The ruling sides with the state’s housing department, which argued through lawyers Tuesday that it had no more funds — and is on track to run into the red — to continue expanding shelter capacity in the face of surging demand partly fueled by the number of migrant arrivals this year and suffocating housing costs.

Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Debra Squires-Lee handed down her ruling a day after the Healey administration issued emergency regulations that call for a waitlist once capacity is reached and potentially limit the amount of time families can stay in shelters.

In her ruling, Squires-Lee said the Healey administration did not violate a provision included in the state’s fiscal 2024 budget that calls for a 90-day notice to the Legislature before making any changes to emergency shelter eligibility requirements.

The notice, Squires-Lee wrote in court documents, is intended to afford the Legislature the opportunity to appropriate funding for the shelter program.

“The evidence before me, however, is clear — more than a month ago, the governor specifically requested additional appropriations for the emergency assistance program and the Legislature has failed to act,” the judge wrote. “In these circumstances, the predicate purpose of the 90-day proviso has been fulfilled; and, in all events, it is for the Legislature and not clients of the program to enforce any claimed non-compliance.”

The ruling all but guarantees uncertainty for families who apply for emergency shelter after the 7,500-family shelter cap is reached, something the administration has said could happen within days. There were 7,388 families in the system as of Tuesday, according to state data.

Lawyers for Civil Rights, the group behind the lawsuit, laid out a grim picture of what would happen if a temporary pause on the capacity plan was not put in place — migrants and homeless families could end up sleeping outside as cold weather sets in.

“Without an injunction, families, children, and pregnant women who are entitled to emergency shelter under the law will be denied a roof over their heads — forced to sleep on the streets, in cars, and in other unsafe situations. There is no other way to put it. That is the grim reality,” Attorney Oren Sellstrom wrote in court documents. “The harms that will befall them are harsh and irreparable.”

A spokesperson for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities said the department believes “an appropriate outcome was reached.”

“The state does not have enough space, service providers or funding to safely expand shelter capacity,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Attorneys on both sides of the issue spent much of the court hearing Tuesday focused on the 90-day requirement, which says the executive branch must provide notice to the Legislature that they are making any regulatory, administrative practice, or policy changes that would “alter the eligibility” of emergency shelter benefits.

Sellstrom said emergency regulations partially outlining what happens when the shelter cap is reached were “rushed” at the eleventh hour only after the Healey administration was sued to challenge their compliance.

“Defendants are rushing drastic and material changes to the state’s long standing emergency assistance program into place, disregarding well-established laws that require an orderly process — in particular, a mandate that requires defendants to give the Legislature a 90-day period to weigh in and potentially forestall the changes altogether,” Sellstrom wrote in court documents.

But Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office argued that provision “is not privately enforceable” into a 90-day delay of emergency measures to address budget shortfalls.

Squires-Lee sided with state lawyers, writing in her ruling that Lawyers for Civil Rights provided “no case in which a court has ever held that an agency that fails to comply with such a proviso may be barred from taking action within the ambit of its statutory and regulatory authority.”

Healey has requested additional funding for emergency shelters beyond the $325 million allocated to the program in the fiscal 2024 state budget. In a separate bill closing out the books on fiscal 2023, Healey asked lawmakers to approve $250 million in additional funding.

Squires-Lee points to that request in her ruling, and notes the Legislature has not moved forward the extra dollars.

“The failure to give notice has not injured plaintiffs where notice is intended to permit the Legislature to act or not act, and the Legislature, having actual notice of the fiscal crisis, has failed to act,” Squires-Lee wrote.

Squires-Lee also agreed with a state-backed argument that she does not have the power to force the Healey administration to spend money the Legislature has not appropriated.

“As much as I wish that I possessed the power to ensure that all families who need housing have it, and that all families who require safe emergency shelter are given it, I am persuaded that it would be inappropriate to order EOHLC to continue providing emergency shelter it does not have the resources appropriated by the Legislature to fund,” the judge wrote.

In a signed affidavit filed in Suffolk County Superior Court, Administration and Finance Assistant Secretary Aditya Basheer laid out the projected cost as a judge weighed whether to put a hold on a plan to cap the number of families in emergency shelter, which has swelled this year partly because of a surge in migrant arrivals.

“If family shelter net caseload continues to expand at a rate consistent with the activity of the last several months, the state projects a shelter caseload of approximately 13,500 families by the end of (fiscal year 2024),” Basheer wrote. “This would represent a 187% increase over the caseload contemplated in the FY24 budget. This projected caseload would result in family shelter and associated programs costs of approximately $1.1 billion in FY24.”

Lawmakers on Beacon Hill shuttled $325 million to the emergency shelter program in the fiscal 2024 state budget to support 4,100 families, and Gov. Maura Healey has asked the Legislature for $250 million more in a budget that closes the books on the previous fiscal year.

But state lawyers have said the emergency shelter program has $535 million “in contract commitments” to shelter and other service providers through the end of fiscal 2024. The program is expected to quickly run out of money, and even into the red.

The state’s housing department is attempting to limit the number of families in emergency shelter to 7,500, a move that has drawn a legal challenge from Lawyers for Civil Rights, which argues the Healey administration did not follow proper procedures laid out in state law.

There were 7,388 families in emergency shelters as of Tuesday, according to state data, with 3,687 in hotels and motels, 3,683 in traditional sites, and 63 in temporary shelters like Joint Base Cape Cod and a Quincy college dorm building.

Graphs included in Basheer’s affidavit also show the state expects about 1,000 families to enter emergency shelter each month through the end of fiscal 2024 — assuming the system was constantly expanded.

“Along with the explosive growth in shelter demand over the past year, there has been a widening gap between ‘entries’ (the number of families entering shelter each month) and ‘exits’ (the number of families exiting each month,” Basheer said. “This means that the current levels of pressure on the emergency assistance program are trending to be long-term in nature, with the families entering shelter today expected to remain until at least FY25.”

The Healey administration informed state lawmakers of that projection earlier this year in a series of meetings on migrant arrivals and the emergency shelter system.

Lawyers argued in court Tuesday over whether the state has enough money to continue funding shelter expansion — often through the use of hotels and motels — if a pause was put in place, with state attorneys pointing to the likelihood of a deficit.

“What they ask is not a preservation of the status quo, but, instead, the continued procurement of EA shelter placements to meet new entrants numbering between 20 and 50 additional families per day, despite insufficient appropriations to do so,” Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office wrote in court documents.

Lawyers for Civil Rights laid out a grim picture of what would happen if a temporary pause on the capacity plan was not put in place — migrants and homeless families sleeping outside as cold weather sets in.

“Without an injunction, families, children, and pregnant women who are entitled to emergency shelter under the law will be denied a roof over their heads — forced to sleep on the streets, in cars, and in other unsafe situations. There is no other way to put it. That is the grim reality,” the group wrote in court documents. “The harms that will befall them are harsh and irreparable.”

Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus said the system’s expansion rate is “unsustainable” just as a judge was weighing whether to temporarily pause a Healey administration plan to cap the number of families in shelters at 7,500.

Low turnover rates and the push to find enough units to accommodate everyone is behind the high estimate, he added.

“At current rates of entries into and exits from emergency assistance shelter, the number of eligible families in shelter would continue to increase to more than 13,000 households in shelter by fiscal year end (if sufficient shelter units could be found to accommodate that many households),” Augustus wrote.

He added: “With the average length of stay growing each month (averaging 13.6 months as of the first quarter of fiscal year 2024), the pressure on the emergency assistance program will be long-term in nature, with the families entering shelter today expected to remain through fiscal year 2025.”

Demand for emergency assistance shelter is primarily driven by a surge in newly arrived migrant families, high cost and limited availability of housing, and reduced exists of families in long-term emergency shelters stays, Augustus wrote.

The situation has become so dire, the Healey administration has argued, that not only is funding drying up, but the emergency shelter system is projected to run into the red by roughly $210 million by the end of fiscal year 2024.

“This projected deficiency does not include additional resources needed for wraparound services, school supports, and community supports,” Augustus wrote.

Lawmakers and Healey allocated $325 million for the system in the fiscal 2024 state budget, which was expected to support 4,100 families and 4,700 housing units.

There were 7,389 families in the system as of Tuesday, with 3,671 in hotels and motels, 3,641 in traditional shelters, and 77 in temporary sites like Joint Base Cape Cod and a Quincy college dorm building.

“It is no longer possible to secure additional space that is suitable and safe for use as shelter beyond a capacity of 7,500 families,” Augustus wrote. “The commonwealth does not have enough space, service providers, or funds to safely expand shelter capacity any longer.”

Administration officials previously projected that 1,000 families could enter the emergency shelter system each month.

Suffolk County Judge Debra Squires-Lee did not make an immediate ruling on a request to temporarily halt Gov. Maura Healey’s shelter capacity plan, and is now weighing whether those seeking housing should be placed on a waitlist or if the state should temporarily be forced to spend money it argues it does not have to expand the system.

Squires-Lee said she expected to issue a decision Wednesday on Lawyers on the call for a preliminary injunction just as the state inched closer to Healey’s 7,500-family-limit. More than 7,330 migrant and homeless families were in the system as of Monday, according to state data.

Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a lawsuit last week asking for the preliminary injunction as housing and homeless advocates rallied against the governor’s threshold and the administration moved to make the matter permanent through emergency regulations.

In court Tuesday, lawyers largely focused on a 90-day notice requirement in the fiscal 2024 state budget that directs the executive branch to produce a report for the Legislature before making any regulatory, administrative practice, or policy changes that would “alter the eligibility” of emergency shelter benefits.

The report needs to justify any changes, including with any determination that available funding “will be insufficient to meet projected expenses,” attorneys argued.

Lawyers for Civil Rights Attorney Jacob Love said the administration did not meet that requirement as it moved forward with the shelter capacity plan or when it issued emergency regulations only hours before the court hearing.

“In the absence of immediate intervention by this court in the form of a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction, homeless families with children will be denied immediate shelter placement and left out in the cold,” Love said. “At a minimum, we’re asking for a temporary restraining order to preserve the status quo until the court can schedule a full preliminary injunction hearing.”

But Healey and the state’s housing department argued Massachusetts has neither the funds, capacity, nor personnel to keep expanding the emergency shelter system with migrant arrivals still surging and housing costs pressuring local residents.

Assistant Attorney General Kimberly Parr said “there is no money” to expand the system and there is debate “about whether or not the notice provision applies in these circumstances.”

“To start with the facts on the ground, this is no surprise to the Legislature or the people in Massachusetts. The executive branch has emphasized the financial constraints and the acute spike in shelter demand many times in recent months and weeks,” Parr said.

Squires-Lee questioned Parr on how long it would take for the administration to fully run out of money for emergency shelters “if we were to put a short stay in place, for example, to allow the plaintiffs to deal with this … emergency regulation” and bring forward other arguments.

Parr said she could not estimate the timeline but “what we can say is, any delay in implementing these measures will drive the line item further into deficiency.”

“It may seem as though, put a pause on this, wait another week or two,” Parr said. “But given the number of people who are entering the shelter system each day, which seems to be between 20 or 50 families each day, that’ll add up very quickly. And it’s very expensive to find these units, and to shelter these families.”

The fiscal 2024 budget allocated $325 million for the emergency shelter system, and Healey asked earlier this fall for an additional $250 million to help maintain services. But lawmakers have so far sat idle on the spending bill that includes those shelter dollars.

In their lawsuit, Lawyers for Civil Rights argued the Healey administration planned to “artificially cap” the emergency shelter system, place families on a waitlist rather than find them accommodations, and prioritize families with “certain yet-to-be-defined ‘health and safety risks,’” the lawsuit said.

“These changes will necessarily delay the provision of benefits to shelter-eligible families, such as plaintiffs and those similarly situated, thereby denying them shelter and perpetuating the myriad harms caused by homelessness,” the lawsuit said.

The court hearing concluded what had become a busy afternoon by the time lawyers filed into the Suffolk County Superior Courthouse. Only hours before, the Healey administration released emergency regulations that outlined the process for implementing an emergency shelter cap.

