CourageLIVES and the Penquis Sex Trafficking Action Response Team (START) will host four free and open to the public events as part of Human Trafficking Awareness and Prevention Month in January. All events will feature a film screenin of “Gridshock,” a documentary about human trafficking, followed by a panel discussion with local experts.

Foxcroft Academy boys varsity basketball coach Tyler Erickson was dismissed from that post Friday, Jan. 3, according to Head of School Arnold Shorey.

I’m not one of those guys who starts every new year with a list of resolutions that I’ll begin ignoring on Jan. 3. In general, I’m one of those guys who works more generically, and tries to screw up less than I did the year before. I keep a few goals in mind, I admit, but rarely do I resolve to achieve them. Instead, I hope to get better, then plod onward, doing the best I can.

University of Maine Cooperative Extension has named Emily Mott as the new 4-H community education assistant for Piscataquis and Penobscot counties.

Newly elected British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in the news this week for his plan to modernize the English government bureaucracy after England exits the European Union. I heard radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt was discussing Prime Minister Johnson's bringing of the bureaucracy into the 21st century, breaking bureaucratic stagnation and its disservice to the public

I have read and reread the article titled “What the Central Maine and Quebec Railway sale means for the state’s industries, economy” printed in the Dec. 6, 2019 issue of the Observer. With all certainty, increased activity and improved service and conditions on Maine’s railways is a step in the right direction for the economy of central Maine.

Commemorating a new day, at the beginning of a new year and a new decade, I stood the other day on a hilltop of a popular hiking spot and I surveyed the Atlantic Ocean to the east — I could almost see the Appalachian Trail far to the west and the lights of the cities to the south — and I thought about the past and the future of our great state.

A record 61 Unified basketball teams representing 67 Maine high schools were free to hold their first preseason practices Thursday, Jan. 2. But how the season should conclude for those teams, which blend student-athletes who have intellectual disabilities with non-varsity partners, is being re-evaluated.

On Jan. 6 students and staff at 32 elementary schools around the state will start participating in WinterKids’ third annual WinterKids Winter Games, including Brownville Elementary School and the Greenville Consolidated School. This outdoor physical activity and nutrition competition encourages young children to develop healthy habits over the course of the four-week program.

In response to the Bangor Daily News letter to the editor, “Grandparents’ GOP” on Dec. 27: I could have written this same letter about my parents. My dad, a World War II veteran and proud American, kept up on current events through his subscription to the BDN, reading books and televised news outlets until the end. Unfortunately, his body gave out on him and he was literally on his deathbed on Election Day 2016.