YARMOUTH — Ten preschoolers sat quietly in chairs, proudly holding ukuleles they built out of sticks, plastic containers and rubber bands. Looking on was a crowd three times as large, made up of parents, grandparents and siblings. The 4- and 5-year-old performers were on the last day of a weeklong Little Roots music camp at the newly refurbished 317 Main Community Music Center. They performed in concert to demonstrate what they'd learned. The show ended with kids and families dancing together in the center's new Fox & The Fiddle Cafe.

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/09/01/sound-effects-yarmouth-music-center-expands-to-meet-demand/

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Anne Garrels, a broadcast correspondent who was expelled from the Soviet Union, covered Central America's civil wars and brought National Public Radio listeners into the heart of Baghdad during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, died Sept. 7 at her home in Norwalk, Conn. She was 71. Garrels' death from lung cancer was announced by NPR, where she remained an occasional contributor following her retirement from full-time reporting in 2010. 'I didn't set out to be a war correspondent,' she said in a 2003 NPR interview.

https://www.pressherald.com/2022/09/08/anne-garrels-intrepid-war-correspondent-for-npr-dies-at-71/

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This could become the summer of the sell-out. After a couple of years of pandemic postponements, rock and pop concert tours roared back into action last summer and fans came out in droves. That passion for summer shows continue this year with tickets selling fast, concert promoters in Maine say. By early May, six of the 16 shows scheduled so far at Thompson's Point in Portland had sold out, and another was very close to it. The sell-outs so far include Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on July 3, Cake on July 16, Billy Strings on July 28 and 29, Maggie Rogers on July 31 and Tyler Childers on Aug.

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/05/18/maine-summer-concerts-selling-fast-but-there-are-alternatives/

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Mac Waybright, youth culinary instructor at My Place Teen Center in Westbrook, demonstrates how to hold a ladle to students Patrick Tracy and Rose Gilchrist. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer WESTBROOK — In the basement kitchen at My Place Teen Center on a recent Wednesday afternoon, Chef Mac Waybright, the center's youth culinary instructor, showed his three students how to plate the turkey chili and cornbread meal they'd just prepared. The kids listened intently as Waybright explained visual cues like browned edges that let them know the cornbread muffins are done.

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/03/17/westbrook-teen-centers-culinary-program-teaches-knife-skills-and-life-skills/

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Nurses are special people who provide extraordinary care to Maine people in every community, in hospitals, clinics, schools, long-term care settings and all kinds of health care settings. These worthy accomplishments have been sustained even while Maine's nursing shortages challenged the recruitment and retention efforts needed to continue providing quality patient care. Our nurses earned the pride and respect of every citizen as they responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by caring for the most acutely ill in our hospitals and supporting public health initiatives to help us all to stay healthy.

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/05/05/commentary-proposed-ratios-will-not-bring-needed-nurses-into-the-profession/

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PATRIOTS THIS WEEK Eagles at Patriots, 4:25 p.m., Sunday (CBS) Spread: Eagles by 4 Outlook: Will Bill Belichick ever relocate his lost mojo? (The one Brady took with him?) The NFC champ Eagles won't match last year's 14-3 record but are still the team to beat in the NFC, and adding RB D'Andre Swift makes a potent offense even better. Belichick still has the defense to keep the Pats in games, but QB Mac Jones has a lot to prove and not a ton of special offensive talent to help him. Prediction: Eagles, 24-17 GAME OF THE WEEK Bills at Jets, 8:15 p.

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/09/09/nfl-week-1-predictions/

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To some people, winter in Portland is all about crackling fires and parking bans. To me, it means finally being able to score a table at some of my favorite restaurants without being forced to eat dinner at 4:30 or 10 p.m. It means sauntering into my favorite bakery after noon, knowing I'm probably still going to leave with more than a bag of day-old cookies. Restaurant Week feels like a celebration of this in-between time when the crowds of tourists have thinned. It's a time to get out and reconnect with our food-mad city (and its neighbors).

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/02/23/dine-out-maine-a-restaurant-for-every-situation-and-occasion/

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The bar scene at Free Street Restaurant and Cocktail Bar is a zoo. A Maine-themed zoo, to be precise. The wildlife tableau that runs along the top of the wood-paneled bar sets the tone convincingly. In it, a dozen or so mounted animals from Maine's woodlands – with the exception of a warthog in the mix – stand in startling still life, arranged as artfully as a natural history exhibit. A beaver gnaws wood, while a black bear guards the honey inside a beehive. Foxes snoop and coyotes range in a still life interspersed with ducks, raccoons and a rare white porcupine.

https://www.pressherald.com/2022/11/11/portland-bars-lean-into-the-hunting-lodge-look/

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1923: The Junior League of Portland founds the Children's Theatre of Portland with performances at venues around the city. 1944: The Children's Trailer Theatre spends the summer traveling to the city's playgrounds and parks. In 1947, the Lewiston Journal Magazine ran a story with the headline 'Portland's Children Theatre is Filling Great Educational Need.' The story said the traveling trailer was the only one in the country and 'an instant success.' 'The children are treated just as respectfully as any adult audience.

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/05/11/history-of-the-childrens-theatre-of-maine-the-nations-longest-running-institution-of-its-kind/

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Grace Willcox, a barista at Salt Yard Cafe & Bar, pours steamed milk to make a pumpkin-spice latte, featuring a new flavoring puree from pastry chef Michael Lagasse. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer The kids are back in school, leaves are turning and there's an autumnal chill in the air – all of which can only mean one thing: Pumpkin spice season is here. The annual flavor craze, which may have originated with the launch of Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL for superfans) 20 years ago, has fully woven itself into the fabric of our food culture.

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/09/22/ready-or-not-its-pumpkin-spice-time/

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With all due respect to those coastal breezes and temperate summer evenings we all love to tout, some days get so sweltering around here, you need to bring in some reinforcements. That's where strategically chosen beverages come in – from heroic local staples (How do breweries outside Maine even make beer in the summer without wild blueberries?) to historic institutions (Yes, Moxie with ice cream is a thing) and spiked lemonades mingled with every fruit under the sun. When you want cool down in a hurry, these are the drinks to reach for.

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/06/15/maines-essential-summer-sippers-and-where-to-get-them/

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I have been a taxpaying homeowner in Gorham for 32 years. I am a senior living on a fixed income. We have heard many times that the issue of funding of Gorham schools will continue every year if it is not addressed. Question: If Gorham does not continue to offer a quality education, will it continue to attract families, or will it become one big ol' folks home for people like me? What type of community do residents want for the future? Tax burden is a real concern, but I suspect that a minority of voters opposed the school budget because they have an agenda that has been rejected: an agenda to compromise school curricula to their liking and eliminate what they don't like.

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/08/11/letter-to-the-editor-we-need-to-adequately-fund-gorham-schools/

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