PORTLAND (WGME) — Driving this time of year, when winter weather hits, can be tricky, especially in Maine.

Fortunately, the Maine Turnpike Authority has above-ground weather sensors to keep them informed.

“What they do is they capture a bunch of atmospheric and pavement data, temperature data and conditions. They take that information and take it to our vendor, Vaisala, and they process that data and put it here on the screen for us to use in our winter maintenance operations,” Maine Turnpike Authority Project Manager Brian Taddeo said.

These sensors can also tell the turnpike authority how well tires are gripping the road.

“So the grip factor is the measure of friction between the tire and the roadway. That’s really important for us because it tells us the pavement is dry, mobility is not impacted by weather, because there is none,” Taddeo said.

The above ground weather sensors help determine several different factors about the road conditions. (WGME)

The highest the grip factor goes to is 0.82, which would be on a dry road.

As the roads become icy, that number will drop.

“This system is also a predictive system, so it can actually show us what’s going to happen 12 hours from now, 24 hours from now, 72 hours from now,” Taddeo said.

This allows the Maine Turnpike Authority to plan in advance of an upcoming storm.

That’s important as they cover a stretch of interstate from Kittery all the way up to Augusta.

The MTA has cameras set up along the Turnpike to see what road conditions look like. (WGME)

“We have 109 miles of road to cover, and this gives us the chance to see everything all at once, so we can dispatch our crews to whatever zones need to be handled,” Taddeo said.

The MTA also has underground sensors that are used to collect road data.

Can Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Jimmy Fallon pronounce every city and town in Massachusetts correctly, including those on Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard?

In a promotion for Damon and Affleck’s upcoming thriller film, “The Rip,” the trio hammered through every single one of the state’s 351 municipalities on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” on Tuesday, Jan. 13 – in thick Boston accents.

Having grown up in Massachusetts, the two actors are no strangers to Boston accents – famously putting them to use in “Good Will Hunting.” And while their newest movie is set in Miami, not Boston, the actors jumped at the chance to slip into their New England personas on “The Tonight Show.”

Wearing their most “Boston” outfits – Red Sox merch and cold-weather gear – Damon, Affleck, and Fallon took turns reciting the names of each Massachusetts town in alphabetical order as soft music played in the background.

“Abington, Acton, Acushnet, Adams, Agawam,” Damon started, with a deadpan expression on his face.

“Alford, Amesbury, Amherst, Andover, Aquinnah,” Affleck continued, with a gruff Boston accent.

“Arlington, Ashburnham, Ashby, Ashfield, Ashland,” Fallon went on, trying his hand at an accent as well.

And yes, the segment continued like this for about five minutes.

Were there any slip-ups on the Massachusetts town names?

For the most part, the three flew through the Massachusetts town names, even though it’s easy for tongues to get twisted when reciting them all at top speed.

Fallon stumbled briefly over Winchendon, repeating it a few times before he sounded confident. Damon pronounced “Uxbridge” as “Oxbridge.”

Cape and Islands towns seemed to get a fair shake. Fallon made a point to enunciate each “r” in the town of Truro. Chatham and Eastham, spelled similarly, but pronounced differently, were each said correctly. Yarmouth got a little more airtime as the final town on the list, when Affleck threw up his hands in celebration while drawing out his Boston-accented “Yaaaah,” then bowed.

Affleck, a Massachusetts town-name natural, couldn’t resist a cheeky comment when he reached the home of the New England Patriots.

“Foxboro for your mother,” he quipped.

Another notable moment was when Affleck seemed to learn mid-recitation that Peru is, in fact, the name of a town in Massachusetts.

New Hampshire lawmakers on Wednesday took up a pair of bipartisan bills to legalize the regulated use of psilocybin for medical purposes.

At a hearing before the House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee, members heard public testimony on the proposals: HB 1809 from Rep. Buzz Scherr (D) and HB 1796 from Rep. Michael Moffett (R).

Both measures seek to create a regulatory pathway for patients with certain conditions to access the psychedelic for therapeutic use through a program overseen by the state Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). But Moffett’s legislation is more prescriptive about the proposed regulatory framework.

“I am an unlikely prime sponsor for a measure such as this,” Moffett told fellow lawmakers at the hearing, saying he’s “always been very wary and skeptical of” psychedelics and has “always been a hard no on marijuana for many reasons, to include the fact that I was constantly drug tested myself for many years in the Marine Corps, where I developed a zero tolerance for illegal drug use.”

He said that he changed his mid after seeing a presentation on psychedelic therapies at a national veterans conference last summer, where he learned that “a psilocybin treatment option could have value to almost anyone, beyond military people or former military people.”

Scherr, for his part, said there’s a “substantial amount of research going on currently about the therapeutic uses of psilocybin.”

“The research in terms of it helping with those who have treatment-resistant depression is pretty significant at this point,” he said. “Research in terms of broader use for those suffering from other forms of PTSD is developing. Research for use with people who have certain forms of substance abuse is also developing.”

Jenny O’Higgins of the state Department of Health and Human Services said officials have some concerns around the lack of appropriated funds in Moffett’s legislation, saying the department would “not be able to absorb” the program under its current budget.

A representative of the prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana’s New Hampshire affiliate testified against the proposals, saying that psilocybin is a federally illegal Schedule I drug. She also argued that there is insufficient evidence to support the psychedelic’s therapeutic potential.

