Near the end of December, Pliable Marketing, a Maine-based marketing company that burst onto the NIL scene throughout 2024 with a focus on athlete branding, expanded its growing list of clients.

University of Maine at Augusta freshman Emma Boulanger joined more than 30 other athletes at the high school, college and professional levels under the Pliable Marketing umbrella from all across the United States.

They wasted no time in helping her secure a name, image and likeness deal, as she now has a partnership with Aroma Joe’s, a local coffee shop. They have two locations in the Maine capital and she is the ninth person who has become an ambassador for the business.

“As a college athlete, I am excited about the opportunity to pursue name, image and likeness opportunities. I see this partnership with Aroma Joe’s as a way to spread positivity to others, including promoting women’s sports to inspire the next generation of young girls. Aroma Joe’s and Pliable have created some amazing opportunities for high school and college athletes so I am really excited to be part of more events in the Augusta community and beyond,” said Boulanger.

A two-sport athlete, Boulanger is currently playing forward for the women’s basketball team, where she has played in 16 games and is averaging 4.4 rebounds. During her senior year at Sacopee Valley High School, she was named the Western Maine All-Conference First team and invited to the Maine McDonald’s All-Star game.

A three-sport athlete in high school, she played soccer and softball in addition to her work on the hardwood. At Augusta, she will be playing softball in the spring.

“Emma is one of the hardest working athletes I have met. She typically starts her day working the morning shift at 4 a.m. and then goes to class, has practice or a game and maintains really good grades. As a two-sport athlete, she has really good time management skills. When you factor in Emma’s personality and her passion for Aroma Joe’s, this was a perfect name, image and likeness partnership for her. I know she really wants to use her platform as an athlete to give back to her community and support the next generation of high school and college athletes in Maine and beyond. Emma is a great role model and is going to inspire a lot of other athletes with this NIL partnership,” said Greg Glynn, founder & CEO of Pliable.

As part of the deal with Aroma Joe’s, Boulanger will receive compensation for her name, image and likeness by appearing in social media posts and making promotional appearances for the business.

She will be promoting events in August, Kennebec County and other places around New England. Boulanger is featured in a commercial that will appear during telecasts of the basketball games on Munzing Media as well.

“We are very excited to work with Emma since she goes to college so close to the two Aroma Joe’s locations in Augusta. This partnership is unique because she is the first community ambassador who already works at Aroma Joe’s and her college is located in the same city where Aroma Joe’s has two locations. This will make it easy for her to be involved in community events and help spread positivity in the Kennebec Valley area and beyond. We know Emma is going to be a great role model for kids to look up to, and to showcase how athletes can give back to their communities,” said Crystal Brown, Community Marketing Manager for Aroma Joe’s Development ME/NH.

Calls started coming into Maine Family Planning clinics on November 5, and they haven’t stopped. In the wake of Trump’s re-election, Mainers across the state have been making appointments to get IUDs and implants, forms of long-lasting birth control, out of concern that the new administration could limit access to contraceptives.

“It’s been non-stop,” says Shasta Newenheim, regional manager for Maine Family Planning, a nonprofit with eighteen clinics across the state. “We’re seeing a lot of people who are choosing to either get (implants and IUDs) replaced early. Or, if it was something they thought they wanted in the past, they definitely want it now.” 

Maine Family Planning is not the only organization fielding an influx of calls. Providers that have reported increased contraception requests include Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, the Mabel Wadsworth Center, York Hospital and MaineHealth Obstetrics and Gynecology in Biddeford.

Among the providers that responded to questions from The Maine Monitor, only Northern Light Health reported no change in contraception requests. But an obstetrics and gynecology provider affiliated with Northern Light Health, who requested anonymity to protect her job, took issue with this characterization and told The Monitor that she has seen requests for long-acting reversible contraception and sterilization increase dramatically since the election. 

To Aspen Ruhlin, who works at the nonprofit Mabel Wadsworth Center in Bangor, the impetus behind the increase is clear: “If you’re on the pill, there’s always the risk that you run out and can’t get more. But if you have something in your uterus or arm that lasts for years, it’s a lot harder to lose access to that.” 

