The large American flag, held in place atop ladder trucks provided by the Auburn and Lewiston Fire Departments, waved in a slight breeze as the Maine Public Safety Pipe and Drum Corps and the Maine State Police Pipe and Drum Unit offered a stirring performance of “Amazing Grace.” Honor guards from around the area stood in front of the Basilica of Saints Peter & Paul in Lewiston, standing reverently as the music made its way down Ash Street and beyond.  

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Joseph Jackson is coordinator of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition and a program coordinator with Maine Inside Out.

The 2018-19 season of the Great Falls Forum kicks off on Thursday, September 20 when Joseph Jackson, coordinator of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition and a program coordinator with Maine Inside Out, presents an address called “Prison Reform in Maine and the Need for Those with Lived Experience to Lead the Discussion.” Free and open to the public, the program will take place from 12 to 1 p.m. in Callahan Hall at Lewiston Public Library.

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Club members and others will display their antique, classic, or customized vehicles. (Photo courtesy of Eileen Laliberte)

The Uptown Cruizahs Car Club will host their end-of-season Cruise-In on Saturday, September 22 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Tractor Supply Co. on Route 26 in Oxford. Club members and others will display their antique, classic, or customized vehicles and concessions will be available at reasonable prices. There will be a 50/50 raffle and other prizes. As with the regular Monday Cruise Nights, this event will take place weather permitting. Proceeds will benefit local charities. For more information, call Dan Tripp at 890-8778 or Garry Allen at 595-2691.

Sruli Dresdner and Lisa Mayer

The Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Augusta will host a one-hour concert of “Klezmer Music” on Saturday, September 22 at 4 p.m. The event will feature Sruli Dresdner on accordion and clarinet and Lisa Mayer on violin and vocals.

International Klezmer personalities Sruli and Lisa have performed on PBS-TV and National Public Radio, as well as at festivals, concerts, and synagogues across the globe. The multi-instrumentalists and vocalists play the clarinet, violin, accordion, base recorder, cello, and drum. They have been featured at the Cracow Festival of Jewish Culture in Poland, the Jerusalem Cultures Center, and in Weimar, Germany. The Los Angeles Times has called them “superb musicians.”

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In this tight labor market, we must use every tool at our disposal to encourage laid-off workers to search for work and to take the jobs they are offered.

Unemployment is insurance, not an entitlement. It is a safety net – not a means of subsidizing one employer’s payroll on the backs of all other employers. Yet, the Legislature doesn’t understand the basic principles of the unemployment system.

They voted for a bill that attempts to turn this insurance program into an entitlement: LD 700, “An Act to Give Flexibility to Employees and Employers for Temporary Layoffs.” This new law grants a six-week waiver from the work search, provided an employer gives a recall date.

It effectively takes these workers out of the labor market while they collect benefits, despite our acute workforce shortage.

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Olivia Mayo is a member of the Saint Dominic Academy Class of 2015.

A member of Saint Dominic Academy’s Class of 2015 will represent the State of Maine in front of viewers from across the nation this weekend. Minot native Olivia Mayo will compete for the title of Miss America 2019 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Sunday, September 9, at 9 p.m. on ABC. Maine viewers can watch the competition on WMTW (Channel 8 in Portland) and WVII (Channel 7 in Bangor).

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Resident Assistants at Central Maine Community College are student leaders trained to assist and supervise the 250 students who live in the campus residence facilities. This year’s RA’s are (l. to r., from front) Emily Ayer, Stephanie Jones, Cody Dolloff, Tyler Tibbetts, Jared Rubin, Campbell Duncan, Javier Padilla, and Michael Smith.

Former Fulbright Scholar Jesse Appell, a comedian who performs humor in the Xiangsheng style, as well as bilingual improv and Chinese-style stand-up, seeks to overcome cultural gaps by focusing on storytelling and character rather than surface differences and stereotypes. He will perform on Wednesday, September 19 at 7 p.m. at the college’s Benjamin Mays Center, located at 95 Russell Street in Lewiston The event is free and open to the public. For more information, see nfaries@bates.edu.

Stephen B. Wade

Attorney Stephen B. Wade of Skelton Taintor & Abbott was recently selected as the 2019 Lawyer of the Year for the “Plaintiffs’ Medical Malpractice” category in the State of Maine. Only a single lawyer in each practice area is honored as the lawyer of the year, making this accolade particularly significant. These lawyers are selected based on polls of other lawyers who practice in the same area.

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My administration passed a bill to lower health care costs in 2011, but Obamacare halted it in its tracks. The Trump administration is allowing us to implement the Maine Guaranteed Access Reinsurance Association again, and this will lower your health insurance premiums.

MGARA is known as Maine’s “invisible high risk pool.” It was one of the centerpieces of our 2011 healthcare-reform legislation. It had a proven track record of success, lowering individual health premiums by approximately 20 percent. In fact, it became a national model.

In 2012 and 2013, MGARA collected about $26 million in premiums and $41 million in assessments, while paying out about $66 million in reinsured health insurance claims. It kept premium increases about 20 percent lower than they otherwise would have been. That is money in your pocket.

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