The regulations called for a written declaration that identifies the maximum capacity for the emergency shelter system, which Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus released shortly after the rules were on file with the secretary of state’s office.

Augustus said the emergency shelter system had $535 million in “commitments” to pay through the end of the fiscal year, which would bring it into the red by about $210 million if it did not receive a cash infusion.

“The current rate of expansion in the emergency assistance program is unsustainable,” Augustus wrote.

The regulations were filed with Secretary of State William Galvin’s office by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, according to a Galvin spokesperson.

The proposed update adds a new section to emergency shelter regulations that details what would happen if the “shelter system is unable to serve all eligible families,” according to a copy provided to the Herald.

The suggested rules change call for a “written declaration” that “in light of legislative appropriations, the shelter system is no longer able to meet all current and projected demand for shelter from eligible families considering the facts and circumstances then existing in the commonwealth.”

The declaration would need to identify a maximum program emergency shelter system capacity “which the director (the secretary) determines the shelter system can attain and that the shelter system shall not be required to exceed during the term of the declaration.”

“The declaration shall have an initial time limit of 120 days after it is issued but may be extended for additional periods of up to 120 days if the Director (the Secretary) determines that the shelter system is still unable to meet all current and projected demand for shelter from eligible families in light of legislative appropriations,” the proposed regulations said.

The regulations also outline the process of administering and maintaining a waitlist for families looking to access emergency shelter.

The Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities filed the regulations only hours before lawyers were scheduled to attend a court hearing where a judge could rule on a request to temporarily pause a plan to limit capacity in the emergency shelter system.

Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a lawsuit last week and requested a preliminary injunction on the self-imposed emergency shelter capacity limit, a move that riled homeless and housing advocates who say it will force some families to live outside as colder weather sets in.

But Gov. Maura Healey and the state’s housing department argue Massachusetts has neither the funds, capacity, nor personnel to keep expanding the emergency shelter system through a sweeping network of hotels and motels. State officials projected capacity could be reached as early as Wednesday.

During a radio interview, Healey said her administration filed emergency regulations Wednesday pertaining to the waitlist and emergency shelter operations, an apparent move to combat arguments from Lawyers for Civil Rights who said the state did not follow proper procedures to change emergency shelter rules.

“I continue to call for relief from the federal government. We need help with staffing. We need help with funding. And again, it’s a federal problem that we’re having to deal with as states,” Healey said on WBUR.

Some shelter providers have backed the emergency shelter cap, saying a system designed to handle about 3,000 families each year has been pushed to its limits by a surge of migrant arrivals from other counties.

Healey said earlier this month the shelter system can handle no more than 7,500 families, and those who apply for temporary housing after the cap is reached will be placed on a waitlist. She has petitioned the Legislature for an extra $250 million for the emergency shelter system, a request House lawmakers have put on hold as they seek more data.

This is a developing story…

Hundreds of law enforcement officials spent roughly two days searching the region for Robert Card, who was found dead Friday evening from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to authorities.

From the first 911 calls at 6:56 p.m. Wednesday to when Card was found dead at 7:45 p.m. Friday, here is a timeline of events related to the mass shooting in Maine.

Wednesday, Oct. 25

6:56 p.m. – The Auburn Communications Center receives a 911 call reporting a male shooting a firearm at Just-In-Time Recreation at 24 Mollison Way. Plainclothes officers who were shooting at a range down the street arrive at the bowling alley just a minute after the call came in, officials said.

7 p.m. – Officials said the first police cruiser arrives at Just-In-Time Recreation.

7:08 p.m. – The Auburn Communications Center receives multiple 911 calls for an active shooter inside the Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant at 551 Lincoln St.

7:13 p.m. – The first Lewiston police officer arrives at Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant. The response became “exponential after that,” said Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck.

7:24 p.m. – Central Maine Medical Center, an area hospital, receives its first patients and over the next 45 minutes the hospital receives 14 more. Eight were admitted to the hospital, three died, two were discharged home, and one was transferred to Maine Medical Center.

8:09 p.m. – Maine State Police advise residents via social media that there is an active shooter situation in Lewiston. Law enforcement told residents to shelter in place with doors locked and call 911 if they see any suspicious activity.

Around 11:30 p.m. – Maine authorities, including Sauschuck, hold a televised briefing to provide the first details of the mass shooting and identify Robert Card, born April 4, 1983, of Bowdoin, as a person of interest in the shooting. Police said Card is considered “armed and dangerous.” The shelter-in-place order in Lewiston remains and is expanded to the nearby town of Lisbon.

Over the evening – A reunification center is established at Auburn Middle School and families start arriving to find or check the status of loved ones. 

Also during the evening – Police find a “vehicle of interest” in Lisbon that would later be tied to Card and said to be located at the Paper Mills Trail and Miller Park Boat Launch on Frost Hill Avenue. A long rifle is found in the car.

Thursday, Oct. 26

10:15 a.m. – Massachusetts State Police said they are aware of no link between Card and Massachusetts after “unsubstantiated” reports said the man had possibly crossed state lines.

10:45 a.m. – Authorities hold another briefing with Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who says it is “a dark day for Maine” and “no words can truly or fully measure the grief of Maine people today.” The shelter-in-place order extends to Bowdoin and police said they issued an arrest warrant for Card for eight counts of murder.

During the day – A cascading series of closures and lockdowns spread across Southern Maine, with schools keeping students home, shops shuttering their doors, and businesses largely keeping doors locked for the day. Law enforcement continue their hunt for Card.

During the afternoon – Mainers in Lewiston publicly mourn the dead, with one local artist pinning heart-shaped posters to trees and light posts in the downtown area.

6 p.m. – U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Lewiston Democrat, said he is reversing his position on banning assault weapons, saying a horrific mass shooting in his hometown led him to believe the firearms should be prohibited.

During the evening – Law enforcement descend on a home in Bowdoin, the town where Card’s last known residence is located. Police at the scene order those inside the house to come out with their hands up. A Maine State Police spokesperson would later say law enforcement were there “as part of the investigation into the Lewiston shootings and the search for Robert Card.”

Friday, Oct. 27

During the morning – Residents in Lewiston, Auburn, Bowdoin, Monmouth, and Lisbon wake up still under lockdown as law enforcement make clear they are settling into an expansive evidence-gathering and manhunt operation.

During the day – Law enforcement divers are dispatched to the Androscoggin River to search for clues related to the mass shooting. Officials use sonars, remote-operated equipment, and aerial vehicles like planes or helicopters. A power company that operates two dams in the area planned to adjust the flow of water to help divers see more clearly.

Throughout the day – Investigators, including FBI agents, continue to collect and process evidence at Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant.

5 p.m. – Thousands of Mainers in Lewiston, Auburn, Bowdoin, Monmouth, and Lisbon are cleared from a shelter-in-place order, a decision officials said was taken after considering the negative impacts it had on locals.

Also at 5 p.m. – Maine officials identify all 18 victims of the mass shooting and the ages of the dead range from 14 to 76, and include multiple people who were related to each other.

7:45 p.m. – Card is found dead inside a box trailer parked in an overflow lot across from the Maine Recycling Corporation.

Around 10 p.m. – At a press conference, Mills informs the public that Card was found dead. “I stand here tonight to simply report that the Maine State Police have located the body of Robert Card in Lisbon. He is dead. I called President Biden to inform him about this news,” she said.

Saturday, Oct. 28

10 a.m. – State officials provide more details about the circumstances around the discovery of Card’s body, including that the location was previously searched twice before by police. Authorities said Card left a note in his residence to a loved one and was struggling with mental health issues.

Maine State Police found Robert Card’s body inside a box trailer parked in an overflow lot across the street from the Maine Recycling Corporation in Lisbon, an area that had not been checked when law enforcement previously searched the site two times.

The discovery of Card’s body brought to an end a massive manhunt that included hundreds of police from around the country canvassing communities around Lewiston, a search operation that kept the cities and towns in the immediate area on edge.

Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck said police cleared the trailers in the main part of the recycling center but did not know there was an overflow parking lot owned by the business, which had an “employment relationship” with Card.

Only until the business owner informed law enforcement that a parking lot across the street was part of the recycling center did police search the trailer where Card was ultimately found with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“The primary reason that we were back in that location is because, I will say this from a community policing, from a relationship standpoint, the owner of a business calls his police chief and says, ‘Hey, I want somebody to make sure that they’re clearing that,’ ” Sauschuck said.

Lisbon Police Chief Ryan McGee said officers cleared the recycling business at least once on Thursday but did not have the specific timeline of additional searches. The overflow lot had between 55 to 60 trailers full of crushed up plastic and metal, McGee said.

“This isn’t a lot that’s just all empty trailers,” he said at Lewiston City Hall. “I’m not going to get into more of the details on that. I mean, realistically, right now, we should all be really thinking about the victims.”

In the weeks before the mass shooting, police across Maine had been alerted to “veiled threats” by the U.S. Army reservist, the Associated Press reported. A statewide awareness alert was sent in mid-September to be on the lookout for Card after the firearms instructor made threats against his base and fellow soldiers, the AP reported. But after stepped-up patrols of the base and a visit to Card’s home – neither of which turned up any sign of him – they moved on.

It is still unclear what exactly pushed Card to kill 18 people and injure 13 others Wednesday at Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant, two local establishments in Lewiston.

There is a “mental health aspect” to the shootings, Sauschuck said, as well as “paranoia.” Investigators have “a lot of work yet to do” on Card’s phone and technology that could give insight into a motive, he said.

“I think of what I’ve read and what I’ve seen is that the individual felt like people were talking about him. It may even appear that there were some voices in play here. And we don’t believe that any of that is accurate. And I think that led him specifically back to those two specific locations,” Sauschuck said.

Authorities said they do not have any information that indicates the shooting was premeditated, with Sauschuck only telling reporters, “We know that there were two specific target locations.”

“He did go one to the other, he ditched his car in a specific spot. Again, maybe we’ll find additional information in one of these devices that says, ‘This is what my plan was.’ All we can do is look at what actually occurred,” he said.

A paper-style note written to a loved one was found at Card’s Bowdoin residence by law enforcement, Sauschuck said. The note included the passcode to Card’s phone and bank account information, authorities said.

The note was written with the “tone and tenor” that the author was not going to be around when it was found, Sauschuck said.

“I wouldn’t describe it as an explicit suicide note. But the tone and tenor was that the individual was not going to be around and wanted to make sure that this loved one had access to his phone and whatever was in his phone,” Sauschuck said.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Special Agent In Charge Jim Ferguson said the multiple firearms that were recovered were purchased legally by Card, including some “days before” the shootings.

“There’s been a number of firearms that have been recovered as part of this investigation and some of them have been purchased very recently and some of them years and years ago,” Ferguson said.

One long rifle was found in Card’s car, which he ditched at a boat launch in Lisbon, and two were located next to his body, authorities said. Officials did not have the exact makes and models of the weapons.

Card’s family was “incredibly cooperative” with police, Sauschuck said.

“Truth be told, I think the first three people that called us to positively identify this individual based on the photos that were released were family members,” he said. “… It would have been detrimental if they didn’t come forward immediately to let us know who this individual was.”

Several vigils were planned for the weekend, including one at 6 p.m. in Lisbon Saturday and another at 6:30 p.m. at the Franco Center in Lewiston.

McGee, the Lisbon police chief, said, “There’s going to be a candlelight vigil being held there in Lisbon to remember the victims that were tragically killed in Lewiston.”

So Diane, who declined to give her last name, decided to head to downtown Lewiston and open up the Paris Adult Bookstore and Head Shop, a 40-year-old business on Lisbon Street.

“I mean, we have to run a business. We have to make money … we can’t stay closed forever,” she told the Herald while sitting in the store as the shelter-in-place order persisted in the city and surrounding communities.

Lewiston residents appeared to start cautiously venturing out from their homes Friday, the second full day of a shelter-in-place order in the city that also saw law enforcement settle into a massive evidence-gathering and search operation.