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, which operates in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, saw its average weekly requests for long-acting reversible contraceptives more than double after the election, according to a November 21 press release. At the organization’s Maine health centers, appointments grew from a weekly average of 26 appointments to 48 in the week after the election. 

“Our patients are scared,” Nicole Clegg, interim-CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, said in an interview eight days after the election. “We’ve already experienced a spike in patients seeking long-acting reversible contraception and emergency contraception.” 

“We saw this last time too,” she said. 

Maine Family Planning also saw an influx of patient requests following Trump’s 2016 election and after the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade — in line with national trends.

A 2024 study published in the journal Jama Network Open that analyzed a national data set of medical and prescription claims found downward trends in most contraception services since 2019, but found sharp, temporary increases in all contraception services after the 2022 decision. 

“We are in a place that we’ve already been before; we know what we’re up against,” Newenheim said. “This is just another signal that there’s a real movement to take away (reproductive) rights. There’s always the question of, where is it going to end? Our patients feel that too.”

Newenheim said many patients are motivated by a fear that the Trump administration could bring changes that influence insurance coverage of birth control. 

During his first term, Trump expanded the types of employers that could deny contraception coverage on moral or religious grounds, weakening the federal contraceptive coverage guarantee in the Affordable Care Act, which mandates that most private insurance plans in the U.S. cover contraception without out-of-pocket costs for patients. 

Maine is one of 31 states that require private insurers to cover contraception, and one of eighteen states that prohibit cost-sharing, according to data compiled by KFF. MaineCare’s Limited Family Planning Benefit covers contraception — including pills, IUDs, and implants — for individuals at or below an annual income of $31,476.

Trump’s administration also enacted policies that stripped funding from reproductive rights organizations that provide contraception and abortion care, including a “gag rule” that prevented clinics receiving Title X funding from referring patients to an abortion provider. 

Clegg, of Planned Parenthood, said it’s unclear what will happen to federal funding after Trump takes office on Jan. 20, noting that “the crystal ball is cloudy.” But many Mainers are not waiting to find out. 

In addition to requests for IUDs and implants, Dr. Ashley Jennings, a gynecologist at York Hospital, cited increased requests for tubal ligations.

Planned Parenthood and Mabel Wadsworth Center described increased requests for vasectomies, and Planned Parenthood and Maine Family Planning described a jump in requests for gender-affirming care.

Mabel Wadsworth Center has seen a number of current patients seek gender-affirming surgery sooner than they’d originally planned.

“I have spoken to patients currently receiving gender-affirming health care who are in tears because they fear it’s going to be taken away,” said Newenheim. “This isn’t birth control. This is their day-to-day; this is their identity.”

Despite widespread concern, providers expressed their commitment to patient care.

“We refuse to be fearful,” says Newenheim. “We are dedicated to the mission of not giving up and ensuring these basic human rights are extended to our patients.”

Bobcats are common in all parts of Maine except for the most northwestern corner where there normally is deep snow and colder temperatures, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

They are versatile, which means they live in multiple types of habitats including woods, farms and close to urban and suburban areas, resulting in an increase of complaints about them. They eat rodents, making the cats important to Maine’s wildlife ecosystem, according to MDIFW.

Other foods are snowshoe hare, grouse, woodchucks, beavers, deer and turkeys. Predators looking for them include people and fishers. Predators such as eagles, great horned owls, coyotes, foxes and bears can cause injuries that may become fatal, according to the state.

They resemble the endangered lynx, but are smaller, have a longer tail and shorter ear tufts. Their feet are half the size of a lynx, making it harder for them to navigate deep snow.

Bobcats have several types of vocalizations, including a mating scream that sounds like a woman screaming, a cry that sounds like a baby crying, They also hiss, snarl, growl, yowl and meow like domestic cats.

You can hear one of those vocalizations in this incredible video shared by BDN contributor Colin Chase.

Bobcats usually mate from late February to late March and produce from one to five kittens in May. The babies stay with the mother for about 8 months but can stay up to a year old. The state has documented some interbreeding between bobcats and lynx and bobcat and domestic cats, according to MDIFW.

They like to hunt at dusk and dawn and seeing one in person is rare.