Maine

Our favorite photos from across Maine in 2025

Published

5 months ago

December 25, 2025

Our favorite photos from across Maine in 2025

Over the past year, Bangor Daily News photographers and reporters took hundreds of photos that captured the myriad of people and places that defined Maine.

These highlights are just a small slice of the many lives and experiences the BDN documented in 2025.

January

Jody and Cherie Mackin, who were homeless for three years, got an apartment in January. After moving into their home, the Mackins started volunteering at the warming shelter at the Mansion Church to give back to the community that helped them find their way out of homelessness. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN

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February

Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, speaks on the floor of the Maine House of Representatives at the State House in Augusta on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Libby was a significant figure as Maine battled Trump administration directives to restrict transgender girls from participating on the school team that aligns with their gender, among other policies recognizing transgender people under state law. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN

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March

Caribou captain Madelynn Deprey celebrates toward the crowd after an emotional overtime win in the Class B state basketball championship game on March 1, 2025, at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland. Credit: Emilyn Smith / BDN

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U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Diane Dunn, the adjutant general of the Maine National Guard, answers a reporter’s questions in her office at the Maine National Guard headquarters at Camp Chamberlain in Augusta on March 31, 2025. She was one source that the BDN talked to in an investigation into the culture that allowed sexual assault and harassment in the organization to go unchecked. Credit: Sawyer Loftus / BDN

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April

Rebecca Nicolino Parsons and her service dog Otis are photographed on the footbridge in Bangor in April. The Maine Human Rights Commission ruled that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that unlawful discrimination occurred” at Hellas Condominiums by Old Town, Maine, against Rebecca Parsons. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN

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May

More than 300 cattle moved through Jeff Tilton’s auction barn in Corinth on May 10 for the annual spring sale, one of the only places Maine farmers can consistently buy and sell livestock. It takes roughly two weeks to line up trucking, buyers, sellers, vaccinations, ear tags and pens, plus sorting, separating and weighing the animals when they arrive. Credit: Elizabeth Walztoni / BDN

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June

A Sargent truck was the first to travel the new I-395/Route 9 connector following a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the grand opening. The new connector was a point of controversy, especially for residents of Brewer, Holden and Eddington who had their land affected by the construction of the new highway. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN

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July

The entrance to the Mic Mac Cove Family Campground in Union is sandwiched between a variety store and the public elementary school Sunshine Stewart attended as a child. Stewart’s killing in early July rocked the small town of Tenants Harbor. Credit: Elizabeth Walztoni / BDN

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University of Maine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy poses for a portrait on the University of Maine’s Mall in Orono, July 21, 2025. The university system faced a number of challenges over the past year due to funding cuts implemented by the Trump administration. Credit: Sawyer Loftus / BDN

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August

Kristina Ryberg, 62, and Donald Jewett, 71, can’t afford their Bucksport property taxes this year after a hike that local officials have mostly attributed to using up the stored funds that offset the closure of the town’s paper mill a decade ago. “We’re about to lose what we worked so hard for just because we lost the mill and haven’t adjusted to that,” Jewett told town councilors in August. Credit: Elizabeth Walztoni / BDN

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September

On March 16, 2024, a Maine state trooper repeatedly punched Justin Savage in the face while he lay restrained in the driveway of his Limerick home, leaving him almost unrecognizable. The beating, captured on video, depicts a use of force that policing experts say is rarely justified. The Maine State Police thought differently. Credit: Courtesy Garrick Hoffman

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Cooper Flagg signs sports cards for kids before the 2025 Maine Sports Hall of Fame at the Gracie Theater on Sunday. Flagg’s mother Kelly Bowman Flagg was one of the inductees for her time as a player and coach at Nokomis High School, where NBA rookie Cooper Flagg would start his soaring basketball career. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN

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October

Dorie Henning, a nurse practitioner at the Islesboro Health Center, has seen an increase in tick-borne diseases — and fears about them — in her 11 years working on the island. Islesboro had a higher rate of these illnesses than any other Maine town between 2018 and 2022, according to state data. Credit: Elizabeth Walztoni / BDN