The shelter-in-place order was lifted later in the afternoon after most businesses that were open had closed for the day. Officials said they understood the disruptive nature of the order but defended its use as a way to keep residents safe during a dangerous situation.

Authorities are still looking for Robert Card, a 40-year-old man they allege killed 18 people and injured 13 others at two shooting sites in Lewiston, a town of several thousand in Northern Maine that is roughly 140 miles away from Boston.

During the day, fast food restaurants in the city were open, though some with only drive-through windows serving customers. Noticeably more cars were driving up and down main roads compared to Thursday and locals were sitting outside buildings downtown and walking into some shops.

Diane said she was at the bookstore — just blocks away from the local police station — Wednesday when she heard sirens “just going off” around 7 p.m.  Diane said she usually closes the bookstore at 7:30 p.m. but decided to leave early after hearing the commotion.

“I stopped at the gas station down here to get cigarettes on my way home and that’s (when) they told me what was going on,” she said. “And I live on Pond Road and trying to get home was like crazy. You either had five cop cars behind you or five cars coming down this way.”

When Diane finally made it home, she stayed there until Friday morning.

“I couldn’t take it anymore,” she said, adding she spent Thursday tending to yardwork.

A handful of other businesses like Diane’s also decided to open up, with workers and owners telling the Herald they were tired of sitting idle.

Ryan Richards runs Sinsemilla, a cannabis dispensary with one retail location on Middle Street in downtown Lewiston. He said he closed the Lewiston store Thursday but opened it back up around 2 p.m. Friday to help customers who rely on cannabis as a medication.

“The only reason we did it is we keep hearing rumblings in the community like we have no place to go,” he said. “So as a business owner … I’m comfortable with the situation. So I was like, alright, we’ll go in there and stand there for the people to see what happens.”

Richards said employees in his roughly 100-person company have been personally affected by the mass shooting, with some losing people close to them in the killings.

“This is a small community,” he said. “Everybody knows somebody who got affected.”

A few streets over from Richards’ dispensary, Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline was moving a box from one building to the next. He told the Herald before the shelter-in-place order was lifted that it was “important that people stay home.”

“I understand that people are having urgent needs, like parents who need baby formula and people who need medication,” he said. “I realize that people want to get back to normal as quickly as possible but the manhunt is still ongoing, and we need to, as much as possible, observe the shelter-in-place order so that way law enforcement can do their work.”

Even with the warnings in place at the time, some people were carrying out their business in the city. One man was washing his car just after noon at a self service car wash as other vehicles started to pack local roads.

But only a few miles away, police were scouring the Androscoggin River with dive teams and helicopters for clues related to the mass shooting.

A flock of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents were gathering just across the street from the river at the St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. Down the road, law enforcement were crowding the bank of a small offshoot of the Androscoggin River.

Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck told reporters earlier in the day law enforcement planned to have a team of divers working in the river.

“We certainly don’t want to wait too long because the river is a big piece of this, the car was located there, evidence is located in the vehicle or right there along the shores of the Androscoggin River,” he said.

Families of those killed were notified, Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck said, and the photos used in a presentation at City Hall were approved by relatives.

Those killed include: Ronald Morin, 55; Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40; Joshua Seal, 36; Bryan MacFarlane, 41; Joseph Lawrence, 57; Arthur Fred Strout, 42; Maxx Hathaway, 35; Stephen Vozzella, 45; Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34; Michael Deslauriers II, 51; Jason Adam Walker, 51; Tricia Asselin, 53; William Young, 44; Aaron Young, 14; Robert Violette, 76; Lucille Violette, 73; William Frank Brackett, 48; and Keith Macneir, 64.

The suspect was found dead Friday night, officials said.

SEE ALL THE HERALD’S RELATED COVERAGE…

Tricia C. Asselin, 53, bowling alley

Asselin worked at the bowling alley, her 75-year-old mother told NPR, but was there to bowl with her sister Bobbi-Lynn Nichols, 57, when the tragedy struck.

The two sisters were talking when the shots rang out. The sisters ran toward an exit, their mother told the news outlet, but Tricia had stopped to call for help and was then shot.

Tricia, her mom said, was an athlete who played baseball and softball in high school and was even offered a college scholarship. Her athleticism continued throughout her life with frequent golf and fishing outings. She also volunteered with organizations including the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

William Frank Brackett, 43, bowling alley

“Billy was a son, a husband, a father, a uncle and a friend to many especially in the deaf community he loved so much,” a GoFundMe organized to help his family during this hard time states. “He loved darts, and has been competing for years, he loved cornhole, enjoyed fishing and hunting. He leaves behind his wife Kristina and his 2 1/2 year old daughter Sandra. They are grieve stricken with this sudden loss.”

Brackett was one of four victims that were a part of the deaf community, whether deaf themselves, a parent of a deaf child or an interpreter, which also included Bryan MacFarlane, Stephen Vozzella and interpreter Joshua Seal, that left the community “grieving deeply,” according to a Thursday night post by the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf Governor Baxter School for the Deaf.

Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40, Schemengees Bar and Grille

He was a pipefitter at Bath Iron Works, an organization that said it was left heartbroken by his death and sends “our deepest condolences, thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of our employee.”

A Bangor Daily News profile, which shared a photo of the smiling, bearded man holding a Superman action figure next to Brewer-Ross’ bicep tattoo of the superhero, revealed him to be a cornole player who was in the restaurant that night to participate in a tournament he was very excited to play.

Peyton’s elder brother Ralph Brewer said in a GoFundMe drive that Peyton was that night “doing one of the things he thought was so much fun — tossing around bean bags. He was playing cornhole with friends … when his life was cut short, way too short.”

The page states that most important to Peyton was his family. He leaves behind his partner in life Rachel, and their 2 year old daughter Elle. The loss of Peyton is devastating.”

Ralph Brewer told BDN that Peyton had “finally popped the question” and was engaged to his longtime partner Rachel. He had graduated from Maine Maritime Academy and was looking to purchase a house.

Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34, bowling alley

Conrad was not one of the names known until the press conference late Friday afternoon. A post by Adam Jordan, who has Facebook pictures indicating he was part of a bowling league, wrote that “Thomas Conrad tragically lost his life defending all of people in the shooting at Just in Time recreation. He leaves behind a 9 year old daughter.”

Michael R. Deslauriers II, 51, bowling alley

His sister Vicki Deslauriers Roy wrote on Facebook that “The loss of my brother leaves a gaping hole in our family. My brother was incredibly selfless, almost to a fault.”

“Yes, he was a smart ass and would never miss an opportunity to crack a joke at someone else’s expense, but he would happily give you the shirt off his back,” she continued. “I was not the least bit surprised to hear that he and his best friend since kindergarten lost their lives trying to protect others. I take comfort in knowing that they went together.”

Maxx A. Hathaway, 35, bowling alley

Hathaway was the father to two girls with another one on the way, according to a GoFundMe drive set up by one of his sisters, Keslay Hathaway. She described him as “a goofy, down to earth person, loved to joke around and always had an uplifting attitude no matter what was going on.”

She said the full-time, stay-at-home father’s interests included watching anime, playing games and playing pool.

Another sister, Courtney Hathaway, wrote on Facebook that she is “feeling a lot of things right now but I’m mostly heartbroken that he’s gone. Nothing really prepares you for the sudden and shocking loss of a loved one, especially when it happens in such a tragedy.”

Bryan M. MacFarlane, 41, Schemengees Bar and Grille

MacFarlane was another member of the deaf community who was playing cornhold when his life was cut short.

His sister, Keri Brooks, told CNN that her brother was one of the first deaf people to earn their commercial trucking licenses in Vermont and had only recently moved back to his home state of Maine. She said he loved riding his motorcycle and his dog, M&M.

Keith D. MacNeir, 64, bowling alley

The Herald was not able to independently verify information about MacNeir after his name was announced during the press conference Thursday.

Ronald G. Morin, 55, Schemengees Bar and Grille

Family member Cecile Francoeur described Ron Morin to the Bangor Daily News as a man who “was just always smiling,” adding that he was “just one of those people that if you are having a bad day, he was going to make your day better just by his presence.”

Joshua A. Seal, 36, Schemengees Bar and Grille

Seal was the director of American Sign Language interpreting for Auburn, Maine’s Pine Tree Society, an organization that says it is dedicated to “providing opportunities for growth and development for people with differing abilities.”

For those who knew him, his wife, Elizabeth Seal, wrote on Facebook, “first and foremost, he was the world’s BEST father to our four pups,” she said of their children, along with a collection of photos of the family, all smiles, on trips to the beach, the park, to Disney World and other places.

“Not only was he an amazing father, he was a wonderful husband, my best friend, and my soulmate,” she continued. “He was also a wonderful boss, an incredible interpreter, a great friend, a loving son, brother, uncle, and grandson. He loved his family and always put them first. That is what he will always be remembered for.”

Arthur Fred Strout, 42, Schemengees Bar and Grille

“Artie” Strout and his wife, Kristy, shared a blended family of five children, according to his brother, Tyler Barnard, who organized a GoFundMe drive to support the family.

His father, Arthur Barnard, told CBS news that he was playing pool with his son at the bar but that the younger man decided to stay to play a few more racks. Kristy Strout said “he was a great dad.”

Lucille M. Violette, 73, and Robert E. Violette, 76, bowling alley

Robert Violette was known as “Coach Bob,” according to posts from friends on social media, and “was one of the kindest souls in the bowling community in Lewiston,” who had a special place in his heart for the children he coached in the sport, his friend Brandon Dubuc wrote on Facebook.

The love Robert had for his wife Lucille was clear, as one of the final posts he shared on his own Facebook page was an image captioned “Your spouse is the only person who truly loves you for who you are,” and lists other relationships where love is somewhat required, like for parents and siblings. “Your spouse is another level. They choose you. Don’t take that relationship for granted.”

Stephen M. Vozzella, 45, Schemengees Bar and Grille

Stephen Vozzella was one of four victims that were a part of the deaf community and was a member of the New England Deaf Cornhole league, which wrote in its own Thursday post said brought great excitement and a huge smile to the organization who “will be missed on and off the courts!”

Jason Adam Walker, 51, bowling alley

Jason Walker, along with Mike Mike Deslauriers II, friends since kindergarten, “made the ultimate sacrifice,” another friend, Alan Johnson, wrote on Facebook. “They made sure their wives were safe and the children around them. Then they tried to stop the gunman that entered Sparetime in Lewiston.”

Joseph Lawrence Walker, 57, Schemengees Bar and Grille

Walker was a bar manager at the restaurant where he lost his life, his father, Auburn City Councilor Leroy Walker. The elder Walker told NBC News that his son had died “as a hero” because he had confronted the gunman and tried to prevent more bloodshed.

“He picked up a butcher knife from somewheres — he has all that stuff near the bar anyway — and he tried to go at the gunman to try to stop him from shooting anybody else,” Leroy Walker said. “The gunman shot him twice through the stomach.”

But knowing his son had died trying to end the killings didn’t ease any of the father’s pain, as he said “It made it worse.”

Joseph Walker was also a member of the local cornhole league, according to his friend Nick Perry, who wrote on Facebook that Walker had welcomed he and his wife into the league family “from day one. I will forever be grateful for the laughs we shared.”

William, 44, and Aaron Young, 14, bowling alley

William was bowling with his son Aaron, a sophomore an Winthrop High, when the gunman entered and took their lives.

“It’s unfathomable that it would happen. You can’t even go bowling. You can’t go have a drink in a bar or enjoy a meal with your family without fear,” Wendy Bell, William’s brother and Aaron’s aunt, told CBS News.

She told that that outlet that her brother was a mechanic who “loved to laugh” and “loved to make people laugh, sometimes at my expense.”

This is a developing story.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills confirmed to reporters inside City Hall late Friday night that Robert Card was found dead and Maine Public Safety Department Commissioner Michael Sauschuck said the man died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Card is accused of killing 18 people and injuring 13 others at a bowling alley and pub in the city.

