By PATRICK WHITTLE and HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press

Survivors of Maine’s deadliest mass shooting and relatives of victims are suing the federal government, alleging that the U.S. Army could and should have stopped one of its reservists from carrying out what they call “one of the most preventable mass tragedies in American history.”

Eighteen people were killed in October 2023 when Robert Card opened fire at a bowling alley and a bar and grill. An independent commission appointed by Maine’s governor later concluded that there were numerous opportunities for intervention by both Army officials and civilian law enforcement as Card’s mental health deteriorated. He was found dead by suicide two days after the shootings.

FILE – A woman visits a makeshift memorial outside Sparetime Bowling Alley, the site of a mass shooting, in this Oct. 28, 2023 file photo, in Lewiston, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

The lawsuit, filed in federal court on behalf of more than 100 survivors and victims’ family members, accuses the U.S. government of negligence, saying its conduct “directly and proximately caused the mass shooting.” It alleges that Army officials and others “failed to act reasonably, broke the promises they made to Card’s family and their community, violated mandatory polices, procedures and disregarded directives and orders.”

“By March 2023, the United States and its personnel knew Card was paranoid, delusional, violent, and lacked impulse control. The Army knew he had access to firearms. The Army promised to remove his guns but did not fulfill that promise,” the lawsuit states. “Worse, through its acts and omissions, the Army withheld information and actively misled local law enforcement, thereby preventing others from intervening and separating Card from his weapons.”

Attorneys plan to provide more details Wednesday at a news conference in Lewiston, not far from where the shootings took place.

The attorneys began the process of suing the government a little less than a year ago when they filed notices of claim, saying the Army did not act despite being aware of Card’s mental health decline. Card’s mental health spiral led to his hospitalization and left him paranoid, delusional and expressing homicidal ideations, the claim said. He even produced a “hit list” of those he wanted to attack, attorneys have said.

Family members and fellow reservists said Card had exhibited delusional and paranoid behavior months before the shootings. He was hospitalized by the Army during training in July 2023 in New York, where his unit was training West Point cadets, but Army Reserve officials have acknowledged that no one made sure Card was taking his medication or complying with his follow-up care at home in Bowdoin, Maine.

Related Articles

Today in History: September 3, Treaty of Paris ends Revolutionary War

Disney to pay $10 million fine after FTC says it allowed data collection on kids

Google avoids breakup in search monopoly case, but judge orders other changes in landmark ruling

Firefighters question leaders’ role in Washington immigration raid

Amazon ends a program that lets Prime members share free shipping perk with users outside household

The starkest warning came in a September text from a fellow reservist: “I believe he’s going to snap and do a mass shooting.”

“From the start, the Army disregarded its mandatory policies and procedures, and regulations when dealing with Card,” the lawsuit states. “Despite the serious issues Card presented at the company or battalion level, they were not reported up the chain of command to senior military officials with the knowledge, experience, and resources to address them. Instead, low-ranking, part-time personnel mis-managed the risks, resulting in disastrous consequences.”

Army officials conducted their own investigation after the shootings that Lt. Gen. Jody Daniels, then the chief of the Army Reserve, said found “a series of failures by unit leadership.” Three Army Reserve leaders were disciplined for dereliction of duty, according to the report. When the governor’s commission released its final report last August, the Army issued a statement saying it was “committed to reviewing the findings and implementing sound changes to prevent tragedies like this from recurring.”

The Lewiston shootings led to new guns laws in Maine, a state with a long tradition of hunting and gun ownership. The laws prompted legal action on the part of gun rights advocates in the state and remain a contentious topic nearly two years after the shootings.

By DAVID A. LIEB, Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri lawmakers are meeting in a special session to redraw the state’s U.S. House districts as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to bolster Republicans’ chances of retaining control of Congress in next year’s elections.

The special session called by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe is scheduled to begin at noon Wednesday and will run at least a week.

Related Articles

Trump cannot use Alien Enemies Act to deport members of Venezuelan gang, appeals court rules

Trump says video showing items thrown from White House is AI after his team indicates it’s real

House committee releases some Justice Department files in Epstein case, but most already public

Trump addresses health rumors after days without public events

Trump says he will order federal intervention in Chicago and Baltimore despite local opposition

Missouri is the third state to pursue the unusual task of mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage. Republican-led Texas, prodded by Trump, was the first to take up redistricting with a new map aimed at helping Republicans pick up five more congressional seats.

