Students could enroll outside their home districts, and public tuition dollars would flow to private religious schools, under education reforms laid out by the LePage administration in Skowhegan this morning. Besides expanded school choice, the administration is also pushing legislation to toughen and standardize teacher and principal evaluation statewide and expand career and technical education. Some praise the proposals as bold and innovative, but others dismiss them as divisive and unfair.

The Legislature's Appropriations Committee has unanimously approved a plan that closes a $120 million dollar gap in Medicaid programs through the end of June. But Gov. Paul LePage has threatened to veto the bill, which he says fails to restructure the costs of health care programs. Meanwhile, rank and file lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are viewing the plan cautiously.

A motion filed by former Independent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler in federal court today raises new questions about how much involvement Rosa Scarcelli had in establishing the "Cutler Files" Web site that attacked Cutler personally and professionally just prior to the 2010 general election. Scarcelli finished third in a five-way Democratic primary that same year. Her husband and former campaign consultant have acknowledged their roles in the anonymous Web site. Scarcelli continues to maintain she knew nothing about it. But Cutler's attorneys say emails between the three suggest otherwise.

Last night, a house fire in Canton took the life of 64-year-old Sherwood Campbell. Campbell lived there with his parents, and it's believed he died when he went back into the home to retrieve his dogs. According to The Associated Press, his parents were not home at the time. Town officials in Canton say there have been concerns about the safety of the house, and they were in the process of investigating them.

Last night, the wild and wooly contest for the Republican presidential nomination took another sharp turn, with Rick Santorum winning the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and a primary in Missouri. Will Santorum be able to keep up the momentum? Will Mitt Romney hold on to his front-runner status? Well, the next contest is in Maine, which has been holding caucuses around the state, and will announce a winner Saturday.

Maine Democrats are renewing their call for the state attorney general to release his findings into the investigation of state Treasurer Bruce Poliquin. State Rep. Mark Dion, a Portland Democrat, has asked the AG whether Poliquin's proposed expansion of his Popham Beach Club in Phippsburg violates constitutional provisions that bar the treasurer from engaging in business activities. Poliquin maintains he has not violated the business ban, but Dion says evidence he has uncovered contradicts that claim.

There's joy--and also a fair bit of despair--in school districts across Maine as officials sort through the latest budget projections from Augusta. Some hard-hit school departments will see their state aid go up, as part of an overall, $19 million increase in education funding. But many other districts face a loss of funding that will likely put programs and teaching jobs at risk.

A newly-proposed bill aims to crack down on Medicaid fraud. LD 1796 would allow citizens to sue anyone they think is defrauding the system and potentially reap a monetary reward. The federal government has had a similar law, called the False Claims Act, on the books for years, as do other states. The backers of Maine's bill say it's time to get on board, and there would be safeguards to prevent abuse.

A winter downhill race at a central Maine ski slope usually involves skis, poles, slalom gates and schussing. No ski equipment was in sight during Sunday's race at Lost Valley Ski Area in Auburn. Instead, racers hurtled down the slopes on bicycles. And it's a sport that's starting to gain traction in the world of mountain biking.

Positions are hardening between the governor's office and the Legislature over a budget-writing committee's plan to plug a $220 million hole in the state's Medicaid budget. Legislators on both sides of the aisle are trying to avoid cuts that they perceive as unnecessarily harsh to the elderly and low income. But they are cuts originally proposed by Gov. Paul LePage to reduce and eliminate benefits for about 65,000 Mainers. And the governor now says he will veto the budget if it does not make structural changes in the state's Medicaid programs.

Gov. Paul LePage is planning to reform the state's Workforce Investment System, a job retraining program for Maine workers. He says only 20 percent of the program's funding goes toward actual worker training, while the rest is spent on administrative costs. He'd like to cetnralize the workforce board and streamline costs. But some of the existing training boards say the changes are guided by misinformation.

Lobster fishermen are using more and more bait shipped in from out of state, due to the dwindling supply of herring. But there are questions being raised about the possible health risks this imported bait might pose for the lobster fishery in the Gulf of Maine. A bill that's expected to be approved by the Maine Legislature would give state officials the right to ban the use of certain freshwater species as bait if they're found to have dangerous levels of pathogens.

As the U.S. economy continues to crawl its way out of recession, advocates of the so-called "cooperative economy" see an opportunity. Cooperativism, with its democratic systems of worker ownership, is seen by some as an increasingly viable alternative to traditional capitalism. Among its advocates is Gar Alperovitz, a professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, and the author of "America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy."