Here are the key provisions of HB 1809:

• DHHS would be responsible for approving licensed medical professional to serve as providers of psilocybin for qualifying patients.
• In order to qualify for the program, patients would need to be diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use disorder or another condition authorized by an advisory board and DHHS.
• The legislation specifically stipulates that only natural psilocybin could be administered, excluding synthetic versions of the psychedelic.
• Providers would also need to be approved by the department to grow and harvest their own psilocybin products.
• The process for treating qualifying patients with the psychedelic would need to involve a preparation session, administration session and integration session.
• A Medical Psilocybin Advisory Board would be established, comprised of a representative of DHHS, a qualifying patient, a veterans advocate and eight medical professionals.
  • Those medical experts would need to include a psychedelics researcher, two regulators overseeing existing medical psilocybin programs and specialists in the treatment of addiction, palliative care, veterans’ affairs, naturopathy, nursing and mental health counseling.
• The board would be tasked with analyzing data on patient outcomes from DHHS, consider adding qualifying conditions for participation in the program and determine whether the law should be expanded.
• The program would only be implemented if the advisory board, within two years of the bill’s enactment, notifies lawmakers, regulators and the governor that it can be effectively administered.

“The medical community has always recognized that patients exist with serious conditions that are very resistant to effective treatment,” a statement of purpose for the measure says. “Recently, research has begun to show that certain of those patients have had positive results with the closely supervised use of psilocybin for treatment.”

“Patients with significant post-traumatic stress disorder, with treatment-resistant clinical depression, and with serious substance use disorder have been shown to benefit from the controlled, therapeutic use of psilocybin in a supervised setting,” it says. “The purpose of this act is to create a carefully monitored and closely supervised setting in which an approved medical provider can treat a carefully chosen patient with appropriate doses of psilocybin which that same provider has produced for a medical intervention.”

Here are the main details of HB 1796:

• The bill would permit the regulated use of psilocybin in a medically supervised setting, with DHHS responsible for overseeing the program.
• To qualify for psilocybin treatment, a patient 21 or older would need to be diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, substance misuse disorder, a terminal illness requiring end-of-life care or any other condition authorized by DHHS.
• A Psilocybin Licensing Board under the department would be tasked with issuing licenses for independent medical psilocybin providers, therapy providers, cultivators and testing laboratories.
• There would be specific guidelines for facilities where the psychedelic could be administered, including security requirements and other safety protocols such as ensuring there are rescue medications on site if a patient experiences an adverse event.
• The legislation would also establish a Therapeutic Psilocybin Treatment Fund, which would be funded by revenue from licensing taxes and fees. The fund would go toward studies into the possibility of expanding the program to include additional psychedelics in the program.
• The law if enacted would take effect beginning in January 1, 2027.

“The purpose of the Therapeutic Psilocybin Act is to allow the beneficial use of psilocybin in a regulated system for alleviating qualified medical conditions,” the bill’s statement of purpose says.

The prospects of either bill advancing this session remain unclear, but lawmakers have been increasingly active in pursuing psychedelics reform in recent years.

Last June, the New Hampshire Senate voted to scrap compromise legislation that would have lowered the state’s criminal penalty for first-time psilocybin possession while also creating mandatory minimum sentences around fentanyl.

As originally introduced, the legislation would have completely removed penalties around obtaining, purchasing, transporting, possessing or using psilocybin, effectively legalizing it on a noncommercial basis. However a House committee amended the bill before unanimously advancing it last March.

Meanwhile in New Hampshire, the House last week approved a bill to legalize marijuana in the state—though its chances of passage in the Senate remain dubious, and the governor has expressed clear opposition to the reform.

Also last week, the chamber passed a proposal to allow medical cannabis dispensaries to become for-profit businesses.

The legalization bill, sponsored by Rep. Jared Sullivan (D), is one of several cannabis proposals filed for the 2026 session, including legislation from Rep. Jonah Wheeler (D) that seeks to put a constitutional amendment on the state ballot that would let voters decide if they want to legalize marijuana for adults 21 and older, allowing them to “possess a modest amount of cannabis for their personal use.”

Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R) has already threatened to veto any legalization bill that reaches her desk, though the constitutional amendment proposal would not require gubernatorial action.

The governor said in August that her position on the reform would not change even if the federal government moved forward with rescheduling the plant. Since then, President Donald Trump has directed the attorney general to finalize the process of moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

At a committee meeting last year, Sullivan ultimately made a persuasive argument for advancing his legalization bill, pointing out that the House has repeatedly passed similar legislation and that the chamber should stand its ground, forcing the Senate and governor to again go on record with their opposition to a policy popular among voters.

“We know where it’s going to go. Let’s send a virtue signal,” Sullivan said. “Let them be the ones that are pissing off voters who care about this.”

Meanwhile, the House also approved a bill last week from Rep. Wendy Thomas (D) that would allow medical marijuana dispensaries (known as “alternative treatment centers,” or ATCs, in the state) to convert their dispensary licenses to become for-profit entities. HB 54, which passed on the consent calendar with other legislation, previously advanced unanimously out of the House Finance Committee.

Part of the motivation behind the legislation is the fact that medical marijuana dispensaries don’t qualify for federal non-profit status. But in the state, they’re considered non-profit organizations, which has resulted in disproportionately increased operating costs.

Other bills filed for 2026 include two proposals to protect the gun rights of medical cannabis patients.

There are also a few pieces of legislation aimed at regulating hemp sales—an issue that’s receiving heightened attention given that Congress passed, and Trump signed, an appropriations bill that would effectively re-criminalize most consumable hemp products.

Meanwhile, after the House added provisions to a Senate-passed bill last year that would allow medical marijuana patients to grow cannabis at home, those measures were stripped in conference.

Image courtesy of CostaPPR.