Yikes

Wow: PORTLAND, Maine - Every day for the last 20 years, shortly after 5 a.m., Mayor Ed Suslovic has stepped through his front door in an undershirt and boxers to begin a ritual that defines his day. He picks up the morning paper.

Then, sitting at his kitchen table, he peruses the paper for items people might talk about and for any that have to do with him or his fellow city councilors. He checks the obituaries for people he knows.

"I feel like my day hasn't started right if I don't have a newspaper," he said.

But he and thousands of others in Maine's largest city are confronting the possibility that the paper could soon stop landing on front porches and that Portland could become one of the first American cities to lose its daily newspaper. The Portland Press Herald said in court papers last month that it is hemorrhaging so badly that it may have to be dismantled if it isn't sold. The documents are part of an ongoing dispute between the paper's owners and its editorial union.