Donate to WERU Today!Host/Producer: Amy Browne
Dunlap for Congress town hall will be held in the Minsky Lecture hall at the Bangor Public library tonight from 6:30 – 7:30
The Witherle Library in Castine children’s activities (stationery making and story walk) scheduled for tomorrow (Friday) afternoon
For more information please contact [email protected]
The Island Arts Association (IAA) is celebrating their 50th Anniversary Season with their Annual Holiday Craft Fair, Friday from 10:00 am-5:00 pm; and Saturday & Sunday 9:00 am-4:00 pm, at the Atlantic Oceanside on Eden Street in Bar Harbor
Rockland’s Emergency Warming Center will be open this Thursday 12/4 & Friday 12/5 at the Flanagan Community Center, from 7pm – 7am both nights. We offer warm supper, showers, comfortable bedding, and breakfast to guests. All are welcome. Entrance is through the double doors at the rear of the building. If you have questions or transportation needs, contact Jessica by text or phone at (207) 230-4258
About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.
Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-
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Around Town 12/3/25: Local News, Culture and Events
Host/Producer: Amy Browne
Holiday events on Saturday, 12/6/25 Click on links for more details.
Bangor’s annual Festival of Lights Parade, 4:30 PM in downtown Bangor
45th Annual Downtown Ellsworth Christmas Parade of Lights & Light Display
Annual Northeast Harbor Christmas Festival , 8:30 a.m. – 8:00 p.m, Main Street, Northeast Harbor and the Northeast Harbor Marina
About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.
Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Outside the Box 12/2/25: “What’s a Crime?
Producer/Host: Larry Dansinger
About the host:
Larry Dansinger (no pronouns) of Bangor came to Maine in 1974 and has been here ever since. Some of Larry’s activities since then: Done community organizing on numerous issues through INVERT and then Resources for Organizing and Social Change (ROSC), committed civil disobedience several times, grown a garden yearly since 1977, joined various food cooperatives and two men’s groups, refused to pay federal income taxes for war, lived on a community land trust for 23 years, and met a wonderful partner whom Larry has loved for over 40 years. Larry has produced Outside the Box features on WERU since 2007 and continues to look for unique ways of seeing almost any problem or situation.
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Around Town 12/2/25: Local News, Culture and Events
Host/Producer: Amy Browne
Dave Hollenberg, President of the Rural Hall in Surry, is here with an invitation to their 5th annual Festival of the Trees on Sunday, 12/7 from 2-5pm at the hall on Rt. 172 in East Surry. FMI: Surry Rural Hall on facebook
Resources for Organizing and Social Change (ROSC)’s Rad Reading Group will be meeting via zoom on Wednesdays from noon to 1pm, starting this week. December’s book is Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 by M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi. Email [email protected] for more information and the zoom link
About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.
Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Around Town 12/1/25: Local News, Culture and Events
Host/Producer: Amy Browne
Healthy Acadia’s seasonal overnight warming center is now open for the season. The Warming Center is located at 24 Church St., Ellsworth, inside the INSPIRE Center. On weekdays it will be open from 6:30 p.m to 7 a.m. On weekends the warming center will be open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. AND again from 6:30 p.m. to 7 a.m. Space is available on a first-come, first-served basis until capacity is reached. For more information, call 207-412-2288 or follow INSPIRE on Facebook or Instagram.
Friends of Sears Island and Carver Memorial Library will host a free winter solstice-themed after school program for children on Thursday, December 4, from 3:30pm – 5:00pm at the Carver Memorial Library in Searsport. This program is intended for kids ages 5-12 and an accompanying adult. Pre-registration is required as space is limited. Sign-up by emailing [email protected]. Registration is complete upon receiving a confirmation email.
Resources for Organizing and Social Change (ROSC)’s Rad Reading Group will be meeting via zoom on Wednesdays from noon to 1pm, starting this week. December’s book is Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 by M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi. Email [email protected] for more information and the zoom link
About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.
Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
A Word in Edgewise 12/1/25: The First of December, Shapero, Ellis, Parks, & the Pleiades . . .
Producer/Host: R.W. Estela
Hi, I’m RW Estela: Since 1991, I’ve been presenting A Word in Edgewise, WERU’s longest-running short feature, a veritable almanac of worldly and heavenly happenings, a confluence of 21st-century life in its myriad manifestations, international and domestic, cosmopolitan and rural, often revealing, as the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same — though not always! Sometimes in addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives, in this age of vagary and ambiguity, when chronological time is punctuated elliptically, things can quickly turn edgy and controversial, as we search for understanding amid our dialectic. Tune in Monday mornings at 7:30 a.m. for an exciting journey through space and time with a few notable birthdays thrown in for good measure during A Word in Edgewise . . .
About the host:
RW Estela was raised as a first-generation American in Colorado by a German mother and a Corsican-Basque father who would become a three-war veteran for the US Army, so RW was naturally a military brat and later engaged in various Vietnam-era civil-service adventures before paying his way through college by skiing for the University of Colorado, playing Boulder coffeehouses, and teaching. He has climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; found work as an FAA-certificated commercial pilot, a California-licensed building contractor, a publishing editor, a practitioner of Aikido, and a college professor of English; among his many interdisciplinary pursuits are the design and building of Terrell Residence Library (recently renamed the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center at the University of Maine), writing Building It In Two Languages (a bilingual dictionary of construction terminology), aerial photo documentation of two dam removals (Great Works and Veazie) on the Penobscot River, and once a week since 1991 drafting an installment of A Word In Edgewise, his essay series addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives — and WERU’s oldest continuous short feature. When pandemics do not interfere, he does the Triple Crown of Maine open-water ocean swims (Peaks to Portland, Islesboro Crossing, and Nubble Light Challenge) and the Whitewater Downriver Point Series of the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization. RW is the father of two and the grandfather of three and lives with his partner Kathleen of 37 years and their two Maine Coons in Orono.
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Nature Notes: A Maine Naturalist Afield 11/30/25: A Conversation with Coco and Tracey Faber, 2025, Part 4
Host/Producer: Glen Mittelhauser
This episode is part 4 of an interview with Coco and Tracey Faber, who have spent the past decade working in Maine’s offshore seabird colonies. They reflect on broader patterns observed across years of fieldwork, including tern foraging strategies during food shortages, the recurring mid-July drop in forage fish, and the stark differences in survival between early- and late-hatched puffin chicks.
More information about Maine Natural History can be found at mainenaturalhistory.org.
About the hosts:
Glen Mittelhauser founded Maine Natural History Observatory (MNHO) in 2003 to fill the need for an organization that specializes in collecting, interpreting, and maintaining datasets for understanding changes in Maine’s plant and wildlife populations. Glen received his Bachelor’s in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic in 1989 with a focus in the biological sciences and received his Master of Science degree in Zoology (with a focus on ornithology and statistics) from the University of Maine in 2000. Glen was the Managing Editor for Northeastern Naturalist and Southeastern Naturalist for 18 years and has served as external graduate faculty for 3 graduate student committees at the University of Maine. Glen currently serves on the Baxter State Park Research Committee.
Logan Parker is an Ecologist residing in Waldo County, Maine. Logan started the Maine Nightjar Monitoring Project in 2017 and brought the project (and his passion for bird conservation) to MNHO when he joined the team in 2018. Logan is heavily involved in the ongoing Maine Bird Atlas where he both coordinates and participates in the project’s special species surveys. When “off the clock”, Logan enjoys birding, writing, gardening, and working alongside his wife, Hallee, on their off-grid home in the Maine woods. Logan is also a wildlife photographer and shares photos and field notes through his project, Here In The Wild.
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