Voters will be asked at their May 9 annual town meeting to authorize borrowing $3 million to build a broadband Internet network for the island.

Waterfronts and those coastal towns that bustle with visitors in the summer tend to go quiet after the new year dawns. But that doesn't mean decisions affecting those waterfronts and towns aren't being made.

Prompted in part by a city ordinance, Mike Roylos has invented the "Sidewalk Buttler", an ashtray for the times that's becoming a fixture around town.

The Icelandic company Eimskip has facilities across the world and recently moved most of its U.S. operation to Portland, offering direct container shipping to Europe, a service not available in Maine since the 1980s.

Belfast's Front Street Shipyard has been the biggest thing to happen to the city's waterfront since the poultry plant was demolished in the late 1990s and the high-end yacht service yard is poised to expand again.