaginable time,” Grebien said.
Vermont
She moved from Paris to Vermont and found her ‘dream job’ opening a bakery – The Boston Globe
BURLINGTON, Vt. — Shelley MacDonald and her husband, both Canadian citizens, had been living in Paris for over a decade when the pandemic hit. She’d been selling baked goods and hosting a dinner club called Paris Bread in their apartment. She wanted to open a business in the United States, where she could operate in English. It was time to leave, except that, at the moment, only American passport holders could fly into the United States.
With ingenuity and grit, the couple discovered a visa for foreign entrepreneurs and secured one from the American Embassy the day it reopened after lockdown. Once their passports were stamped, they had 30 days to fly out and move everything they owned to this picturesque college town.
Since 2022, MacDonald has run Belleville Bakery & Catering near City Hall in Burlington, Vt., down the street from the University of Vermont. She’s training staff, including students, and offering confections you might see in a Parisian patisserie, most not as fancy. She has different varieties of all-butter croissants, cinnamon snails and feta-garlic snails made with croissant trimmings, tempting lunch items such as bacon cheddar quiche and tuna sandwiches with smoked Gouda on homemade onions buns, and dinners such as lasagna, rigatoni, and chicken pot pie to take home.
“I think the town is adorable with kind people who help you when you don’t need to be helped,” says MacDonald, sitting in the bright bakery. “There’s something very special about Vermont.”
She and her husband — the hyperrealist painter André Beaulieu — picked Burlington because they had visited often when they lived in his hometown, Montreal. “The real reason is so that I could open a business in English,” she told her 48,000 Instagram followers, “so that I could function in my native language, for all of the reading and writing and dealing with lawyers and accountants and plumbers that you need to do when you own a business.”
MacDonald describes their new situation as “the best of both possible worlds, where I get to live in English in a really cute space, and he gets to live with me in English in a really cute space and he’s really close to home.” She describes her business as her “dream job.”
The 100-year-old building whose storefront she renovated is large and airy, with bakers in the kitchen in full view making croissant and brioche doughs, prepping cookie batters and galette pastry.

MacDonald moves quickly, laughs easily, and greets customers warmly. “People come into a bakery looking for a treat and some kind of care,” she says. When you’ve finished eating, you don’t have to take your plates and cups to various bins for recycle and trash. That system horrifies her. “No bussing,” she says. “We take care of you.”
Her clientele skews older, she has noticed, and they’re looking for somewhere to go. “The demand is enormous,” she says. She describes her personality as “Shelley takes care of people.” Remembering her days running an underground restaurant, MacDonald now offers twice-monthly Sunday brunches and dinners, both served at a long table farmhouse-style so everyone talks to their neighbors.
MacDonald, who is willing to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, also has a successful mail-order arm to send cookies across the country. They’re thick and perfectly round in flavors such as orange gingersnap, pistachio chocolate, and lemon pistachio shortbread.
She also gives classes in the bakery and writes a weekly newsletter, which she snail-mails for free. “People are lonely,” she says. They want to receive real mail.

Born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, MacDonald, 59, also lived in Vancouver. She met Beaulieu in Montreal. His large, striking artworks hang in the bakery.
In order to get a US E-2 Investor Visa, they had to invest $15,000 in a new US company (some applicants invest considerably more) and have secured premises in the destination city. Sight-unseen, they rented a painting studio in The Soda Plant in Burlington for Beaulieu, which qualified them.
The bakery’s name is the English version of Beaulieu’s surname. Beaulieu means “beautiful place,” she says. Belleville, which means “beautiful city,” is easier for Americans to spell.
Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, who happened to be there when I was — she said she stops by often since her office is so close — describes the bakery as “loveliness in this corner. [MacDonald] draws people into this community.”

The bakery has become known for its I am Proud of Me Banana Cake. It’s really banana bread, but when MacDonald made it in France, customers wondered why it was called bread.
When you buy one, MacDonald asks you what you’re proud of. She’s heard many comments, mostly emotional. One woman in her 20s was going to drive on the highway for the first time, someone else was excited to have completed exams. Then a man came in to say he was proud of his wife for finishing chemo.
“She’d been planning this cake during her treatment,” MacDonald told a local TV reporter who did a segment on her. Donations started coming in so other cancer patients at the local hospital could get a banana cake; MacDonald also sends cakes to a palliative care center and a teen drop-in center.
Those efforts came to the attention of a program director at the University of Vermont, who called MacDonald in the middle of Vermont’s dark, cold February winter. The administrator was running a mental health day for freshmen. She bought 100 banana cakes from MacDonald and asked her to come and hand them out.
The line was an hour long. Students waited patiently, not just to get an I am Proud of Me Banana Cake, but also for a moment to tell MacDonald what was on their mind.
Belleville Bakery & Catering, 217 College St., Burlington, Vt., www.bellevillevt.com
Sheryl Julian can be reached at sheryl.julian@globe.com.
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