Le Journal

Une pénurie mondiale de mémoire vive bouleverse l’industrie tech. Boostée par les besoins massifs de l’intelligence artificielle, cette crise entraîne une flambée des prix et des ruptures de stock qui

Donald Trump menace d’imposer une taxe de 200 % sur les vins français. En cause : le refus d’Emmanuel Macron de rejoindre son projet de « Conseil de paix ».

The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com Nicole Clegg is president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.This first year of President Donald Trump’s second term has felt like a fever dream. Seemingly every week — sometimes every day — he and his administration launched a new attack on sexual, reproductive, and LGBTQ+ health and rights. In anticipation of his potential election, we spent months preparing and on Jan. 20, 2025, we braced for impact. The first thing we saw was Trump attack the LGBTQ+ community. On day one, he signed an executive order undermining protections against discrimination for gender identity and sexual orientation and eliminated nearly all LGBTQ+ and HIV related content on federal webpages. In April, the Trump administration shifted its attacks to Planned Parenthood. Our organization’s Title X funds in Maine and New Hampshire were withheld, even though we had been legally awarded the grant, which totaled approximately $900,000 per year. Title X helps people with low incomes access free and reduced-cost birth control, STD testing, cancer screenings, and wellness exams at our health centers. This move put the health of more than 12,000 Mainers and Granite Staters at risk who rely on Title X to afford their health care. Withholding our funds was a political move to target us; we have been exceptional members of the program. On July 4, Trump signed H.R.1 into law. Instead of using this bill to focus on the real needs of Americans, Congress chose to “defund” Planned Parenthood from the Medicaid program by prohibiting any federal payments for non-abortion related care we provide. Suddenly our organization was facing an additional $3 million hole. PPNNE sees more than 8,600 Medicaid patients per year. These are some of our community’s most vulnerable people, earning between $11,000 and $16,000 a year, and we are often the only health care provider they may see all year. In just a few months of the new administration, Trump and Republicans in Congress managed to jeopardize nearly $5 million in funds that help offset the costs of providing our care to all patients regardless of ability to pay. And that hit doesn’t come close to the true cost we absorb. Yes, the first year of the Trump administration has been hard for our organization. But that’s not the story I tell our supporters; rather, I talk about PPNNE’s incredible resilience, and dedication to our mission. We have weathered these attacks and not once passed the intended harm on to our patients. Anti-abortion groups and politicians saw this year as their best opportunity to shutter Planned Parenthood. They united with a singular focus to make it impossible for us to operate in states like ours where abortion is a legally protected right and used the powers of the president and Congress to pursue this agenda. It doesn’t matter to them that we save lives, that, for many, we are their only access to the health care system. It doesn’t matter to them that we provide some of the best health care in the country or the crucial role we play in helping our patients determine their future. It’s a cruel agenda designed to hurt people. Yet despite the onslaught of attacks, we have kept our pledge to our patients. We’ve expanded our services to include menopause and vasectomy. We’ve added days of operations because we know our patients have work, child care and school that makes it hard for them to get care. We’ve provided care with dignity to every person who has come through our doors. We have stuck to our values. For 60 years, PPNNE’s commitment to our patients has been unwavering. No matter the obstacles placed before us, we will continue to stand as a beacon of care, inclusion, and advocacy. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that everyone who walks through our doors receives the respect and health care they…

