Morning Update: What you need to know in Maine today

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“His face got really pale and depressed looking. His hands got really weird. And he was holding a wooden lobster trap which we hadn’t used for decades. And it was full of cooked lobsters.”

— Jennifer Stucker, a board member for the Gouldsboro Historical society, which was central to efforts to restore “Big Jim,” a 40-foot-tall figure of a fisherman that was erected at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport on Wednesday.

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

Republicans are worried after Maine Democrats’ strong primary turnout. More than 200,000 voters cast ballots in the Democratic Senate primary, up from 162,000 in the party’s 2020 primary. See how your community voted.

Here’s the timeline for Maine’s important ranked-choice voting count. The three contests expected to go to ranked-choice tallies include one in which the fourth-place candidate has a real chance to win.

Pickering Square construction will resume this week. The expected completion date this summer will come two years after the renovations began.

Bar Harbor’s cruise ship battle has cost the town $111,000 in less than a year. The town has more than twice that amount budgeted for legal expenses for the coming fiscal year.

NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE

• Donald Trump calls Graham Platner a ‘thug’
• Use the BDN’s ranked-choice simulator to see who could win Maine’s gubernatorial primaries
• Maine school budgets had a rare good night during Tuesday’s elections
• Maine recalls cannabis over unsafe mold and yeast levels
• EMS crews scramble as Maine hospitals end drug partnership
• All trails are now open in Baxter State Park
• Northern Maine towns reverse course to approve 4 school budgets rejected at polls last year
• 70-year-old Presque Isle school will close this week
• Acadia just recorded its slowest offseason since the COVID pandemic
• Feds want to open Ellsworth and Orland fish hatcheries to hunting
• Blue Hill adult day care center bought from collapsed social services agency
• Coastal Maine inn listed for sale for $2.2M in wake of owner’s sudden death
• Maine man allegedly stabbed victim in the chest repeatedly and then fled on stolen dirt bike
• Man accused in Sugarloaf killing pleads not guilty
• Portland man accused of crack cocaine trafficking
• Arrest made in alleged southern Maine ATV dragging
• Mainer rescued after falling from NH cliff face
• Cooper Flagg is one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in sports for 2026

MAINE IN PICTURES

Construction is expected to resume this week at downtown Bangor’s Pickering Square. Credit: Linda Coan O'Kresik / BDN

FROM THE OPINION PAGES

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, right, and his wife, Amy Gertner, gesture to supporters Tuesday during a primary election night watch party in Blue Hill. Credit: Robert F. Bukaty / AP

“With attention on his past behavior and his past comments discounting sexual violence, Platner has an opportunity to speak out forcefully against efforts to diminish the power and independence of women.”

Editorial: Graham Platner should use the spotlight to empower women

LIFE IN MAINE

A shotgun instructor explains why hunters miss birds and how to improve your shot before fall.

This former mill turned into a house is selling for $2 million. The grinding wheel is still there, at the base of the flagpole in the front yard.

A 40-foot-tall fisherman was stood up in Searsport.