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Beloved Maine restaurant engulfed by fire will do ‘whatever it takes’ to reopen

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Beloved Maine restaurant engulfed by fire will do ‘whatever it takes’ to reopen


A mainstay on Ogunquit, Maine’s Marginal Way since 1963, the Oarweed Restaurant says it will do “whatever it takes” to reopen for the 2025 season after a blaze destroyed much of the building Saturday night.

“Even though there is devastation and sadness, there is hope… rainbows, rum punches, stuffed potatoes, and more hope, for 2025 opening day!” the restaurant posted on Facebook Sunday.

Firefighters were called to Perkins Cove, a historic fishing cove and top tourist destination, at 7:17 p.m. Saturday for a reported structure fire on Perkins Cove Road, according to Seacoastonline.

When they arrived, they discovered heavy fire in Uniques and Antiques, the business that abuts the Oarweed, and the restaurant.

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Amid freezing temperatures, a second alarm fire was declared and several surrounding fire departments in southern Maine responded.

Uniques and Antiques, known for its sale of Christmas heirlooms, posted on Facebook Saturday night: “This is a heartbreaking shock and we appreciate everyone who has reached out. We ask for continued prayers for all, including our neighbors at Oarweed Restaurant and our other friends in the Cove. Thank you to first responders. We will update more when we can.”

The Oarweed, a classic Maine seafood restaurant that first opened in the summer of 1963, was closed for the season when the fire struck.

In a hopeful Facebook post Sunday, just a mere hours after the blaze was put out, the restaurant said employees will be “working hard” for the 2025 season. They cited cubing potatoes for chowder, prepping the “blueberry splash” and loading up the bar, despite the devastation caused by the fire.

“Everyone is safe and ready to do whatever it takes to make our beloved Oarweed ready to go on!” the Oarweed wrote. “Thank you to all for your support and love.”

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In March, Real Simple magazine named the town of Ogunquit the No. 1 vacation destination of 2024.



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Maine

No spike in immigration arrests in Maine yet, but Trump's national crackdown sparks widespread fear

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No spike in immigration arrests in Maine yet, but Trump's national crackdown sparks widespread fear


President Trump’s swift and drastic immigration restrictions — including of longstanding legal pathways — are causing fear and confusion in immigrant communities across the country, and Maine is no exception. A flurry of unverified social media reports of immigration enforcement has also added to that climate of fear. Maine Public’s Nicole Ogrysko and Ari Snider broke down what immigration lawyers and local law enforcement officials are seeing on the ground in Maine.

Nicole Ogrysko: So Ari, we’ve seen a lot of news recently about immigration raids in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere. Are we seeing more immigration enforcement in Maine?

Ari Snider: In short, no. At least, that’s what I’m hearing from immigration attorneys in Maine. I spoke with Anna Welch, she’s the director of the refugee and human rights clinic at the University of Maine School of Law. Here’s what she had to say:

“We have not seen an increase in terms of large numbers of arrests,” Welch said. “I don’t even know if there’s been any substantial difference from when Biden was in office until now.”

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But Welch was quick to say that just because we haven’t seen an increase in arrests yet, that doesn’t mean we won’t see an increase at some point.

Of course, the agency best positioned to answer this question would be Immigration and Customs and Enforcement, or ICE. I’ve reached out to the ICE office in Scarborough multiple times, and they have always referred me to a media email address that I have yet to hear back from.

So when it comes to people like Massachusetts teenager Zeneyda Barrera being held in ICE custody at the Cumberland County Jail, what’s going on there?

It is also not out of the ordinary to see people in federal immigration custody being held at the jail. Sheriff Kevin Joyce told me that’s been happening since the jail was built in 1992. The question is – are we seeing an increase? Sheriff Joyce said as of Thursday, the jail was holding 58 people in ICE custody, five more than they were holding the day before Trump was sworn in.

Joyce said the numbers have ticked up more noticeably since December, but of course Joe Biden was still president at that point.

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Also, some of those being held at the jail for ICE were not arrested in Maine – including the teenager from Massachusetts you mentioned earlier. Joyce said that’s also not out of the ordinary. But he said he told ICE that there’s limited capacity at the jail for people in federal custody.

“You know, if you do a major roundup, you better check and see if we have beds,” Joyce said. “Because I’m not opening another pod just to, you know, take care of that, because I have to look out for my staff as well.”

So, for now, it seems we have not seen a spike in ICE arrests in Maine. But there’s still a lot of fear in immigrant communities, right?

Absolutely. Anna Welch, at Maine Law, said the Trump Administration’s “shock and awe” approach to immigration policy nationally has left many people in Maine very fearful, to the point where some are afraid to send their children to school. And she says that’s intentional.

“That’s the goal right of of this administration,” she said. “To create fear among our immigrant communities. And I think it’s understandable that folks are very fearful.”

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At the same time, social media has been flooded with unverified or unconfirmed reports of ICE activity around Maine since Trump took office. I followed up on a few of these reports recently that ICE was at schools or community colleges, and, in each case, there was nothing there. Welch said those unverified reports actually add to the panic.

