According to a group representing sporting camps around Maine, Gov. Janet Mill’s rural reopening plan falls short of providing relief to commercial sporting camps, employees, guides and rural neighbors because it bans visits from non-residents. Non-resident fishing trips over the next six weeks generates almost 90% of the annual revenue for many of the camps operating across the state.

Yet a steady stream of customers made their way to opening day of the new season at Butterfield’s Ice Cream in Dover-Foxcroft for a hearty scoop of the iconic parlor’s handmade, hard-serve ice cream -- perhaps as a cool change of pace from recent daily routines fraught with COVID-19 concerns.

Maine has become one of at least a dozen states that are beginning to ease restrictions on businesses in rural areas with fewer cases of the coronavirus while many rules will be in place in more heavily populated areas until June.

The MLB Network on Sirius radio has been airing games from different eras with the focus on some of the great play-by-play men in the history of baseball.

A group of Maine business owners on Friday sued Gov. Janet Mills over her unprecedented shutdown orders to limit the spread of the coronavirus claiming they are unconstitutional.

The Heart of Maine Community Stories is an online platform for collecting and sharing stories about life in the Heart of Maine region. This community-based project is a collaboration between Hartland Public Library, Newport Cultural Center, Pittsfield Public Library and Thompson Free Library in Dover-Foxcroft.

Gov. Janet Mills announced on Friday a rural reopening plan aimed at reopening certain additional businesses in rural Maine over the course of the next two weeks with added health and safety measures. The plan comes after Mills stated last week that her administration was considering opportunities for regional variation as part of its Restarting Maine’s Economy plan.

All Northern Light Health hospitals, care centers and campuses have implemented universal masking, including face coverings for patients and visitors. We have embraced this at Northern Light Mayo and CA Dean Hospitals. While we are aware that there is only one confirmed case reported in Piscataquis County, we know that the virus is here.  We have seen and treated patients with COVID-19 at Mayo. The social measures we have taken thus far are proving to be effective at decreasing community transmission of the virus, but they are not going to eliminate it. There is no time to become complacent as the virus knows no county lines and does not discriminate against rural or urban areas.

The National Weather Service predicts that a late season storm will bring between 3 and 6 inches of snow to northern Maine on Saturday, and a mix of rain and snow to the Bangor region and farther south.

A testing acquisition the governor described as a “game changer” could help Maine hit goals outlined by health officials as benchmarks for economic reopening, though effects on summer tourism are less clear and the state has performed fewer tests than most on a per-capita basis.