“I stand here tonight to simply report that the Maine State Police have located the body of Robert Card in Lisbon. He is dead. I called President Biden to inform him about this news,” Mills said. “But this discovery is entirely thanks to the hundreds of local, county, state and federal law enforcement members from all over and people from other states as well.”

Mills said she was “breathing a sigh of relief” that Card was no longer a threat to anyone.

Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline said the people of his city can “breathe a sigh of relief.”

“I know I speak for the entire city when I say that the men and women of Lewiston Police Department, Maine State Police, and the many other law enforcement agencies involved in this investigation have our profound gratitude,” he said in a statement to the Herald. “Now, it’s time to take a breath, begin to mourn our dead, and try to heal.”

Sauschuck said Card was found at around 7:45 p.m. along the Androscoggin River in Lisbon Falls but did not confirm the exact location of the man’s body.

“I can confirm that it’s an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” he said.

The announcement comes after thousands of Mainers were cleared just hours before from a shelter-in-place order as law enforcement continued their search for Card.

Lockdowns were lifted in Lewiston, Auburn, Bowdoin, Monmouth, and Lisbon as officials said they were gearing up for an expansive evidence-gathering and manhunt operation that included hundreds of law enforcement personnel nationwide.

Authorities issued this week an arrest warrant for eight counts of murder for Card, the man they said allegedly entered Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant Wednesday and opened fire.

Sauschuck said the decision to rescind the shelter-in-place order came after an internal discussion where officials weighed the pros and cons of communities having to put their lives on pause.

“Are we doing more harm than good by keeping people away from these clinics and their doctors and in schools?” Sauschuck at City Hall. “And while this is still absolutely a dangerous situation without question, we’ve got to make recommendations and ask the people that we serve as the people who we protect, to be vigilant.”

But as the orders were lifted, Sauschuck said law enforcement had not seen Card in the last two days, telling reporters at the time that his whereabouts were unknown.

More than 500 tips and leads had already come in to police as of early Friday, he said.

“But again, in the stack of that 500-plus, you may have somebody that says ‘hey, we see somebody that looks like that.’ So we have not,” he said at an afternoon briefing with reporters.

Divers searched the Androscoggin River and law enforcement used sonars, remote-operated equipment, and aerial vehicles like planes or helicopters. A power company that operates two dams in the area planned to adjust the flow of water to help divers see more clearly, Sauschuck said.

“We certainly don’t want to wait too long because the river is a big piece of this, the car was located there, evidence is located in the vehicle or right there along the shores of the Androscoggin River,” Sauschuck said. “So that’s stuff that we want to make sure that we’re checking and we’re using the resources that we have available.”

Heavily armed law enforcement personnel were also seen in Durham, Maine, which Sauschuck said was a result of several “911 hang-up calls”

“Hang-up calls happen on a regular basis. Depending on where they are, you may go ‘Okay, wait a second.’ And then we had a second call. And then there was a sheriff’s deputy that responded to the scene and then ultimately did not answer their radio,” he said. “Officers did respond, make sure that he was safe, the scene was safe, and they moved on.”

The shelter-in-place orders disrupted life for the roughly 48 hours they were in place, largely keeping restaurants, shops, convenience stores, and other businesses closed as police kept up their search for Card.

Sauschuck said he understood that shelter-in-place orders could have a negative impact on residents.

“We had very pointed threats early on (in) reference to these locations, and nothing specific since then,” he said.

Sauschuck said investigators found a note at one of the residences they searched but declined to offer more details about its contents.

“I’m not prepared to really talk about what that included. And I think that’s probably, again, a common sense answer because that does involve is there a mindset here, is there motive, what did that entail? So we’ll definitely continue to work on that and when we can release it, we certainly will,” he said.

The two shooting incidents Wednesday took place only minutes apart and FBI investigators initially interviewed around 70 witnesses that night, Sauschuck said.

Police said they first received a 911 call at 6:56 p.m. for a male shooting a firearm at Just-In-Time Recreation. Only minutes later, at 7:08 p.m., police received multiple 911 calls for an active shooter inside Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant.

Sauschuck said police were on both scenes within minutes of the calls. Plainclothes officers who were shooting at a range down the street from Just-In-Time Recreation arrived at the bowling alley just a minute after the call came in, he said.

“They don’t have radios, they weren’t in uniform, they hear it as they’re at the range, they respond to the address immediately, and then they address the threat and clear the building,” he said.

Seven people were killed at Just-In-Time Recreation, one female and six males, from gunshot wounds, Maine State Police Col. William Ross said Thursday. Seven males were killed inside Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant and one male outside the establishment was also killed, Ross said.

The arrest warrant for Card could later include more murder counts, Ross said Thursday.

Sauschuck said Friday that prosecutors with Attorney General Aaron Frey’s office were trying to complete the rest of the murder warrants “in a timely fashion now that those individuals had been identified and the families notified.”

A spokesperson for Frey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“I’ll have that answer for you tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock, for sure,” Sauschuck said, referencing a briefing scheduled for Saturday morning.

Golden was one of four Democrats who voted in July 2022 against federal legislation that sought to ban certain types of semi-automatic weapons. But speaking to reporters inside Lewiston City Hall, Golden said after moments like the Wednesday mass shooting, “a leader is forced to grapple with things that are far greater than his or herself.”

It’s too soon to tell if his switch will spark a movement, but he said he must try.

“I have opposed efforts to ban deadly weapons of war, like the assault rifle used to carry out this crime,” he said. “The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure, which is why I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles, like the one used by the sick perpetrator of this mass killing in my hometown of Lewiston, Maine.”

Golden said he would work with any colleagues to “get this done in the time that I have left in Congress.”

“To the people of Lewiston, my constituents throughout the second district, to the families who lost loved ones, and to those who have been harmed, I ask for forgiveness and support as I seek to put an end to these terrible shootings,” he said.

Golden’s reversal came at nearly the same moment Maine State Police said they were descending upon a home as they continued a massive manhunt for Robert Card, a 40-year-old man identified as a suspect in a mass shooting here that left 18 people dead and 13 wounded.

The shooting shattered lives in Lewiston, surrounding communities, and Maine, parents without children and people mourning the loss of their loved ones. Maine U.S. Sen. Susan Collins echoed sentiments Gov. Janet Mills expressed earlier Thursday, calling it a “dark day for the state of Maine.”

“This heinous attempt, which has robbed the lives of at least 18 Mainers and injured so many more, is the worst mass shooting that the state of Maine has ever experienced and could ever imagine,” Collins said.

Collins did not say whether she would support banning assault rifles, instead arguing federal lawmakers should outlaw high-capacity magazines.

“I think that would have more input and more effectiveness.”

As they investigated what was happening, they said a cop came up to their car Wednesday night and told them to show their hands, and then “move on.”

Zellner, 22, and Kissam, 27, were only a short distance away from Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant, one of two sites involved in a mass shooting that left 18 people dead and 13 wounded, according to police.

“We didn’t think it was nearly as bad as it was,” Kissam told the Herald Thursday while he was walking down Lisbon Street, a main thoroughfare in downtown Lewiston. “We thought like, okay, somebody got mad at a bar and shot somebody or whatever. And then we heard a shooter. Then we saw headlines with active shooter, and we were not expecting it to be what it was.”

The shooting is the 36th mass killing in the United States this year, according to a database run by Northeastern University in Boston in conjunction with media outlets.

The horrific events that unfolded Wednesday rocked residents in Lewiston and across Maine, as other mass shootings have done with the seemingly never-ending list of cities and towns nationwide.

An artist by trade and originally from Central Massachusetts, Zellner decided Thursday to make heart-shaped cutouts from poster board adorned with phrases like “to my community” or “to my friends” to place on light posts throughout downtown Lewiston.

“I was feeling a lot of emotions about the whole thing this morning and it kind of manifested physically into this. I just wanted to show my support and love for the community and give people a visual representation of the type of support that people feel,” Zellner said in-between placing the heart cutouts onto street lights and trees.

Areas around Lewiston were nearly deserted Thursday as law enforcement maintained a shelter-in-place order for the city as well as the neighboring communities of Lisbon and Bowdoin.

Occasional dog walkers interspersed with people experiencing homelessness slowly meandered through a main park just across the street from City Hall. But the media nearly outnumbered the locals who were venturing into public spaces.

Businesses were largely shut down in Lewiston, with most gas stations, restaurants, and shops shuttered as law enforcement continued a massive manhunt for 40-year-old Robert Card, who they said is a suspect connected to the shootings.

Lisbon Street, where Zellner hung the heart-shaped posters, was nearly empty.

“It’s usually so much busier than right now,” she said, hoping her posters would help promote “some type of positive from this.”

At a press conference earlier Thursday, Maine Gov. Janet Mills said the shooting tore through the “peace of mind” of all residents in the state, but especially in Lewiston.

“This is a dark day for Maine. I know it’s hard for us to think about healing when our hearts are broken,” Mills said. “But I want every person in Maine to know that we will heal together. We are strong. We are resilient. We are a very caring people.”

Maine State Police Col. William Ross said earlier Thursday they had issued an arrest warrant for eight counts of murder for Robert Card, whose last known residence was listed in Bowdoin, a town of several thousand to the east of Lewiston, the second-largest city in the state of 1.3 million people.

Maine State Police spokesperson Shannon Moss said no gunshots had been fired at the residence but law enforcement were there “as part of the investigation into the Lewiston shootings and the search for Robert Card,” the only individual police have identified as a suspect.

“When it’s appropriate to do so, additional information will be released,” Moss said in a statement at 6 p.m. local time. An address was not released.

Shelter-in-place orders, lockdowns, and school closings expanded across Maine Thursday as authorities continued their search for Card. Meanwhile, residents hunkered down in Lewiston and surrounding communities as they mourned the dead.

Lewiston “did not deserve this terrible assault on its citizens, on its peace of mind,” said Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who said she spoke with President Joe Biden and multiple officials from his administration, including U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

“No words can truly or fully measure the grief of Maine people today. Our small state of just 1.3 million people has long been known as one of the safest states in the nation. This attack strikes at the very heart of who we are and the values we hold dear for this precious place we call home,” Mills said at City Hall. “… This is a dark day for Maine.”

Ross said the arrest warrant for Card would likely include more murder counts as more of the deceased are identified. A spokesperson for Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said the arrest warrant was “impounded,” rendering it inaccessible to the public.

The chaotic shootings unfolded quickly Wednesday, with state law enforcement officials describing multiple 911 calls only minutes apart originating from Sparetime Recreation and Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant, two local establishments.

A 911 call reporting a male shooting at Sparetime Recreation was first received by an Auburn communications center at 6:56 p.m. Wednesday, Ross said.

Multiple 911 calls then came in around 7:08 p.m. that reported an active shooter inside Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant, Ross said.

“A large law enforcement response from multiple surrounding agencies assisted the Lewiston Police Department in trying to identify who this individual was and what was happening as you can imagine, this was a very fast paced, fast moving very fluid scene, very dangerous scene that these guys and girls were going into,” Ross said.

Ross said seven people were killed at Sparetime Recreation, one female and six males, from apparent gunshot wounds, Ross said. Seven males inside Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant and one male outside the establishment were also killed, Ross said.

Three people who were transferred to nearby hospitals later died, he said.

Ross said eight people have been identified, leaving 10 still unidentified, Ross said.

“There is an arrest warrant for eight counts of murder for Mr. Card. And the reason it’s eight counts, because 10 people have not yet been identified. As those people are identified, the counts will probably go to the total of 18. He should be considered armed and dangerous,” he said.

As a massive manhunt continued Wednesday for Card, Maine State Police said they were expanding a shelter-in-place advisory beyond initial orders for Lewiston and Lisbon to Bowdoin, which is Card’s last known residence, according to police.

“We are expanding the shelter in place advisory and school closings to include the town of Bowdoin. Please stay inside your homes while more than 100 investigators, both local and federal work to locate Robert Card who is a person of interest in the Lewiston shooting,” Maine State Police posted on social media.

More than 100 law enforcement were involved in the search for Card but officials declined to offer any alleged motive for the shootings. A vehicle that was later tied to Card was located at a boat landing in Lisbon, Ross said.