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November

Bangor’s new councilors from left Susan Faloon, Daniel Carson and Angela Walker are sworn in to the City Council on Nov. 10 at City Hall. Walker, who has a criminal record, drew criticism from right-wing media after she won a seat in the crowded 2025 Bangor City Council election. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN

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December

Alex Emery moves his belongings out of the encampment near Penobscot Plaza in Bangor where he was living when a cleanup crew from the railroad company CSX arrived early on the morning of Dec. 22 with construction machinery to clean up tents, trash and other remnants of the encampment. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN

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Maine

Car catches fire on Maine Turnpike in Kennebunk

Published

6 hours ago

May 31, 2026

Press Room

Car catches fire on Maine Turnpike in Kennebunk

KENNEBUNK, Maine (WGME) — A car caught on fire on the Maine turnpike Saturday.

It happened in Kennebunk in the southbound lanes of the turnpike.

A car caught on fire on the Maine turnpike Saturday. (Courtesy of Kennebunk Fire Rescue)

You can see a large cloud of black smoke coming from the scene.

Nobody was hurt.

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Firefighters were able to extinguish the flames.

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Maine

In Maine governor’s race, connection is preferable to cronyism | Letter

Published

16 hours ago

May 31, 2026

Press Room

In Maine governor’s race, connection is preferable to cronyism | Letter

After Maine’s first Democratic gubernatorial debate, I commented that the candidates seemed to be vying with each other to be agreeable. Would it last? Back then, I thought I’d be happy with any of them as Maine’s next governor.

Not so now, as I observe the cronyism of Shenna Bellows, Troy Jackson and Hannah Pingree, whose plan to rank each other when they vote provides a blueprint for gaming the ranked-choice voting system in the primary. The political insiders are forming an alliance against the outsiders, Nirav Shah and Angus King III.

Shah’s campaign responded that it would stay focused on winning voters’ support, a more principled approach, in my estimation.

I prefer a governor who listens and learns from his constituents over one experienced at alliances and deal-making. I want integrity and leadership, not manipulation and exclusion.

I no longer believe that Bellows, Jackson or Pingree would make a good governor.

Moriah Freeman
Brunswick

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Maine

WSJ: Maine Senate candidate’s wife says she found explicit texts on his phone

Published

1 day ago

May 30, 2026

Press Room

WSJ: Maine Senate candidate’s wife says she found explicit texts on his phone

BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – A Wall Street Journal article reports that Amy Gertner, the wife of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, told campaign aides she found sexually explicit text messages on Platner’s phone after he launched his bid for office last year.

According to the report, Gertner disclosed the messages while aides were conducting opposition research, and she asked a campaign aide to review what Platner had sent—reportedly to several women—to determine whether it could become a liability for his campaign.

The Wall Street Journal reports Gertner believed she was confiding in someone she considered a friend.

The article also states the couple discussed the messages in marriage counseling.

In a statement from Gertner provided by the Platner campaign, she wrote that they have gone through counseling and that their marriage today “is stronger than ever before.”

Amy Gertner provided a statement through the Platner campaign.

“I confided deeply personal details about my marriage to someone I considered a friend. In the months since, I have had to watch as she spread malicious gossip to anyone who would take her call. I trusted this person with the most private chapter of our lives – the early days of our marriage before any campaign was on our mind – and I am deeply hurt by her betrayal and the invasion of our privacy.

“It is no secret that Graham and I have struggled on our fertility journey. We did the hard work that marriage requires. We went to counseling. We were honest with each other in ways that weren’t easy. And we came through it, not in spite of how much we’ve been through, but because of how much we love each other and the life we’ve built. Our marriage today is stronger than ever before.

“I know who Graham is. I know the man I married and the husband he has been to me on the best and the worst days of my life. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t.” – Amy Gertner

Platner and Gertner married in 2024, according to the report.

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