But before Texas even completed its work, Democratic-led California already had fought back with its own redistricting plan designed to give Democrats a chance at winning five more seats. California’s plan still needs voter approval at a Nov. 4 election.

Other states could follow with their own redistricting efforts.

Nationally, Democrats need to gain three seats next year to take control of the House. Historically, the party of the president usually loses seats in the midterm congressional elections.

What is redistricting?

At the start of each decade, the Census Bureau collects population data that is used to allot the 435 U.S. House seats proportionally among states. States that grow relative to others may gain a House seat at the expense of states where populations stagnated or declined. Though some states may have their own restrictions, there is nothing nationally that prohibits states from redrawing districts in the middle of a decade.

In many states, congressional redistricting is done by state lawmakers, subject to approval by the governor. Some states have special commissions responsible for redistricting.

What is gerrymandering?

Partisan gerrymandering occurs when a political party in charge of the redistricting process draws voting district boundaries to its advantage.

One common method is for a majority party to draw a map that packs voters who support the opposing party into only a few districts, thus allowing the majority party to win a greater number of surrounding districts. Another common method is for the majority party to dilute the power of an opposing party’s voters by spreading them thinly among multiple districts.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts have no authority to decide whether partisan gerrymandering goes too far. But it said state courts still can decide such cases under their own laws.

How could Missouri’s districts change?

Missouri currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Republicans and two Democrats. A revised map proposed by Kehoe would give Republicans a shot at winning seven seats in the 2026 elections.

It targets a Kansas City district, currently held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, by stretching it eastward into Republican-leaning rural areas. Meanwhile, other parts of Cleaver’s district would be split off and folded into heavily Republican districts currently represented by GOP Reps. Mark Alford and Sam Graves. Districts also would be realigned in the St. Louis area but with comparatively minor changes to the district held by Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell.

Republican lawmakers had considered a potential 7-1 map when originally drawing districts after the 2020 census. But the GOP majority opted against it because of concerns it could face legal challenges and create more competitive districts that could backfire in a poor election year by allowing Democrats to win up to three seats.

Could other states join the redistricting battle?

Mid-decade redistricting must occur in Ohio, according to its constitution, because Republicans there adopted congressional maps without sufficient bipartisan support. That could create an opening for Republicans to try to expand their 10-5 seat majority over Democrats.

A court in Utah has ordered the Republican-controlled Legislature to draw new congressional districts after ruling that lawmakers circumvented an independent redistricting commission established by voters to ensure districts don’t deliberately favor one party. A new map could help Democrats, because Republicans currently hold all four of the state’s U.S. House seats.

Other Republican-led states, such as Indiana and Florida, are considering redistricting at Trump’s urging. Officials in Democratic-led states, such as Illinois, Maryland and New York, also have talked of trying to counter the Republican push with their own revised maps.

What else is at stake in Missouri?

A special session agenda set by Kehoe also includes proposed changes to Missouri’s ballot measure process.

One key change would make it harder for ballot initiatives to succeed. If approved by voters, Missouri’s constitution would be amended so that all future ballot measures would need not only a majority of the statewide vote but also a majority of the votes in each congressional district in order to pass.

If such a standard had been in place last year, an abortion-rights amendment to the state constitution would have failed. That measure narrowly passed statewide on the strength of “yes” votes in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas but failed in rural congressional districts.

Today is Wednesday, Sept. 3, the 246th day of 2025. There are 119 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 3, 1783, representatives of the United States and Britain signed the Treaty of Paris, which officially ended the Revolutionary War and recognized U.S. sovereignty.

Also on this date:

In 1861, during the Civil War, Confederate forces invaded the border state of Kentucky, which had declared its neutrality in the conflict.

Related Articles

Disney to pay $10 million fine after FTC says it allowed data collection on kids

Google avoids breakup in search monopoly case, but judge orders other changes in landmark ruling

Firefighters question leaders’ role in Washington immigration raid

Amazon ends a program that lets Prime members share free shipping perk with users outside household

Trump says he will order federal intervention in Chicago and Baltimore despite local opposition

In 1894, the United States celebrated the first federal Labor Day holiday.