A U.S. official told the AP that Card was an Army reservist who had been taken by police for an evaluation after military officials became concerned that he was acting erratically in mid-July.

The official said commanders in the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment became concerned about Card’s behavior while the unit was training at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York.

The official said military commanders became concerned about Card’s safety and asked for the police to be called. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss information about the incident and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Maine Public Safety Department Commissioner Michael Sauschuck declined to offer any specifics on potential motive.

“That’s not an answer that we’re prepared to give today because that leads to motive. You’re talking about behavioral health issues and how that impacts the situation. I would expect you will hear back from us on that in the future,” Sauschuck said. “… We don’t know his location and I’ll leave it at that.”

Many questions remain unanswered outside of motive, including how the suspect could have had access to a weapon and what specific firearm the person used.

A green armored truck and multiple SUVs were seen traveling north on I-95 early Thursday morning just over 20 miles from Lewiston. Multiple helicopters were seen flying over Lewiston, most businesses were closed early in the morning, and streets were relatively empty.

Police also locked down immediate access to both Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant and Sparetime Recreation.

Law enforcement armed with long rifles were in front of the Central Maine Medical Center, which said in a statement Wednesday that it was “reacting to a mass casualty, mass shooter event.”

Central Maine Health Care Chief Medical Officer John Alexander said the first patient arrived at 7:24 p.m. and over the next 45 minutes, the hospital in Lewiston received 14 patients, eight were admitted to the hospital. He declined to specify the age or gender of the people.

Five of the eight patients in their care are in stable condition and three are in critical condition, he said.

“From Augusta to Portland, we had incredible support throughout the night and into today,” Alexander said from Lewiston City Hall. “We’ve had an outpouring of support and offers of assistance.”

Materials from the Associated Press were used in this report.

An attorney for the family, Sammy Nabulsi of Rose Law Partners, said attempts to cross the Gaza-Egypt border over the weekend were unsuccessful even after the U.S. State Department told Abood Okal and Wafaa Abuzayda a crossing would open for United States citizens at 10 a.m. local time Saturday.

Okal said he is “stranded” in Gaza with his wife and one-year-old son, Yousef. The family traveled to the area for a two-week trip to visit Abuzayda’s parents, Nabulsi previously told the Herald.

“We’ve been trying to stay strong, but it hasn’t been easy. Airstrikes have intensified the last few days, and especially last night. It’s become constant all night and most of the day, My son was not able to sleep, Yousef, not until one o’clock in the morning and then he was up again by five o’clock in the morning,” Okal said in an audio message recorded Wednesday and shared with the Herald.

Okal, Abuzayda, and their son are staying 10 minutes away from the Rafah Crossing, a checkpoint between Egypt and Gaza where aid trucks have entered in the past week to deliver crucial supplies.

But United States citizens trapped in the country have not managed to escape as Israel prepares to launch an expected ground invasion. The war started more than two weeks ago in response to a surprise terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel.

United States officials have estimated 500 to 600 Americans are in Gaza without a way to exit.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said David Satterfield, recently appointed envoy for humanitarian issues in the Mideast, was in Israel Tuesday engaged in negotiations with Israel, Egypt and the United Nations to get Rafah to open for U.S. citizens, other dual nationals, and employees of international organizations.

Miller blamed Hamas Monday for delays U.S. citizens are encountering in their attempt to escape Gaza.

“We do believe that Egypt is ready to process American citizens if they can make it to Egyptian authorities,” he told reporters. “Hamas just has to stop blocking their exit.”

Okal said airstrikes are becoming more frequent, intense, and closer to where they are staying in Southern Gaza, which Israeli previously declared a “safe zone” after warning residents in the north to evacuate.

One airstrike hit Wednesday roughly 900 feet away from the home Okal, Abuzayda, and their son were staying, Nabulsi said.

“All it takes is one missile, one airstrike to miss its target or be too close to where you are, and that has happened before where we’re staying, and that would be it,” Okal said in the audio message. “And time of an essence, time is of an essence as well because of the ground invasion, which is supposed to happen any minute now. And we cannot even think of the destruction that would bring upon us.”

The family, Okal said, ran out of milk for their one-year-old.

“We opened the last box and basically tonight, we would be completely out. It would be his first night ever, in his entire life, to go to sleep without having milk. So we’re hopeful that that will not be too bad of a night,” he said.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday that at least 6,546 Palestinians have been killed and 17,439 others wounded. In the occupied West Bank, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed and 1,650 wounded in violence and Israeli raids since Oct. 7.

The Health Ministry said airstrikes killed more than 750 people over the past 24 hours, without saying how many were militants. Death tolls from Hamas could not be immediately verified, which the group says it collects from hospital directors.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, according to Israeli officials, mostly civilians who died in the initial Hamas rampage. Israel’s military on Wednesday raised the number of remaining hostages in Gaza to 222 people, including foreigners believed captured by Hamas during the incursion. Four hostages have been released.

Materials from the Associated Press were used in this report.

The report, authored by Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer’s Office of Climate Innovation and Resilience, outlines 39 actions to deal with rising global temperatures, which have reached 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and more extreme weather events across the world, including the Bay State.

“Massachusetts, like other state and local governments, must play a leading role in climate policy and implementation, spurring innovation in technology, climate finance, and resilience,” the report said.

State law requires Massachusetts to hit net zero carbon emissions by 2050, an effort that will require “substantial” investments, the report said. The costs of not making those investments “will be even greater.”

But the state, the report points out, lacks a plan to finance the investments needed to reach those goals.

Hoffer’s office recommends preparing an economic analysis of the investments needed to achieve greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, including the 2050 net zero mandate, by December 2024.

“New federal funding for climate action … can be anticipated to mobilize between 8-30% of total decarbonization investment,” according to the report. “The commonwealth should conduct economic analyses of the total investment required to meet our 2050 net zero mandate and resilience needs, and develop specific funding strategies for both.”

Massachusetts will start publishing an annual report card starting this fall to track the state’s progress towards reaching climate goals mandated by state law. A design for the report is due by Nov. 1 and the document will be published by Dec. 1, the report said.

“Because building and transportation fossil fuel combustion jointly account for 72% of the commonwealth’s emissions, efforts to reduce reliance on fossil fuels in those two sectors through electrification will feature prominently in the Climate Report Card,” the report said.

A 2022 statewide climate change assessment identified climate-drive in-migration from other regions in the United States and migrations from other areas of the world to the Northeast “as an urgent concern with a major level of consequence.”

The Northeast, the Wednesday report from Hoffer’s office said, is projected to “receive significant migration,” something the state should begin planning for immediately.

“Planning for costs in the form of additional services and additional demands for housing (which can affect regional housing markets) should begin now. There are also economic development opportunities as this migration may help reverse trends in regional population decline,” the report said.

The report also calls for a statewide plan to electrify all state-owned vehicles and equipment fleets and to consider creating a single entity or agency to coordinate the installation of charging infrastructure.

An executive order signed by former Gov. Charlie Baker called on the state fleet to consist of 5% zero emission vehicles in 2025, 20% in 2030, 75% in 2040, and 100% in 2050. Baker also required Massachusetts to have 350 electric vehicle charging stations on state property in 2025 and 500 in 2030, among other targets.

“Despite these targets, the Commonwealth is facing significant challenges in its efforts to electrify its vehicle fleet,” the Healey administration’s report said. “There are varying reasons for the challenges in electrifying the fleet, including the lack of sufficient charging infrastructure at state-owned facilities and of well-resourced operations and maintenance plans for the charging infrastructure.”

“There’s just too many people for too few units. And that, too, has been exacerbated because of the migrant influx,” he said in an interview. “We’re dealing with an immigration crisis as a shelter system. We’re not built for that. We’re built to house families.”

An influx of migrants over the past year has pushed a shelter system built to handle about 3,000 families each year to its limits, forcing providers across the state to scramble to find additional housing units for the thousands of new arrivals that have made their way to Massachusetts.

More than 1,500 families have entered the emergency shelter system since Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency at the start of August. The Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities reported 7,089 families in the system as of Friday, with 3,624 at traditional sites, 3,376 living in hotels and motels, and 89 at temporary sites.

Many, including Healey, other providers, and advocates, have described the scenario as unsustainable without assistance from the federal government and as costing the state tens of millions in taxpayer dollars, at least, each month.

It led Healey this week to limit the number of families that can stay in the system to 7,500, a move that will surely test the boundaries of Massachusetts’ right-to-shelter law, which requires the state to temporarily house homeless families with children and pregnant women. Healey argued the state has neither the money, space, nor personnel to keep expanding the system.

For a handful of shelter providers who say they were feeling strained months ago, putting a cap on the number of families in the emergency shelter system was inevitable. Still, others are worried what will happen to those who arrive in the state once all the space is taken up.

“We are grateful for the administration’s all-hands-on-deck approach to the (emergency assistance) shelter crisis since taking office, but fear that the announced changes may result in children and families being unable to access shelter when it is needed the most,” a trio of housing policy and law groups said in a Friday statement.

The logistics of housing a never ending stream of migrants arriving in states across the country — most who fled unstable and dangerous conditions at home and made a treacherous journey to reach the United States — have vexed Democratic governors and mayors this year in places like New York City and Chicago.

Healey is no exception.

What started as an apparent political stunt with tens of migrants landing on Martha’s Vineyard last year at the behest of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, just before Healey took office, has turned into a very real problem for Massachusetts and emerged as one of the first tests of the Healey administration.

The Healey administration and some providers say part of the answer to reducing the number of families in the system is access to work training and federal authorizations that will allow them to secure jobs.

The Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance, a service provider based in Worcester, was at capacity in July and has doubled shelter capacity since November 2022, said Executive Director Leah Bradley.

The organization continues to hire staff “and do the things that we need to do, but we just can’t keep up,” Bradley said.

“It’s really a federal issue that needs some federal intervention,” Bradley said in an interview. “The folks that are coming here are lawfully here, and the federal government has said that they’re allowed to be here so it really is something that we just need the federal government to partner with us on this.”

It is anybody’s guess as to whether the federal government will send more direct aid to Massachusetts, though the Biden administration has said it is attempting to reduce the time it takes to process applications for work authorizations and sent a Department of Homeland Security team to Boston this month.

Healey on Friday applauded a $1.4 billion funding request for a shelter and services program run by the Department of Homeland Security, which handed Boston and the state $1.9 million earlier this year to expand shelter and transportation services for migrants.

“More funds from the state government, and particularly the federal government, will enable us to provide job training, (English as a second language) training, and provide the opportunity for people to move out of the emergency shelter system, out of motels into apartments so they can become a part of our thriving economy,” said Cindy Rowe, president and CEO of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action.

But money alone will not fix the issues Massachusetts’ emergency shelter system faces, said DeJoie, the head of Lynn-based Centerboard, Inc. The problem is lack of space and ability for migrant families to quickly find work, build a source of income, and exit the system, he said.

“Quite frankly, the people that are here, we could use them,” DeJoie said. “I would hire some of the people that are living in our shelter just because the skills that they have, the translation services, the cooking abilities they have. But I can’t.”

The dashboard, updated daily Monday through Friday, showed 7,089 families were in the system as of Thursday, which is propped up by a network of hotels and motels across the state to deal with an influx of migrants from other countries.

Forty-four families enrolled in the emergency shelter system Wednesday into Thursday, which was the latest available data on the dashboard. More than 3,600 families were staying in traditional shelters, more than 3,300 were hotels and motels, and 89 were in temporary shelters, according to the dashboard.

“This is a new look for a dashboard that previously existed on the site. It provides a more holistic view of the emergency shelter system,” a spokesman for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities said in a statement to the Herald.

The look of the dashboard was updated around Sept. 30, the spokesman said, and it is run by an “Incident Command,” a cross-government group Healey said she set up to respond to an overburdened and strained emergency shelter system.

The dashboard is updated with information “from various platforms that the state uses to operate the shelter system and to support families,” the spokesman said.

