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Supreme Court rules Maine violated Constitution by excluding religious schools in aid program

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Supreme Court rules Maine violated Constitution by excluding religious schools in aid program


The Supreme Court docket on Tuesday dominated that Maine can not exclude spiritual faculties from a state tuition assist program, saying that doing so violates the First Modification.

The massive image: In a 6-3 opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Maine’s program “operates to determine and exclude in any other case eligible faculties on the idea of their spiritual train.”

Catch up quick: This system permits mother and father who stay in areas with out public excessive faculties to obtain state help to cowl tuition prices at public or non-public faculties in different communities, so long as they’re thought of “nonsectarian.”

  • In Carson v. Makin, the plaintiffs are two households who ship or what to ship their youngsters to spiritual faculties and challenged this system by arguing that it violated a number of parts of the Structure.
  • The colleges within the case, Temple Academy and Bangor Christian Colleges, each give attention to instructing a Christian philosophy to college students.

Value noting: In a quick submitted by the state of Maine, state Lawyer Normal Aaron Frey wrote that each faculties “candidly admit that they discriminate in opposition to homosexuals, people who’re transgender, and non-Christians with respect to each who they admit as college students and who they rent as academics and employees.”

What they’re saying: Within the courtroom’s opinion, Roberts known as consideration to a 2020 case the place the courtroom dominated that states should enable spiritual faculties to take part in packages that give scholarships to college students attending non-public faculties.

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  • “‘A State needn’t subsidize non-public schooling,’ we concluded, ‘[b]ut as soon as a State decides to take action, it can not disqualify some non-public faculties solely as a result of they’re spiritual,’” Roberts wrote, quoting from the 2020 opinion on the case, Espinoza v. Montana Division of Income.

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that almost all “pays nearly no consideration” to the primary clause of the First Modification, which prohibits the federal government from making a legislation establishing a faith.

  • “[W]e are as we speak a Nation of greater than 330 million individuals who ascribe to over 100 completely different religions. In that context, state neutrality with respect to faith is especially necessary. The Faith Clauses give Maine the correct to honot that neutrality by selecting to not fund spiritual faculties as a part of its public faculty tuition program. I imagine the bulk is unsuitable to carry the opposite,” Breyer stated.



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Maine

Man charged with killing his roommate in Westbrook, Maine

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Man charged with killing his roommate in Westbrook, Maine


Police announced Wednesday that they have made an arrest in connection with a homicide that occurred two weeks ago in Westbrook, Maine.

The arrest stems from a medical emergency call received by Westbrook police on Nov. 21, at 11:35 p.m. Police and rescue crews responding to the address at 34 Lamb St. found 59-year-old Robert Seger unresponsive in a bedroom. They attempted life-saving measures and he was taken by ambulance to Maine Medical Center in Portland, where he later died of his injuries.

State police said Seger had suffered multiple blunt force injuries.

Seger’s roommate, 47-year-old James Fowler — the person who had called 911 — told police they had had an argument, and he left and came back.

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Westbrook police requested the assistance of state police to investigate Seger’s death and process the scene at 34 Lamb St. The chief medical examiner’s office conducted an autopsy and determined that the manner of death was homicide and the cause of death was blunt force trauma injuries.

An arrest warrant was obtained for Fowler, and he was arrested around 7:35 p.m. Tuesday at 34 Lamb St. and charged with depraved indifference murder and taken to the Cumberland County Jail. No details on bail or his initial court appearance were released.



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Opinion: Offshore wind turbines are a bad idea for the Gulf of Maine

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Opinion: Offshore wind turbines are a bad idea for the Gulf of Maine


Installing wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine is a serious environmental and investment error. Maine can access Quebec Hydro for its immediate power needs with no damage to the environment – and enjoy the benefits of their low electrical rates. In the longer term, we can build new nuclear plants that will provide dependable power with carbon-free energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I was saddened to learn that Maine Audubon is condoning and promoting offshore wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine (“Opinion: Offshore wind in Gulf of Maine an opportunity we can’t ignore,” Sept. 29). These wind turbines represent an existential threat to seabirds and migrating songbirds. The blade tips on these large turbines will be traveling at several hundred miles per hour, and birds will have no chance of surviving them. Tens of thousands of birds will be killed every year.

It reminds me of the building the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. At the time, environmentalists said that only 5% of the salmon would not negotiate the fish ladders and turbines. Once additional dams were built, one of the world’s greatest salmon fisheries was virtually destroyed.

Andy Beahm, executive director of Maine Audubon, represents a group that is funded to support our bird population. I find it tragic that he “looks the other way” and ignores an existential threat that will kill millions of birds when fully developed. One only needs to visit the Coachella Valley in Southern California to see hundreds of wind turbines and dead birds under these turbines to appreciate the problem.

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Siemens recently announced multibillion-dollar losses from sea-based turbines. Saltwater conditions are prematurely destroying their components. These increased costs will show up in future electrical rates.

Recently Sweden canceled the construction of 13 new wind farms in the Baltic Sea, citing defense and security concerns. There is simply no reason to subsidize and support offshore wind projects.

Finally, all mechanical systems wear out and fail. The cost of decommissioning and removing these turbines from the Gulf needs to be included in any justification for this project. We have already seen the extraordinary cost of a single blade failure near Nantucket at the Vineyard Wind last July, resulting in the closure of six beaches due to debris washing ashore.

The building of offshore windmills is an unwise decision. It needs to be abandoned before it causes irreparable harm.



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Maine’s U.S. Attorney’s Office reaches agreement with Lowe’s

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Maine’s U.S. Attorney’s Office reaches agreement with Lowe’s


MAINE (WABI) – Maine’s U.S. Attorney’s Office has reached an agreement with Lowe’s to improve customer accessibility nationwide following a complaint filed in Brewer.

A Lowe’s customer in Brewer filed an ADA complaint that the store did not provide accessible parking located on the shortest accessible route from the parking lot to an accessible entrance

The Justice Department says after investigation it was found several locations in Maine failed to provide accessible parking spaces on the shortest route including in Brewer, Brunswick, Portland and Windham.

They say a part of the settlement agreement Lowe’s has agreed to make modifications to their parking lots to insure the area is ADA compliant.

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Lowe’s will also be designating at least one employee to serve as an ADA Compliance Manager to train current and future employees.

They say Lowe’s have also agreed that within six months they will provide the Department a plan to survey the remainder of locations nationwide.



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