By Jules Walkup, Bangor Daily News Staff Maine is entering another school year with teacher and staff shortages, and they may be getting worse in some ways.

By Kathleen O’Brien, Bangor Daily News Staff Northern Light Health, one of Maine’s largest health care providers, ended its Medicare Advantage network contract with Humana, which could lead some patients to pay more for care.

By Marie Weidmayer, Bangor Daily News Staff The federal government wants to seize two more houses in central Maine allegedly used for illegally growing marijuana.

DEXTER — The Tri-County Technical Center works to provide students from six high schools with Career and Technical Education that enables them to enter the work world or pursue post-secondary training and education in their chosen field.

Fidium Fiber is expanding its all-fiber internet network in Dover-Foxcroft, as well as parts of the Atkinson Township, Bowerbank, Guildford, Sangerville, and Sebec communities, bringing multi-gig speed service to more than 4,900 homes and businesses in these Maine communities.

BIDDEFORD — The AgeWise Maine Initiative and USAging in Washington, D.

By Julie Harris, Bangor Daily News Staff Fishermen who read the Bangor Daily News/Piscataquis Observer story about how the state is looking to define and regulate floating camps brought up a few concerns about their ice shacks.

By Emily Burnham, Bangor Daily News Staff The Bangor Daily News audience had a lot to say about a story about “floating camps” and how the state of Maine is trying to figure out how to regulate them.

By Marie Weidmayer, Bangor Daily News Staff BANGOR — A public defender in Bangor is representing her first clients, a step toward reducing the number of people who are waiting weeks or even months for a lawyer.

By Emmett Gartner, The Maine Monitor A recently announced $450 million federal grant aimed at reducing climate pollution across New England could help Maine meet its ambitious goal to place thousands of heat pumps in low-income homes and expand a critical subset of HVAC technicians trained to install them.

By Zara Norman, Bangor Daily News Staff There are only six Maine counties in which the typical family can afford the average home, and one stands far above the rest in more ways than one.

PORTLAND – Residents of Maine’s most rural areas will soon have access to ultra-high-capacity, high-speed broadband technology, thanks to the launch of Trailrunner Broadband Internet’s first high-speed wireless broadband network.

DOVER-FOXCROFT — The construction process to move the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Office Dispatch Center from cramped conditions in the county jail in Dover-Foxcroft into the administrative unit of the sheriff’s office on the first floor of the same building has been proceeding and is nearing completion.

BREWER — Northern Light Health has eliminated the use of the anesthetic gas desflurane throughout its hospitals.

By Julie Harris, Bangor Daily News Staff Floating camps are popping up more and more in Maine’s lakes, ponds and rivers.

By Paul Koenig, Bangor Daily News Staff U.

By Billy Kobin, Bangor Daily News Staff and Paula Brewer, The Star-Herald Staff MADAWASKA — U.

By Julie Harris, Bangor Daily News Staff Maine’s deer herd is healthy and is one of the largest the state’s ever had, according to a deer biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.