By her own admission, Camden Hills Regional High School of Rockport girls basketball guard Thea Laukka isn’t shooting the ball as well as she would like this season. But she is certainly doing a bunch of other things well in leading the Windjammers to an 11-2 record in Class A North. And even though the junior hasn’t been satisfied with her shooting, she is still one of the top three scorers among players at the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference’s Class A North schools as she is averaging over 14 points per game. She leads the KVAC North schools in steals with over five per game and she is among the top five in assists with over three per game. “She is one of the best guards in the state and not just in Class A,” said Hampden Academy coach Nick Winchester after Laukka registered 11 points, five rebounds and four steals to help lead the Windjammers to a 44-30 win over his Broncos on Monday. “She does a lot of different things,” Winchester said. “And you have to exert so much attention to take her away. That creates opportunities for other people.” Windjammers senior guard Leah Jones said Laukka means a lot to her team. ”She is not only able to score for herself, she makes a lot of opportunities for other players,” Jones said. And she doesn’t let a missed shot bother her, Jones added. “She is very next-play oriented. If she misses a shot, she will get back on defense and try again,” Jones said. “She doesn’t let that stuff get in her head.” The 5-8 Laukka is an exceptional athlete who is also an outstanding soccer and softball player. She has long arms and quick feet — which she exhibits on the defensive side of the ball to generate steals and deflections, and on the offensive side to get open and also get to the glass for shots and rebounds. “I know if I can’t score, I have to help the team in some other way through steals, rebounds or just energy plays like diving on the floor for a ball,” Laukka said. A perfect example of that occurred in the fourth quarter of their game with Hampden Academy. Laukka missed a shot and the long rebound came out to a Bronco player, who began racing down the court. Laukka sprinted as fast as she could and poked the ball away from the Hampden player and then retrieved it for her fourth steal of the game. “Those are our energy plays,” Laukka said. Camden Hills coach Samantha Bragg called Laukka a “great playmaker” and noted how her teammates benefit by getting open shots due to the attention opposing teams dedicate to her. Camden Hill’s Thea Laukka scores the opening basket in the Girls Class A North Final game against Hampden Academy at the Augusta Civic Center, Feb. 21, 2025. Credit: Josh O’Donnell Laukka was a Bangor Daily News All-State Schoolgirl team honorable mention last season and said she has been working on her “inside moves and my footwork” this season. She has been happy with her season to date but hopes to continue to get better. “My shooting has been off. I’ve been working on it and I’m hoping to get it back and be good for the tourney,” said Laukka. The Windjammers reached the Class A North championship game a year ago by stunning previously unbeaten and top seed Lawrence High of Fairfield, 64-56, in the semifinals. They lost to Hampden Academy in the title game 59-52 in double overtime. They have avenged that loss by dealing the Broncos their only two losses this season. Last year’s win over Lawrence has played a role in this season’s success. “That gave us a real good boost of confidence,” Jones said. “Outside of ourselves, nobody thought we were going to win and when we pulled it off, it was really nice for us.” Jones added that the team hadn’t played well in the Augusta Civic Center, where the Class A North tournament was held, up to that point. “We usually don’t do our best there,” agreed Laukka. “But we really stepped it up.” Bragg said they don’t talk about the Lawrence win much “but, internally, we know we can play with anyone regardless of our record or their record or…

AUGUSTA, Maine — A network of 12 volunteer mentors is linking up with Mainers looking for ways to start, grow or improve their businesses. The state’s northern chapter of Service Corps of Retired Executives, more commonly known as SCORE, provides free one-on-one assistance to local entrepreneurs from the southern end of Knox County to the Canadian border. International business consultant David Green of Bangor heads the chapter and travels to some of northern Maine’s most remote locations to help bring out the best in people, he said. Maine is a state of mainly small businesses and Green said he wants it to be a place where people can make a comfortable living and thrive. “The Small Business Administration says people with a mentor are twice as likely to succeed and that’s what we do,” Green said. What started out as a northern Maine road trip with Green and two other SCORE executives three years ago to meet people in places such as Caribou, Van Buren, Presque Isle and Houlton has grown into a network of partnerships and cooperative events with rural towns as a way to reach out to local businesses, Green said. The chapter works with local Chambers of Commerce, the Northern Maine Development Commission and the Southern Aroostook Development Corp., to name a few, and provides free business-related training sessions in addition to one-on-one mentoring. Additionally, they work with school programs and other community organizations to provide business-related training and assistance. The total in-person session attendance grew 30.2% last year, from 232 in 2024 to 302 in 2025; total services increased 28.4% from 1,165 in 2024 to 1,496 in 2025; and total local services from 836 to 934. This month, the Northern Maine Chapter earned the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2026 National Chapter of the Year Award, ousting much larger metropolitan chapters this year. “The secret sauce is we have created partnerships in these areas and are doing more of what people need,” said Green. Green, like all SCORE volunteers, brings a wealth of career knowledge to entrepreneurs seeking guidance. An engineer, he worked with Hewlett-Packard and ITT in the UK before moving to Canada to work for Nortel for 25 years. He now owns Bangor-based WardGreen Group consulting with his wife, Ginger Ward-Green. He takes on a new SCORE client every week, he said. One woman, who owns a consulting business and does strategic planning, process improvement, leadership development and coaching, has been working with him to pivot her business to leverage AI, he said. “My help so far has been to introduce her to people who are on the leading edge of AI so she can refine her business model to focus on work she wants to do and where there is a market need,” Green said. Some of the contacts Green has helped with include a city development director, a nationally known entrepreneur embarking on her next big thing using AI, and one of SCORE’s AI subject matter experts. Another client in a small town had bought an old building with a commercial kitchen and asked for help starting a sandwich shop. “By the time I met with her she had changed her mind about the sandwich shop and thought instead of renting the kitchen to someone she knew,” he said. “We brainstormed other options and one was an event center using a range of catering options from self catering to a high-end chef.” Still, despite concerted outreach initiatives into Maine’s northernmost regions, many budding business owners, some struggling to stay afloat, are not aware of the help these executive volunteers offer. Others are reluctant to reach out for help, often because they don’t want anyone to know, said Houlton entrepreneur Fred Grant, who has been a volunteer SCORE mentor for nearly two years. “If that’s the case, the business can request a mentor from somewhere else,” Grant said. Fred Grant, owner of the Temple Theatre in Houlton, talks with patrons before a screening of the award-winning documentary “A Moment…