In 1935, Sir Malcolm Campbell became the first person to drive an automobile more than 300 mph (480 kph), speeding across the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

In 1939, Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland; in a radio address, Britain’s King George VI said, “With God’s help, we shall prevail.”

In 1943, Allied forces invaded Italy during World War II, the same day Italian officials signed a secret armistice with the Allies.

In 1976, America’s Viking 2 lander touched down on Mars to take the first close-up, color photographs of the red planet’s surface.

In 1999, a French judge closed a two-year inquiry into the car crash that killed Princess Diana, dismissing all charges against nine photographers and a press motorcyclist, and concluding the crash was caused by an inebriated driver.

In 2019, Walmart said it would stop selling ammunition for handguns and short-barrel rifles, and the store chain requested that customers not openly carry firearms in its stores; the announcement followed a shooting at a Walmart store in Texas that left 22 people dead.

Today’s Birthdays:

Singer-musician Al Jardine (The Beach Boys) is 82.
Actor Valerie Perrine is 82.
Filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet is 72.
Rock guitarist Steve Jones (The Sex Pistols) is 70.
Actor Steve Schirripa (TV: “The Sopranos”) is 67.
Author Malcolm Gladwell is 62.
Actor Charlie Sheen is 60.
Filmmaker Noah Baumbach is 56.
Actor Garrett Hedlund is 41.
Olympic gold medal snowboarder Shaun White is 39.
Model-actor Kaia Gerber is 24.
Actor Jack Dylan Grazer is 22.

The sparse crowd at Target Field on Tuesday night was not shy about making its feelings known. As things went from bad to worse for the hometown team and the Twins continued to fall into a progressively deeper hole against the team with the American League’s worst record, the boobirds came out.

An announced crowd of 11,721 fans — along with more than 300 canine friends — watched the Twins get routed by the Chicago White Sox, falling 12-3 in the second game of the series at Target Field as they gave up 11 unanswered runs.

“I’m going to stay optimistic most of the time, but that wasn’t good,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

A pair of errors on throws to second base proved costly for the Twins, who gave up two runs in the fifth and two more in the sixth before the White Sox (51-88) broke the game open with four runs in the seventh and then added three more in the eighth.

The Twins (62-76) actually had two separate early leads, striking first after Trevor Larnach knocked in Byron Buxton, who tripled to lead off the bottom of the first. After Simeon Woods Richardson served up a game-tying home run in the top of the second, Mickey Gasper’s stolen base put him in scoring position and Ryan Fitzgerald brought him home.

But things unraveled a few innings later.

With a runner on first in the fifth inning, White Sox right fielder Will Robertson hit a ball back at Woods Richardson, his bat splintering in the process. The barrel flew back at the pitcher, who to ducked and tried to dodge it but his throw to second to get the lead runner sailed over Brooks Lee’s head and into the outfield. The bat did actually nick Woods Richardson during the play, striking him in the neck.

“I was actually trying to focus on both (the bat and the ball) at the same time, but still got to execute a throw,” Woods Richardson said. “I know the internal clock speeds up on anybody and everybody at that point, but you’ve still got to make a better throw.”

Instead of a double play, the error left runners on the corners for Bryan Ramos, the very next batter, who hit a double to bring home both runs and tie the game up at three apiece.

An inning later, after Thomas Hatch issued a leadoff walk, he induced a groundball to third but Austin Martin couldn’t hang onto Fitzgerald’s throw with the ball ticking off his glove, setting the stage for another two-run inning that put the Twins into a deficit from which they would not be able to overcome.

“We make those plays, which are plays that we should make, you never know how the game ends up,” Baldelli said. “We could end up in a really good spot at that point. The fundamentals are going to be the things that we continue to talk about and preach.”

Four more runs scored in the seventh, starting with back-to-back home runs from Kyle Teel and Lenyn Sosa. Four more hits — and two more runs followed — before Hatch got out of the inning and an inning later, Noah Davis served up an Andrew Benintendi three-run home run, eliciting displeasure from the crowd.

“I don’t think anyone felt good leaving the field today, walking off the field,” Baldelli said. “Definitely frustrating, but we have to get over it.”