By Isabella Caprio — Private landowners are ending Maine’s tradition of public access to its beaches. Shorefront owners have harassed and called the police on people trying to make a living, conducting vital research, or simply taking a walk, even badgering children playing in the sand. If this hasn’t been you yet, it soon could be.

By Chris Burrell — Massachusetts should be a beach lover’s paradise, but access to the state’s shores is deeply uneven. Entry to most beaches is dependent on personal wealth, your home zip code and a shrinking allotment of “visitor” parking spaces clustered far from the water and a system of parking restrictions aimed at out-of-towners.

By Brian Amaral — Rhode Island lawmakers could actually redefine the rights of the “shore” further landward than the law does now, said Michael C. Blumm, professor at the Lewis & Clark Law School