Healey said Monday the state is limiting the number of families in the emergency shelter system to 7,500, arguing Massachusetts does not have enough funding, serving providers, or space to keep expanding the system.

Healey said Monday the state will limit the number of families in the shelter system to 7,500 and place those who cannot fit onto a waiting list, raising the possibility that some could end up without a place to sleep as colder weather starts to set in. The state could hit that limit by the end of the month, Healey said.

The state’s right-to-shelter law requires officials to provide temporary housing to families with children and pregnant women, including migrants who arrive in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, and Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association said the state “must continue to uphold that right.”

“We are particularly worried that the Healey-Driscoll administration’s plan to create a waiting list for emergency assistance shelter will limit the right to shelter, leave families with children with no safe alternatives, and place additional pressure on service providers, nonprofit agencies, and municipalities,” the three organizations wrote in a statement.

Once the shelter system reaches 7,500 families, Healey said, the state will not guarantee temporary housing to families who arrive in the state. There were 7,089 families in the system as of Thursday, with 3,624 at traditional sites, 3,376 in hotels and motels, and 89 in temporary sites, according to a state dashboard that is updated daily.

But what happens to families after that point is unclear and some have raised legal questions about whether the administration cannot guarantee placement, including House Speaker Ronald Mariano.

A Healey spokesperson said Tuesday the state is not ending the right-to-shelter law and “will continue to place eligible families into shelter as units become available.”

“We are making clear that our system has reached capacity and we do not have enough shelter space, service providers or funding to continue to safely or responsibly expand. We also continue to advocate for federal funding,” spokesperson Karissa Hand said in a statement.

Healey has for months called on the federal government to provide more funding for Massachusetts to pay for shelter services.

Healey applauded President Joe Biden Friday for including a $1.4 billion request for the Department of Homeland Security’s Shelter and Services Program, which Boston and the state received $1.9 million from earlier this year to expand shelter and transportation services for newly-arrived migrant families.

“President Biden’s $1.4 billion request for the DHS Shelter and Services Program is urgently needed for states like Massachusetts that are experiencing historic surges in migrant arrivals, and we appreciate the Biden Administration’s acknowledgement that these funds need to be distributed more equitably. Congress must pass this supplemental funding in full as quickly as possible,” Healey said in a statement.

The three organizations said they “fear” ceasing efforts to expand capacity and limiting shelter entries “may result in children and families being unable to access shelter when it is needed the most.”

“We know that shelter expansion cannot be the only response. Next week, we will share a broad set of recommendations that we believe can ease the current crisis, uphold the safety and dignity of people in the greatest need, and provide long-term housing solutions to alleviate the housing crisis,” the organizations said.

Those recommendations, the groups said, will touch on helping families move out of temporary shelter programs and into permanent, affordable housing; strengthening homelessness prevention resources; expanding services for newly-arrived migrant families; and bringing “key stakeholders to the table and uplift the experiences and expertise of families and communities most affected by the crisis.”

The number of families living in emergency shelters is more than twice the amount the state was sheltering a year ago, Healey said Monday. That includes 23,000 people spread out across 90 cities and towns at hundreds of locations like traditional shelters, hotels and motels, college dorms, and a military base.

Lynn, Boston, Worcester, and Springfield were the only cities in Massachusetts with more than 200 families enrolled in emergency shelter programs as of Thursday, according to the state dashboard.

Healey said the state neither has the space, service providers, nor funds “to safely expand beyond 7,500 families.”

“But especially with winter approaching, we need everyone to understand that we are entering a new phase of this challenge. We can no longer guarantee shelter placement for families who are sent here,” Healey said Monday as she outlined new programs she argued would help people transition out of temporary housing.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Mariano questioned whether Healey has the authority to place a capacity limit on the emergency shelter system.

“What happens if someone shows up? What does she do? We haven’t got a clear answer for that. If there is no place to put them, where do they go?” he said.

The employee was transported “conscious and alert” to Boston Medical Center with a minor burn to their leg, MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said in a statement to the Herald. The Quincy Fire Department and transit police responded, according to an internal MBTA safety alert.

“The MBTA Safety Department and the Department of Public Utilities are investigating,” Pesautro said.

The incident did not pause work on the track, Pesautro said, because the overnight work was just ending at the time of the incident.

The MBTA shut down other parts of the Red Line — JFK/UMass through Ashmont and Mattapan stations — for two weeks so crews can make repairs to tracks in an effort to eliminate slow zones.

A work site inside the Red Line’s Ashmont Tunnel was shut down over the weekend because of air quality concerns but MBTA safety officials said they were not immediately notified of the decision. Top MBTA managers were in the field at the time and addressed the issue “in real-time,” a spokesperson previously said.

The issue extends far beyond what was previously known and the MBTA made public this fall. Eng said half of the Union Square branch and 80% of the Medford-Tufts branch require repairs only a week after the MBTA said it had cleared slow zones that forced trains to run at walking speeds in some areas.

“That does not mean that the trains are running today unsafely,” Eng said. “It means that we’re going to have the GLX Constructors re-guage the track to bring it back to what the project called for. And once we have a plan in place, we’ll share that with the public. And the goal is to make sure that we do that in the least impactful way, the most efficient way and put this behind us.”

Gov. Maura Healey said she was frustrated and disappointed by the revelation that “senior MBTA officials under the previous administration knew about issues with the Green Line Extension tracks years ago and did not disclose them to our administration or address them on their watch.”

“The people of Massachusetts deserve better. I applaud GM Eng for uncovering this and taking swift action to hold people accountable and demand a work plan from the contractor to fix the narrow gauges on their own dime,” Healey said in a statement.

Jim Conroy, a political spokesperson for former Gov. Charlie Baker, said the governor’s office was “never informed” of the track issues with the Green Line Extension.

“Gov. Baker hopes the MBTA and the contractors involved will address these issues as soon as possible. The Green Line Extension project was on track to never get built when the Baker-Polito Administration first took office and while these setbacks are massively inconvenient for riders, the project itself will deliver enormous benefits for the greater Boston area for decades to come,” Conroy said in a statement to the Herald.

Asked if he thought the Baker administration kept issues with the Green Line Extension quiet for political reasons, Eng said he does “not have any indication of that.”

“All I know is that I believe the team could have been more proactive and should have been more proactive,” he said.

MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said two agency officials with “senior roles” in the GLX project “are no longer employed” with the agency as of Thursday.

A public dashboard first showed multiple slow zones last month on brand-new tracks where trains were running at 3 mph, the average walking speed of any given person, which the transit agency said were put in place after finding some areas along the extension narrowed.

Questions were immediately raised over how long the agency had known about the issue and who was at fault for defective tracks that first opened in March and December 2022 under former Baker’s administration.

Eng previously said a case of narrow tracks “certainly is unusual.”

The first instance of narrow tracks were observed in April 2021 by inspectors for the contractors building the project, GLX Contractors, Eng said. Another inspection in November 2022, prior to the opening of the Medford-Tufts line, found 29 locations where tracks were narrow, which were addressed prior to the start of service, he said.

The November 2022 inspection also found “significant portions” of both the Union Station and Medford-Tufts branches that had tight tracks where repairs were needed but trains could run safely over, Eng said.

Eng said he believes there was an opportunity before opening the Green Line Extension to address the tight tracks, which he said eventually led to future conditions that required speed restrictions.

“The early indication as I mentioned that there was tight gauge in this yard facility, that was back in April 2021,” he said. “We also had other reports in November 2022 that indicated the widespread need to address more than just these isolated conditions. Back in April 2021, it’s my belief that it could have been and should have been more proactively investigated prior to opening and prior to installing what we’ve done.”

Baker opened the Medford-Tufts branch in December 2022 with a ribbon cutting that signaled the end to a project that cost the state $2.3 billion dollars and promised to bring reliable Green Line service to more areas of Greater Boston.

Officials said at the time that almost all of Somerville would be within a 12-minute walk of an MBTA station when taking into account Red and Orange Line stops. The five GLX stops were estimated to serve 50,000 riders each day and take about 45,000 car trips out of traffic, the MBTA said.

But issues with the tracks that surfaced in the past month have cast a long shadow over the extension at a time when the MBTA is already facing myriad problems, including the need to comply with a raft of federal safety orders.

Eng said he met with GLX Constructors last week and instructed them to come back with a proposal to address the large-scale need to bring track width into compliance with dimensions laid in the original project requirements.

He said GLX Constructors provided a proposal that MBTA officials are reviewing.

“This is not something that the public should be paying for. It’s not going to pay for. We’re reviewing the root cause still. What I’ve given you is my thought process on where I see some of the challenges,” he said.

Some were quick to blast the agency Thursday afternoon.

The Conservation Law Foundation, which filed lawsuits in an attempt to open the Green Line Extension, said the level of “dysfunction and irresponsibility defies explanation.”

“The previous administration was clearly more interested in cutting a ribbon than getting this project done safely and correctly. CLF sued to ensure that this extension was built, and this is now an opportunity for the Healey administration to commit to public transit and repair public trust,” Conservation Law Foundation Attorney Seth Gadbois said in a statement.

Attorney Sammy Nabulsi, who represents Abood Okal, Wafaa Abuzayda, and their 1-year-old son, Yousef, said the family is stranded near the Rafah Crossing, a border checkpoint in Southern Gaza with Egypt, and is running out of food and water. The family traveled to Gaza for a two-week trip to visit Abuzayda’s parents, Nabulsi said.

Airstrikes have hit the area in recent days, Nabulsi said, including one Thursday that struck buildings just over 100 yards from where the family is sheltering. In a message sent on WhatsApp, Okal told Nabulsi that “windows shattered and walls cracked.”

“My son was sleeping under a window. (Wafaa) had to snatch him out in fear of glass falling on him,” Okal said in a message sent to Nabulsi just after 7 a.m. Thursday that was shared with the Herald. “We’re ok, kids are crying so trying to calm them down. About 100 meters away. Close enough the walls of the house cracked.”

An image of the airstrike’s aftermath shows a plum of gray smoke rising over a mass of buildings near the City of Rafah, Gaza. Nabulsi said this is the closest the family has been to an airstrike after Okal witnessed one Tuesday while traveling to a nearby town to find milk for his son.

“What’s become clear is even Southern Gaza and the town of Rafah, which is where they are currently located hoping and waiting to cross into Egypt, is also unsafe,” said Nabulsi, a Boston-based lawyer with Rose Law Partners. “I’m particularly worried about airstrikes in the south because that’s presumably where all the other American citizens who wish to exit Gaza into Egypt are currently located.”

United States officials estimate 500 to 600 American citizens are trapped in Gaza without a way to exit as the number of deaths from a war with Israel continues to rage less than two weeks after Hamas militants stormed into Israel and killed civilians in a brutal terrorist attack.

Israeli airstrikes continued Thursday across the entirety of Gaza, including in the south where Israel declared “safe zones.” More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gaza’s population, have fled homes in the north and Gaza City after Israel told residents to evacuate the north in advance of an expected ground assault.

The death toll is mounting on both sides.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that nearly 3,800 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,500 were wounded. More than 1,400 people in Israel were dead, most from the initial attack by Hamas, and hundreds were taken hostage.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Wednesday that limited humanitarian aid could flow into Gaza from Egypt following a request from President Joe Biden. But it is unclear if any U.S. citizens will be able to flee Gaza through the Rafah Crossing, where United Nations flags are expected to be raised to protect trucks carrying aid supplies.

Nabulsi said the Medway family received messages Wednesday that the border between Gaza and Egypt would open for Americans to flee.

But only a few hours later, Nabulsi said he heard from U.S. officials that the limited aid deal “does not include any provision for the confirmed and safe departure of any American citizen in Gaza.”

“I asked myself this question like what on earth can I do next? Because I’m just getting to the point where I feel like I’m sitting here banging my head on a table saying like, these people are about to die and no one seems to do anything about it,” Nabulsi said in an interview.

Nabusli said he has been in touch with the U.S. Department of State, White House, and the offices of U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey and U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, Seth Moutlon, and Jim McGovern.

