Maine regulators said they’ve found a way to prevent Maine from losing its sole 207 area code in the foreseeable future.

The Public Utilities Commission has approved a plan by Consolidated Communications to move 150 centers that designate local numbers into a statewide pool.

Those centers distribute telephone numbers by local area, but have a limited number of permutations.

Creating a bigger area will make those numbers available statewide, said Sarah Davis, Consolidated Vice President of Market Development.

Effectively, it unlocks a stockpile of unused 207 numbers from small rural areas that can be used in more populous parts of the state, Davis added.

“When the Commission needs new numbers to assign to the next customer, it can pull from anywhere. It can pull from Wytopitlock. It could pull from places in Aroostook County, which probably are not at full utilization,” she said.

Losing 207 as Maine’s only area code and totem of state identity has been a source of stress and concern for years. Back in 2020, it was feared Maine might exhaust its available numbers within four years.

The state forestalled that and extended the area code’s lifetime through 2033.

Consolidated’s plans is likely to add more time, said PUC Chair Phil Bartlett.

“We say, sort of indefinitely, it’s my guess is this will kick us out 20 plus years to get us into the 2050s,” he added.

Thanksgiving comes only once a year. But for the artists and engineers who create the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Thanksgiving is a year-round occupation and obsession.

The parade takes a small army of sculptors, painters, seamstresses, carpenters and welders to put together the giant balloons, floats and elaborate costumes.

The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade took place a century ago in 1924. But this year’s parade is actually the 98th edition, since the parade was canceled during World War II.

About 3.5 million spectators will line the streets of New York City to view the parade in person. Another 30 million will watch the parade live on TV. Macy’s won’t comment on how much it costs to produce the parade, saying only that it’s “a gift to the nation.” Still, some estimates put the price tag at around $13 million.

Long before the parade marches its way through Manhattan, prep work takes place in a massive warehouse in New Jersey known as the Macy’s Studio. NPR’s Morning Edition visited for a behind-the-scenes look at how the holiday tradition comes together. The warehouse is a bland brick building on the outside that explodes in color on the inside.

“It does sometimes feel like when I come to work that I’m going to an amusement park,” said Kathleen Wright, the director of production operations for Macy’s Studio.

Just inside the main entrance of the warehouse is a float decked out in brilliant shades of green, orange and purple. It features characters from Wednesday, the Addams Family spinoff series on Netflix. The float boasts giant sculptures of Wednesday Addams and her brother, Pugsley. They’re approximately three stories tall. The floats not only have to look good, they also have to be engineered to come apart so they can be transported to the parade site.

“These need to collapse down and make their way through the Lincoln Tunnel, up through the streets of Manhattan, and up to the starting line of the parade, where they are reassembled,” Wright said.

There are 26 floats this year, including one with a fire-breathing dragon. However, the floats aren’t the star of the Macy’s Thanksgiving show. The Macy’s parade is best known for its giant cartoon-character balloons. Seventeen of these balloons will float above the streets of Manhattan this year, including balloons depicting Spider-Man, Dora the Explorer and Minnie Mouse. Minnie, despite her name, is the tallest of the balloons, topping out at about six stories.

The first Macy’s balloon was Felix the Cat in 1927. In the parade’s early years, the balloons were released into the sky at the end of the parade. Anybody finding one could return it and receive a $50 gift certificate. The practice of releasing balloons ended in 1932.

It takes more than a half-million dollars’ worth of helium to keep all the balloons airborne.

Wright’s favorite parts of the parade preparations are the small details that very few people would notice.

“In the dark of night before Thanksgiving morning, we turn 2 1/2 miles of traffic lights flush to the sidewalk so that the balloons have a safe and clear path down to 34th Street from the starting line,” she said. “We cannot wait to show everyone on Thanksgiving morning what we’ve been working on.”

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Maine’s attorney general filed a lawsuit Tuesday against multiple large oil companies alleging negligence, nuisance, unfair trade practices, failure to warn and trespass as parens patriae. Included among the parties being sued are Exxon, Shell, Chevron, British Petroleum (BP), Sunoco and the American Petroleum Institute (API).

In the complaint submitted by the state, the attorney general emphasizes how large oil conglomerates, knowing the risks climate change posed to the public, fabricated a public-relations campaign to mislead consumers about the role of greenhouse gases and human action in climate change. The complaint cited internal memoranda and communications within companies like BP demonstrate awareness of the consequences of climate change. The complaint also included a video, in which an Exxon executive admitted limiting climate change policy for profit maximization.

Whilst these oil companies claimed concerns about climate change were “unnecessarily catastrophizing,” the complaint highlights that evidence demonstrates a linkage between the release of greenhouse gases to climate change and the host of environmental harms it has inflicted on Maine, such as acid rain, extreme weather events and rising sea levels.

The complaint maintains that the defendant companies breached their duty of care to Maine’s citizens. Maine argues their knowledge of climate change entailed the defendants could reasonably have foreseen climate change-related harms, including environmental and economic damages. Yet, the defendant parties continued their informational campaign, constituting common law negligence. The role the API played in spreading misrepresentations about the safety of climate change in tandem with the defendant oil companies is also the basis for the state’s claim against API for unfair trade practices and civil aiding and abetting under Maine’s fair trade practice statute, which subjects companies engaging in unfair trade practice to civil punishment.

The complaint also says that through releasing greenhouse gases, the defendants’ conduct also amounts to private and public nuisance. The companies arguably infringed on individual Maine residents’ reasonable enjoyment and safety in their private lives from the impact of climate change. The consequences of climate change would also require extensive public funds and potentially damage or limit the use of state-owned land.

Through their policy of climate change denialism and misinformation, the defendant was also accused of statutory failure to warn. Insofar as the defendant oil companies were aware of the danger posed to the public by their products, and still failed to warn the public in general, the state argues they ought to be liable to the extent of the costs suffered by the state in adjusting to climate change under Maine’s civil procedure law.

The state seeks injunctions against further damages to property and nuisance, punitive and retributive damages, disgorgement of defendant profits and for the court to find in favor of the state in their claims of trespass and deceptive trade practices.