Maine's governor, Paul LePage, has spent his first months in office insulting the NAACP and redecorating state offices, but he and members of his administration have also made time to participate in a proud, sad local tradition: hunting for a buyer to take over a near-abandoned manufacturing facility, any reasonable offer considered.

Until its operation ground to a halt this spring, the mill in question was a surviving pillar of Maine's papermaking industry, the dominant force in the small northeastern town of East Millinocket. Right next door in Millinocket there is another paper mill, also idle. The same Canadian asset management company owns both mills and [...]

Here is everything you need to know about the moon snail epidemic presently raging in eastern Maine.

Moon snails are not twee pearlescent creatures that might rally to the aid of a Disney heroine. Moon snails are vicious nocturnal predators of the Naticidae family. You do not want to encounter a moon snail in a dark alley or mud flat, especially if you are a bivalve.

When I say that I used to celebrate Thanksgiving by eating lentil loaf, most people need a moment to process the phrase. Thanksgiving lentil loaf? Should those words be next to each other? (I blame this reaction on the icky sound of the word "loaf," not anti-vegetarian bias, but who knows.)

My foray into meatlessness began in junior high, after a biology teacher slipped me a copy of Frances Moore Lappé's Diet for a Small Planet. To this day I'm not sure why she did that. Maybe she sensed my budding interest in economics, politics, the environment and intersections thereof. Maybe she figured I was already doing poorly with [...]

Earlier today, to absolutely no one's surprise, a Russian court decided to let a state-backed residential development fund proceed with its plan to build houses on a field in Pavlovsk, outside St. Petersburg. The reason this mundane matter even reached a court is that the field is presently inhabited by thousands of rare fruits and berries, better known as the historic gene bank of the Pavlovsk Experimental Station.

What does this mean for those of us who will want jam on our toast even after the apocalypse comes? And what does it mean for Russia, which is having its own apocalypse problem right now?