The family is a constituent of McGovern so any case work would fall to his office, which said they have been exchanging “nonstop” emails and texts on a daily, and even hourly, basis with the White House and State Department.”

McGovern called the deputy assistant secretary of state Saturday to “express the dire urgency and need for immediate action,” his office said. And the congressman spoke Thursday with United States Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power to discuss the family’s situation.

Everyone from the White House “on down” is working on the issue around the clock, McGovern’s office said.

Markey, Warren, and New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen penned a Tuesday letter to the White House and Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging federal officials “to do everything possible to provide assistance to U.S. citizens fleeing the Gaza Strip, including our constituents from New England.”

“We are also concerned that our offices have received requests from multiple families from New England who are seeking assistance. These families are terrified for their lives and growing more frustrated as promises of escape through the opening of the Rafah Crossing remain unfulfilled,” the trio wrote, specifically pointing to the Medway family.

Nabulsi said he also wants to see more involvement from Gov. Maura Healey as the state’s federal delegation continues to push the White House and State Department for help.

“That advocacy needs to include her,” he said. “Everybody at every level of government needs to put their pencils down, and they should be doing nothing other than focusing on bringing all of these American citizens home safely, immediately.”

At an unrelated press conference Thursday, Healey said she was aware of the Medway family’s situation, calling it “heartbreaking.”

“I know that our senators have already been in touch with the State Department. There’s been a considerable amount of advocacy on their behalf, but it is a heartbreaking situation for them, for so many,” Healey told reporters.

Materials from the Associated Press were used in this report.

Gov. Maura Healy is looking to leverage the interest spun off the state’s deep savings to boost efforts to land competitive grants. The governor filed legislation Thursday to try and make it happen.

A trio of laws — the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act — signed by President Joe Biden made more than $1 trillion in federal funds available to states. Local officials estimate Massachusetts can compete for a remaining $17.5 billion that could support everything from transportation to technology services and security.

Most federal grant programs require states to put up cash to cover a portion of proposed project costs and Healey said having money in hand to match federal dollars will make applications from Massachusetts more competitive when they are sent down to Washington. Healey’s bill creates a fund to build up matching dollars.

“This Capital Investment and Debt Reduction Fund will give Massachusetts a competitive edge in pursuing this historic federal funding grant opportunities,” Healey said. “And after we get through the push for federal funding, the remaining funds will be available to invest in state assets, taking pressure off traditional capital programs and our debt portfolio.”

Officials have already identified more than $2 billion in state matching funds from various sources like the fiscal 2024 budget and the state’s capital investment plan.

But estimates show a need for roughly $3 billion in matching funds if Massachusetts applies for and receives all $17.5 billion in grants the state is eligible for, according to the Executive Office of Administration and Finance.

Healey proposed using interest earned on the state’s rainy day fund, an $8 billion account that is typically reserved for emergencies, to pay for the $750 million in state matching dollars.

State officials anticipate the interest generating $250 million each year for the Capital Investment and Debt Reduction Fund, which will also be seeded with $50 million in revenue from a surtax on incomes over $1 million.

The principal of the stabilization fund “will remain preserved for mitigating the impacts of a substantial, unanticipated reduction in revenues that cannot be managed with normal budgetary reductions and savings measures,” the Executive Office of Administration and Finance said in a policy memo.

The state would stop drawing on the interest of the rainy day account if its balance is declining or it drops below 10% of the state’s total operating budget, which in fiscal 2024 neared $56 billion.

“We think those are guardrails that are both fiscally responsible and support our needs in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish, while not jeopardizing the commonwealth’s physical health in terms of its ability to weather a rainy day,” Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz said.

Having a “plan of attack” for going after federal grant programs that require state matching funds “is a really solid approach,” said Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Doug Howgate.

He said protecting the balance of the stabilization is important.

“We got to make sure we protect our stabilization fund, right, and we’re not kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul. And so I think the idea of ensuring that our stabilization fund balance doesn’t decline as we’re gonna go down this road is a really important thing to have,” he said. “As a principal, that makes sense.”

Healey also signed an executive order establishing the Federal Funds and Infrastructure Office led by Director Quentin Palfrey, who unsuccessfully ran for attorney general in 2022. Healey said Palfrey and his team have already “yielded results” even before the office was cemented.

Healey pointed to $108 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation for East-West Rail, a successful bid to serve as one of three hubs for a Biden administration-backed “nationwide health innovation network,” and an application for roughly $1.5 billion for the Cape Cod bridges as examples of Palfrey’s work.

“Today’s executive order also creates a new clearinghouse that will help us to be systematic and strategic and thoughtful in our pursuit of these federal funds,” he said.

Advocates said the legislation comes at a crucial moment in Massachusetts as high costs of housing and living push people out of cities and towns to other parts of the country. Critics, like the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, argue the legislation is packed with “just about every bad idea.”

Associated Industries of Massachusetts President Brooke Thompson said the business group supports the bill, and the development of “reasonably priced housing” in Massachusetts will ensure workers can live and raise families in the state.

“Virtually every employer in Massachusetts has at one time heard a valued employee say: ‘I love working for this company, but my family can’t afford a house here,’” Thompson said in a statement. “AIM looks forward to working with the Healey-Driscoll administration and the Legislature to ensure those conversations become a thing of the past.”

Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance spokesman Paul Craney said the bill includes state borrowing when interest rates are high, a prospect that “will only make Massachusetts more unaffordable to the taxpayers who have to pay it all back.”

“If Healey wants to make housing more affordable, she needs to call on President Biden to lower interest rates, she needs to provide a way to lower property taxes, she needs to reverse the arbitrary green mandates which limit consumer choice and penalizes affordable energy options,” Craney said in a statement.

The Healey administration said the $4.1 billion bond bill will help create more than 40,000 homes, including 22,000 for low-income households and 12,000 for middle-income households.

Housing is the single biggest challenge facing residents across Massachusetts, Healey said, pointing to “vital signs” like vacancy rates and home sales that she said do not indicate a healthy market in Massachusetts.

“Across the board, people are feeling the pressure of the high cost of housing. It’s impacting and adding to stress in people’s lives. And it’s also affecting in very real ways whether or not people are going to stay in Massachusetts. High housing costs are hurting people, and they are hurting our great state,” Healey said at an event in Chelsea Wednesday morning.

Healey wants to give municipalities a revenue stream to build affordable housing in the form of a transfer tax between .5% and 2% on the portion of property sales over $1 million, or the county median home sale price. Local legislative bodies or housing authorities could adopt the tax by vote.

It’s an initiative that many local leaders have backed, including Mayor Michelle Wu, who said Wednesday that she is “grateful” to the Healey administration for empowering local communities with tools “we urgently need to take action across the commonwealth.”

“From doubling our funds for affordable housing by enabling a modest transfer fee, to supporting office-to-residential conversions and accessory dwelling units, these proposals match Boston’s plans to move on all fronts for more housing and more affordability,” Wu said in a statement.

But not all are on board with the real estate transfer tax, including the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, which also opposes a separate transfer fee proposal Wu filed on Beacon Hill that lawmakers heard last week.

Doubling spending and advancing policies to develop state-owned land “will lead to the creation of more housing units,” Greater Boston Real Estate Board CEO Greg Vasil said in a statement. But there are “deep concerns” about the inclusion of a “sales tax on real estate,” he said.

“It’s an unstable source of revenue that would cause more harm than good at a time when people and businesses are leaving the state because it is just too expensive,” Vasil said.

The proposal shuttles $1.6 billion to repair, rehabilitate, and modernize more than 43,000 public housing units, including $150 million to start “decarbonizing” public housing through the installation of heat pumps and electric appliances.

Another $200 million is set aside to support alternative forms of rental housing for people experiencing homelessness, housing for seniors and veterans, and transitional units for people recovering from substance abuse. The bill does not address rent control, a measure that is also being pushed at the state level through a ballot question.

Greater Boston Interfaith Organization Chair Rev. Burns Stanfield said the housing bond bill is an “expansive step” toward addressing a housing crisis in Massachusetts.

“$1.6 billion allocated to the capital needs of state-funded housing authorities will make a tangible difference in restoring our housing supply to a dignified state, and the real estate transfer fee provision will open up many new opportunities for our communities to invest in developing affordable units,” Stanfield said in a statement.

The legislation is packed with policy proposals that have long floated on Beacon Hill, including granting municipalities the option of imposing a real estate transaction fee, an initiative that Mayor Michelle Wu and several other cities and towns have pushed at the state level this year.

Gov. Maura Healey said the proposal — which will need approval from and likely undergo rewrites by the House and Senate — supports the production, preservation, and rehabilitation of more than 65,000 homes statewide.

“It’s the largest housing investment in Massachusetts history. Together, we’re going to make our state a place where people can afford to move to and stay to build their future,” Healey said in a statement.

Healey proposed a real estate transaction fee of 0.5% to 2% on the portion of a property sale over $1 million, or the county median home sale price, with the revenue generated from the fee directed to affordable housing development.

The fee would be paid by the seller of real property, according to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. The fee is projected to affect fewer than 14% of all residential sales, the administration said.

Wu has advocated for a 2% real estate transfer fee on sales that exceed $2 million to help fund affordable housing development. At a legislative hearing last week, Wu said the “powerful tool that remains out of reach without legislative and gubernatorial approval is a transfer fee.”

“Revenue raised through this fee will help us build supportive housing and ensure that our seniors can stay in their homes,” Wu said at the hearing. “It will help build new homes for families who have been forced out by skyrocketing prices and make it possible for more first-time homebuyers to put down roots and raise their families here in Boston.”

In Healey’s proposal, officials said there are several exemptions to fee, including property sold for less than $1 million, or the median county sales price for single family homes. The fee would apply to every dollar over $1 million, according to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.

A city or town’s housing board or legislative body could adopt the fee by a majority vote, the Healey administration said.

The legislation directs $1.8 billion to housing production and preservation, including $425 million for a housing stabilization and investment fund, $175 million for municipal infrastructure projects that encourage dense developments, $100 million to incentivize the construction of affordable homes, $100 million to support middle-income housing production, and $50 million for mixed-income multifamily development.

Healey plans to sign three executive orders as she releases the bill, including one that directs two state agencies to develop an expanded inventory of government-controlled property suitable for housing.

Two other orders create a council tasked with developing a statewide housing plan and identify ways to streamline housing production.

Healey, Administration and Finance Secretary Matt Gorzkowicz, and Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus were scheduled to publicly discuss the legislation at a 9:30 a.m. event in Chelsea.

Previous Herald materials were used in this report.

The state’s right-to-shelter law requires officials to provide homeless families and pregnant women with temporary housing, including migrants who are in Massachusetts lawfully. The mandate has created what public leaders have described as an unsustainable situation — a non-stop flow of new arrivals makes for a never-ending demand for shelter.

But Healey said Monday the state would limit the number of families in emergency assistance shelters to 7,500 and put those who cannot fit on a waitlist, a move Mariano said creates uncertainty for many.

“I don’t know if she has the authority to cap it,” Mariano said. “What happens if someone shows up? What does she do? We haven’t got a clear answer for that. If there is no place to put them, where do they go?”

Healey said the state will not guarantee placement for families who arrive after the end of October, when she predicted Massachusetts’ emergency shelter system will reach capacity.

What happens to families after that point is unclear and legal questions remain about whether the administration cannot guarantee placement.

“We are not ending the right to shelter law. We are being very clear, though, that we are not going to be able to guarantee placement for folks who are sent here after the end of this month,” Healey said. “… We’re going to do what we can. Obviously, this is part of why it’s so important that we have the exit strategies that we talked about.”

The Healey administration said families seeking shelter will be assessed “and those with high needs, such as health and safety risks, will be prioritized for placement.”

A pair of rapid rehousing and rental assistance programs “will be expanded,” the administration said, and two new programs will help shelter residents access employment.

The work stoppage at the Ashmont Tunnel comes only days into a two-week partial shutdown of the Red Line for crews to make track repairs to eliminate slow zones. But a string of Sunday emails sent between MTBA safety officials shows the project is already running into potential communication issues.

