Like the rest of you, I'm not allowed to spend much time visiting others nowadays. Social-distancing rules say that I'm supposed to stay six feet away from everybody else, and as this pandemic gathers steam, I've even found myself guiltily holding my breath when I've passed someone in the aisles of my local grocery store. For a guy who makes his living meeting up with total strangers, listening to their stories, and sharing those tales with thousands of BDN readers, this has been an odd time, to be sure.

Anglers who head out to fish Maine's ponds, lakes and brooks early in the open-water season have learned that for several weeks, the fishing can be quite slow. The cold water has left the fish sluggish, it seems, and it might take just the right fly or bait to garner any interest from a passing fish.

Gov. Janet Mills and Commissioner of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services Commissioner Kirsten Figueroa announced that the state will extend the deadline for Maine income tax payments from April 15 to July 15. The change aligns with the federal government’s recent extension of the federal tax filing deadline to July 15.

The University of Maine Cooperative Extension Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program has created a new video series with recipes that are easy to make at home while keeping nutrition in mind.

Many people in Maine are turning to the outdoors to boost their morale and health during the COVID-19 pandemic. This, state officials say, is a good idea -- as long as it’s done with social distancing in mind.

As hospitals across the country enter a period of turbulence because of the novel coronavirus, the Brewer-based health care system that includes Northern Light Mayo Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft and Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital in Greenville has appointed its chief operating officer to serve as the system’s next head.

A mild winter is giving emergency management officials one less thing to worry about: The spring flooding risk is reduced in New England.

I don't typically write follow up columns, but in this case I'm going to have to make an exception. A couple weeks ago, the column I wrote declared in rather concrete terms that I was not worried about the coronavirus. What I was more worried about than the virus, I said, was the impact that mass panic over the virus was having, and would continue to have, on society.

It’s time we retire the idea of “essential” and “nonessential” workers. If the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated anything, it’s that all the cogs in our economic machine are essential. Pull too many bits and pieces out, and the whole thing risks grinding to a halt.

The spring turkey hunt will begin on time this year -- despite web rumors, officials said. Citing misinformation that has been spreading on the internet, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife issued a press release on Wednesday, March 25 to assure hunters that the scheduled spring wild turkey season will begin as originally planned, with Youth Turkey Day on May 2 and the opener for all others on May 4.