J. Craig Anderson

Maine School Administrative District 75 recently hosted two forums to explain steps it is taking to keep children safe in an academic year marked by an unusually high number of threats to local students.

The local school board has overwhelmingly endorsed plans to enter a federal lottery for a rebate of up to $200,000 on the purchase of an electric school bus and charging station, citing children's health and environmental concerns.

The Running Tide oyster hatchery, which overlooks Middle Bay in Harpswell, has been sold to a Topsham aquaculture entrepreneur. (J.W. OLIVER PHOTO)

Local officials, business owners and residents say the town must prepare for increasingly powerful winter storms like the ones that struck coastal Maine on Jan. 10 and 13, as climate change continues its rapid warming of the Gulf of Maine.

It could take weeks or months for Harpswell residents and business owners who suffered property damage in January's back-to-back storms to learn how much, if any, financial assistance they'll receive to help them rebuild.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, vowed to help secure funding to rebuild Harpswell’s storm-damaged working waterfront during a visit to the town on Saturday, Jan. 20. Collins, who visited Henry Allen’s Seafood on Lookout Point and two other heavily damaged sites on Bailey Island, called the destruction “heartbreaking.”