“And so before spreading some of those that that information, make sure that you know the source of it, and you have the accurate information, because it’s causing a lot of harm currently to our community,” Welch said.

So, to summarize, from what we’re seeing so far there has not been a noticeable increase in immigration arrests in Maine since Trump took office. But of course, immigration policy is changing really quickly, and it’s only the second week of the Trump administration. We will continue to keep a close eye on all of this.





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Missing Maine woman found safe

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Missing Maine woman found safe


A missing Phippsburg woman has been found safe.

Sharon Brown, 77, was reported missing Wednesday evening when she didn’t return home and didn’t contact family, according to Shannon Moss, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

Moss said late Wednesday night that Brown was found safe.



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​​Maine students score lowest in three decades on nation’s report card

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​​Maine students score lowest in three decades on nation’s report card


Maine students in 2024 had the lowest test scores in three decades in both reading and math, according to data from the nation’s report card

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, pronounced nape), which is administered by the U.S. Department of Education, released national and state-by-state results Wednesday.

The test is administered every two years to a representative sample of fourth and eighth graders, and reading and math scores are reported on a scale of 0-500.

The most recent test results paint a grim picture of academic performance for Maine students. In three of four testing categories, Maine students had the lowest average scores since 1992, when NAEP results were first reported. In 2022, Maine was the only state to have record lows in all four testing categories, and according to 2024 data, scores have only gotten worse.

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Fourth grade students had the lowest average reading score since 1992, and the lowest score in math since 1996. Eighth grade students had the lowest scores ever in both reading and math.

That also means 10 percent fewer students statewide tested at or above grade level in both math and reading compared to pre-pandemic NAEP scores.

“The fact that scores have been declining for a while is a concern,” said Amy Johnson, co-director of the Maine Policy Education Research Institute. “This is not just a one-time blip. National scores have also been declining, but Maine averages have fallen faster and are now below the national average in several areas. Fourth grade scores are particularly bleak.”

As Johnson said, low scores seem to be a nationwide trend. Students are still underperforming in all grade levels compared to pre-pandemic scores.

All students who took the NAEP tests last year had their education disrupted to some degree by the COVID-19 pandemic. The fourth graders were in kindergarten when schools shut down, and the eighth graders were in fourth grade.

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Maine scores saw large declines in 2022, and in 2024, those declines either held steady or got worse, making it one of 14 states where students are performing significantly below the national average.

NAEP scores test a representative sample of students from across the state, which in Maine amounted to approximately 1,700 students in 2022, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

How to interpret NAEP results

One reason for the consistently declining scores might be that Maine’s standards are drifting away from what’s being tested on NAEP, and so part of what is being captured is a difference in what Maine thinks is important compared to the NAEP test content, Johnson said.

In a recent meeting of the Maine Legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee, members questioned the Maine Department of Education on its minimum standards. School districts can go beyond what the state requires, but since Maine prioritizes local control, the state does not keep track of local education requirements.

Looking at Maine’s state level test results, about two-thirds of Maine students (65 percent) were considered “at or above expectations” in reading, which paints a different picture than NAEP, Johnson said.

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NAEP offers a high-level snapshot of student performance, which can’t offer a school-level or even district-level perspective on performance. State assessments might be more relevant to educators in gauging performance, but Maine’s state assessment results are not broken down by grade level and assessments have changed every few years, making it difficult to track long-term learning trends.

Results by grade and subject level:

Fourth grade math

In 2024, the average score among Maine fourth graders for math was 233, below the national average of 237. Last year, just a third of students tested at grade level (which according to NAEP is calculated as the percentage of students in the “at or above proficient” category), compared to the national average of 39 percent of students who tested at grade level.

In comparison, about 42 percent of fourth grade Mainers tested at grade level in math in 2019, the last recorded pre-pandemic test year.

Fourth grade reading

The average reading score for fourth graders nationwide was 214 on a scale of 0-500, and just 210 for Maine students.

That means only 26 percent of students were reading at grade level in the state, which is a significant drop since 2019, when 36 percent of students tested at or above grade level.

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Before 2019, Maine students consistently tested better than the national average in reading. consistently.

Eighth grade math

This was the only category where Maine students did not perform significantly worse than the national average. Maine’s eighth grade math score was 273 compared to the national average of 272.

About 25 percent of students performed at grade level in 2024, representing the only improvement in scores from 2022, when 24 percent of students were at grade level.

However, pre-pandemic, the state’s math scores were consistently higher than the national average by several points. For example, in 2000, Maine’s average score was 281, 10 points above the national average at the time.

Eighth grade reading

The average reading score for eighth graders nationwide last year was 257 on a scale of 0-500, and 255 for Maine students.

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That means only 26 percent of students in the state were reading at grade level, which is a significant drop since 2019, when 36 percent of students tested at or above grade level.

Every year until 2019, Maine students consistently tested above the national average in reading — a likely indication of pandemic-era learning loss.



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