A three-year-old program of the Maine Development Foundation aims to create "greener" downtowns--that is, downtowns that save existing historic buildings, provide links to hiking and biking trails and use land space efficiently, among other things. Roxanne Eflin, the foundation's program director. tells MPBN's Morning Edition host Irwin Gratz that the initiative offers matching funds to stretch its $225,000 budget.

The Maine Attorney General's office and the state Ethics Commission are moving forward with complaints filed by Democrats against Republican State Treasurer Bruce Poliquin. Questions have been raised about his decision to remain on the boards of several businesses while serving as a so-called constitutional officer of the State of Maine. MPBN State House Bureau Chief A.J. Higgins has some updated information on the complaint. He spoke minutes ago with Keith Shortall in Augusta.

Republicans in the Legislature today sidestepped a potentially explosive fight over voting rights. GOP members of the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee agreed to drop language in a bill requiring voters to produce state-approved photo identification at the polls. Critics of the idea said it could keep some people from the polls, particularly the elderly.

Ever since the FBI released a report last fall about the threat of gangs, a surprising statistic has surfaced about Maine: that there are up to 4,000 gang members in our state. Just last week, that number was used to bolster support for a potential bill that aims to suppress gang activity. But how accurate is that statistic?

The economy may not be growing as fast as most Americans would like. But there continue to be signs---both nationally and here in Maine---that things are getting better. On the macro level, employers across the country added 243,000 jobs last month, lowering the unemployment rate and beating analyst expectations. On the micro level, a popular RV and camping show at the Bangor Auditorium is back this weekend, after a two-year hiatus due to the the weak economy.

Divers resumed searching for evidence today in the case of missing Waterville toddler Ayla Reynolds at two separate locations in the central Maine town. It's been 48 days since she was reported missing from her home. State and local police remain tight-lipped about most of the details of their investigation so far. They say more than 700 tips have been received but they are starting to drop off. And Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey is renewing his call for anyone with any relevant information to report it and to collect the $30,000 reward that remains untouched.

A Portland-based treasure hunter says he's confident in his claim to about $3 billion worth of bullion which he says lies in a shipwreck off Cape Cod. Greg Brooks of Sub Sea Research, who hit the headlines two years ago when he led an aid shipment to Haiti, says he followed maritime law "to the letter" after finding the wreck of the SS Port Nicholson.

Pressure is mounting on State Treasuer Bruce Poliquin to prove he is not a tax cheat. Lawmakers want Poliquin to disclose the details of the forest management and harvest plan he is using to keep 10 acres of the $3 million-dollar oceanside estate he owns in Georgetown under the protection of the Maine Tree Growth Tax Law. The property was was identified in a 2009 report by the Maine Forest Service as an example of potential misuse of the tree growth tax shelter program.

When the Maine Department of Environmental Protection recently suggested review and possible phasing out of Maine's first-in-the-nation product takeback programs it had meetings with industry but not with other stakeholders or input from key staff who manage the programs. That is one of the findings from a Freedom of Access request for emails, memos and other correspondence at the DEP over the past year.  Two industry insiders apparently felt so emboldened by the incoming Repubican administration that they also discussed trying to have a DEP staffer fired.

How much money schools in the University of Maine system get from the state could soon be dependent upon the number of students that graduate and how many freshmen return for sophmore year. Last month, UMaine's board of trustees decided to hire a consultant to come up with a plan that would tie funding to performance. Gov. Paul LePage nudged board members in this direction in a letter last September, noting the state's severe budget constraints and calling on the system to embrace bold funding reforms. Jay Field talked with Doug Lederman about efforts in other states to tie university funding to performance. Ledermen is an editor at the online magazine Inside Higher Ed in Washington.

One of the longest-running Occupy movement encampments in the country is poised to come to an end. A Maine Superior Court judge has rejected Occupy Maine's request for a preliminary injunction to stop the city of Portland from evicting protesters from Lincoln Park -- the movement's home for the last four months.

Regional fisheries regulators are debating how much they should cut the Gulf of Maine cod quota this year. They're currently debating a motion that would impose cuts of about 15 percent beginning May 1. This would be an emergency measure, giving fisheries scientists more time to work on a full assessment. Today's meeting was dominated by discussion of a 2011 Cod Assessment that suggested cod populations are much lower than previously thought.