RACIST ISLANDS RENAMED
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine has changed the names of three islands that included a racist slur against Black people, 43 years after a state law banned the use of the word in place names. The Portland Press Herald reports that state officials also instructed two other localities to change the names of two islands that include a derogatory word for a Native American woman. A state law first passed in 1977, and updated in 2001 and 2009, bans the use of certain racial slurs in place names in Maine. Officials did not provide a reason the names had not been changed.