In one email, MBTA Safety Engineering Deputy Director John Murray said he attends two update calls every day that require him to raise and report any issues or concerns the agency’s safety department may have with the Red Line project.

He said he learned of the Ashmont Tunnel situation on a 7 a.m. call Sunday, according to the email.

“There was an incident last night in the Ashmont Tunnel where a decision was made to shut down the work zone because of reported elevated carbon monoxide levels. Unfortunately, this issue was not reported to the (operations control center) or our department, an embarrassing situation that I had no knowledge of for today’s 7 a.m. meeting,” Murray said in a mass email to the MBTA’s safety department.

Murray said, “safety must be notified of any and all occurrences” no matter how minor so safety officials “can determine the level of our involvement and work to mitigate any harm to the safety and well-being of everyone who is working on the surge projects.”

In another email, MBTA Deputy Chief Safety Officer Dennis Lytton said low oxygen or high carbon monoxide levels “can get dangerous very quickly.”

“The absence of notification to safety of a dangerous environmental condition can’t be repeated going forward. Also, the lack of accounting for ventilation needs by Middlesex for work inside the Ashmont Tunnel, a well-known ‘legacy’ issue in this tunnel with no mechanical ventilation system, is very concerning to me,” Lytton said in an email to other T officials, referencing the contractor on the project, Middlesex Corporation.

MBTA spokesperson Lisa Battiston said as the situation unfolded inside the Ashmont Tunnel, work was immediately suspended.

“Top MBTA managers, including the chief of infrastructure, were in the field at the time, and they were addressing the matter in real-time,” Battiston said in a statement. “During the 16-day project, daily information is shared at three conference calls each day involving multiple MBTA departments, including the safety department and the control center.”

Middlesex Corporation began heavy construction in the Ashmont Tunnel with multiple pieces of diesel powered equipment similar to ones in other areas where exhaust fans are in place, according to the MBTA.

But this section of the Ashmont Tunnel did not have exhaust fans and extra ventilation equipment is needed for work to proceed safely, the agency said.

Battiston said air quality monitors were placed within the Red Line tunnel before work began. After several hours of work Saturday, an “air quality concern” was reported related to heavy construction within the Ashmont Tunnel and the work crew was relocated, Battiston said.

“At that time, the MBTA’s safety team temporarily suspended the work taking place in this area until a full assessment of the air quality could be conducted, that the air quality was normal, and that it was safe to resume work,” Battiston said in a statement. “The contractor is working with the safety department to address the air quality issues within the tunnel and provide a ventilation plan in order to optimize the construction efforts.”

Occupational Health and Safety Deputy Director James Marcello said in one Sunday email that the MBTA talked “during the last major surge” with Middlesex Corporation about the need to bring in portable ventilation to keep carbon monoxide levels low.

“Middlesex is an experienced contractor and has dealt with this issue in the past while working in the tunnels. There really is no excuse for this to be happening again. They have their own safety people that monitor their work activity,” Marcello said in an email.

Middlesex Corporation did not respond to multiple requests for comment sent to a general email address listed on their website. Calls to their office went unanswered.

Battiston said crews have continued working in the area with battery-operated tools, “which has allowed the work to safely continue while the permanent ventilation plan is developed.”

Murray, in another email Sunday morning, said Middlesex would stop work on the Ashmont Tunnel “until the ventilation situation is resolved.”

“I will recommend that (occupational health and safety) pay a visit to the tunnel to evaluate air quality in general and get a reading on O2 and CO levels before any fans are turned on. This is important because even after the surge, there will undoubtedly be night work happening in the tunnel in the future,” Murray said in a Sunday email.

Battiston said the transit agency expected “all planned construction work being accomplished on schedule.

“Because the work inside the tunnel was suspended, the MBTA shifted the personnel and resources to other locations along the line where work was scheduled for later in the 16-day shutdown,” Battiston said.

Mariano, a 76-year-old Quincy Democrat, is in his 14th term as a state lawmaker after first being elected to office during a 1991 special election. He is in his second term as speaker of the House, taking over for former Speaker Robert DeLeo who was the longest-serving person in that role.

Asked if he would run for re-election, Mariano said “sure.” Asked if he would run for speaker next session, Mariano again said “sure.” But it “remains to be seen,” Mariano said, whether he would serve out the rest of that next term.

“The speaker looks forward to the work ahead the remainder of this term. He intends to run for re-election for his seat and the speakership. He’s grateful to the membership for their collaboration and support,” a Mariano spokesperson said in a statement only minutes after he spoke to reporters.

Mariano reported just over $500,000 in campaign cash as of Sept. 30, according to state campaign finance records. He spent $12,558 and raised $8,022 in September, according to state records.

He earns more than $178,400 as speaker, according to Comptroller records.

“We are preparing to run for re-election after the first of the year,” Mariano’s campaign spokesperson Scott Ferson told the Herald.

And it seems Mariano could face a Republican challenger.

“The MassGOP will be focused on competing in every district where we have strong candidates and an electorate open to two-party government. Communities like Quincy are becoming increasingly competitive as legislators on Beacon Hill advance policies that make it harder to live and prosper in the commonwealth,” MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale said in a statement to the Herald.

During a recorded interview Sunday, Mariano said there are “a lot of things I really would like to get done” and he does not think he will retire any time soon.

“I have always been involved in healthcare. There are some things in healthcare that are changing rapidly. Obviously, Dana Farber leaving Mass General is a shock to me. I think that there’s a reconfiguration of the hospitals,” he said on WCVB’s On The Record. “I feel like there are some things I’d really like to sink my teeth into and put on what we hope to be the right track.”

Both meetings were part of a two-day visit by the Department of Homeland Security to better understand Massachusetts’ emergency shelter system and the state’s ability to deal with an influx of migrants. It came after more than two months of repeated calls for federal help from Gov. Maura Healey.

The Department of Homeland Security team met with Woburn Mayor Scott Galvin and the city’s police chief Tuesday afternoon at a local Comfort Inn that is hosting about 25 migrant families. More than 6,900 migrant and homeless families are temporarily living in emergency shelters throughout Massachusetts, including at many hotels and motels.

“It was a bit of a letdown,” Galvin said of the meeting. “We continue to express our concerns about the sustainability of the whole program that the commonwealth is undertaking because of an outdated right-to-shelter law.”

Galvin has been vocal about municipalities’ need for state or federal help, especially for education needs, as more migrants arrive in the state. He has also asked state lawmakers to take another look at the right-to-shelter law, which requires the state to provide temporary housing to homeless families and pregnant people, including migrants.

Galvin said he received a text from a member of the governor’s staff informing him that the DHS team and Healey staffers would visit the Woburn shelter site along with a location in Quincy.

“I just told the members of Homeland Security that in the meantime, we have these families here, we need more money, the commonwealth needs more money,” he said in an interview. “There wasn’t a whole lot of substance at that meeting.”

The federal team also met privately Wednesday with Mayor Michelle Wu, shelter providers, faith organizations, and resettlement agencies. Wu’s office confirmed the meeting Wednesday night but did not disclose specific details except that it was hosted by the Immigrant Family Services Institute, a non-profit based in Mattapan.

The hour-long meeting largely featured conversation around work authorizations, including the Biden administration’s push to reduce some application processing periods to 30 days, according to officials with knowledge of the meeting.

The officials who spoke to the Herald Thursday asked to discuss the details of the meeting anonymously because the Department of Homeland Security requested the Wednesday meeting — and much of the trip — be “off-the-record” because they felt it would allow them to learn about the issues facing Massachusetts in a more candid manner.

Federal officials did not make any hard commitment during the meeting but did appear to be open to several ideas floated by providers and the Wu administration, including a week-long work permit processing workshop where the Department of Homeland Security could offer in-person training, according to an official with knowledge of the meeting.

“Both the providers that were there and (the Wu administration) and the feds were open to that,” the official told the Herald. “Nothing finalized or planned yet but everyone seemed open to that concept.”

Federal officials were also receptive to moving a process to waive the work permit application fee online instead of requiring applicants to conduct business through regular mail, according to an official with knowledge of the discussion.

The idea for the meeting, according to another official, was to bring together different organizations involved in the migrant response to discuss work authorizations, resource and funding challenges, approaches to housing migrants, and basic services migrants need when they arrive in Massachusetts like English classes.

But the hour-long meeting started late and the federal team had another commitment right after so not all the challenges Massachusetts officials deal with were discussed, according to a one official with knowledge of the meeting.

Less than 10 Department of Homeland Security employees attended the meeting, representing various agencies covered by DHS, according to multiple people with knowledge of the meeting, who described the group as delegates sent to gather information and report back to Washington.

Several people with knowledge of the meeting described the meeting as helpful and the federal team as receptive to concerns aired by service providers, faith organizations, and city leaders. Organizations present at the meeting included the Immigrant Family Services Institute, Heading Home, Catholic Charities Boston, and the International Institute of New England.

A City of Boston spokesperson said the mayor attended the meeting and the city “worked closely with the governor’s team to support this visit and ensure that DHS representatives could get a full picture of the work happening on the ground.”

The exact rundown of where Department of Homeland Security officials went and what they did has largely been kept out of the public eye, except for the Wednesday afternoon meeting, the Woburn excursion, and a discussion they held with House Speaker Ronald Mariano.

A Department of Homeland Security press aide did not respond to a request for comment.

State officials initially scheduled a visit to the Brazilian Worker Center — a welcome center in Allston designed to serve as an entrance to state resources for new arrivals — for Wednesday morning but ended up canceling it, Brazilian Worker Center Executive Director Lenita Reason told the Herald by email.

MBTA Chief Safety Officer Tim Lesniak said a regularly scheduled inspection showed tracks were too narrow to safely run trains and over the past few weeks, “GLX constructors” performed repairs.

An investigation into why the tracks narrowed — which MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng described last month as “unusual” — is “still under investigation,” Lesniak said, repeating what Eng said the day before during a press conference.

“That is still under investigation and once that investigation is complete, we will provide a report on that,” Lesniak said. “It’s an ongoing investigation. We’re still trying to collect data so we don’t necessarily have a full timeline put together yet.”

But it is still not clear what the root cause of the defective tracks were even as the MBTA said Wednesday it had lifted a series of slow zones put in place in response to the narrowness.

Regularly scheduled service resumed on the Union Station and Medford-Tufts branches of the Green Line Extension following weeks of speed restrictions that had trains running at 3 mph in some places.

At an unrelated press conference in Lynn, Eng said the investigation into the narrow tracks is “still ongoing” and more information would be shared “shortly.”

“We will certainly be sharing that information as that investigation continues,” Eng said. “We’re investigating everything right now with regards to that project, with regards to how this came about and when I have that information, I’ll share that. Everyone deserves to hear that.”

A team from the Department of Homeland Security was scheduled to visit Boston Tuesday and Wednesday but the itinerary for the trip has not been made public nor have state or federal officials disclosed specific details.

The federal team did meet with House Speaker Ronald Mariano, who has expressed frustration in recent weeks with the Biden administration’s handling of migrant arrivals in the United States and Massachusetts, an official confirmed to the Herald.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu attended a session hosted by the Immigrant Family Services Institute with local service providers.

“Our administration worked closely with the governor’s team to support this visit and ensure that DHS representatives could get a full picture of the work happening on the ground. We look forward to continuing to partner with the Healey administration and federal partners on this challenging situation,” a city spokesperson said in a statement.

In a statement last week, a White House spokesperson said a team would be “deployed to assess the current migrant situation and identify ways to improve efficiencies and maximize our support for communities that are addressing the needs of migrants.”

A Healey spokesperson said Tuesday the administration would have more information to share when the visit concluded and referred some questions to the Department Homeland Security.

“Our administration welcomes the opportunity to show officials from the Department of Homeland Security the extremely difficult situation we are facing and discuss badly-needed support,” the spokesperson said in a statement earlier this week.

More than 6,900 families were staying in emergency shelters as of Thursday morning, with 3,171 living in hotels, 3,626 in traditional shelters, and 108 at Joint Base Cape Cod and a Quincy dorm.