AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — A U.S. Army reservist who sounded the clearest warning ahead of Maine’s deadliest mass shooting is expected to answer questions Thursday from the commission investigating the tragedy.

Six weeks before Robert Card killed 18 people at a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston, his best friend and fellow reservist Sean Hodgson texted their supervisors, telling them to change the passcode to the gate at their Army Reserve training facility and arm themselves if Card showed up.

“I believe he’s going to snap and do a mass shooting,” Hodgson wrote on Sept. 15.

That message came months after relatives had warned police that Card had grown paranoid and said they were concerned about his access to guns. The failure of authorities to remove guns from Card’s possession in the weeks before the shooting has become the subject of a monthslong investigation in the state, which also has passed new gun safety laws since the tragedy.

Card also was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital for two weeks in July, and the Army barred him from having weapons while on duty. But aside from briefly staking out the reserve center and visiting Card’s home, authorities declined to confront him. He was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound two days after the shootings.

In an interim report released last month, the independent commission launched by Gov. Jane Mills concluded that the Sagadahoc County sheriff’s office had probable cause under Maine’s “yellow flag” law to take Card into custody and seize his guns. It also criticized police for not following up with Hodgson about his warning text.

On Thursday, the commission plans to hear from the state’s director of victim witnesses services. Hodgson told The Associated Press he is scheduled to be questioned Thursday morning.

In an exclusive series of interviews in January, Hodgson told The AP he met Card in the Army Reserve in 2006 and that they became close friends after both divorced their spouses around the same time. They lived together for about a month in 2022, and when Card was hospitalized in New York in July, Hodgson drove him back to Maine.

Growing increasingly worried about his friend’s mental health, Hodgson warned authorities after an incident in which Card started “flipping out” after a night of gambling, pounding the steering wheel and nearly crashing multiple times. After ignoring his pleas to pull over, Card punched him in the face, Hodgson said.

“It took me a lot to report somebody I love,” he said. “But when the hair starts standing up on the back of your neck, you have to listen.”

Some officials downplayed Hodgson’s warning, suggesting he might have been drunk because of the late hour of his text. Army Reserve Capt. Jeremy Reamer described him as “not the most credible of our soldiers” and said his message should be taken “with a grain of salt.”

Hodgson said he struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol addiction but said he wasn’t drinking that night and was awake because he works nights and was waiting for his boss to call.

AUGUSTA, Maine (WABI) – Immunization rates for school children in the state have reached a record high, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control.

Ninety-five percent of school-age children have received all the required vaccines.

This is the first year Maine has exceeded the “herd immunity” threshold since reporting began in 2011.

“Herd immunity” is when most of a population develops immunity from infectious diseases either through vaccination or previous infection.

According to the World Health Organization, the percentage of people who need to be immune in order to achieve “herd immunity” varies with each disease.

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ORONO, Maine – The world’s largest 3D printer has created a house that can cut construction time and labor. An even larger printer unveiled on Tuesday may one day create entire neighborhoods.

The machine revealed Tuesday at the University of Maine is four times larger than the first one — commissioned less than five years ago — and capable of printing ever mightier objects. That includes scaling up its 3D-printed home technology using bio-based materials to eventually demonstrate how printed neighborhoods can offer an avenue to affordable housing to address homelessness in the region.

Thermoplastic polymers are extruded from a printer dubbed the “Factory of the Future 1.0,” said Habib Dagher, director of UMaine’s Advanced Structures & Composite Center, where both of the current printers are located. It combines robotics operations with new sensors, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence, Dagher said.

And there could be even larger printers in the future after the University of Maine breaks ground this summer on a new building.

“We’re learning from this to design the next one,” he said.

3D printer a “beacon of innovation”

Those attending the event included representatives from departments of defense, energy and housing, as well as other stakeholders who plan to utilize the new technologies made available by the printer. Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said the printer exceeded her expectations and “stands as a beacon of innovation.”

Shrouded by a black curtain, the printer was on and whirring behind the speakers during the event. At the end, the curtain opened revealing the printer was working on a test project for a future boat.

The printer’s frame fills up the large building in which it’s housed on the UMaine campus, and can print objects 96 feet long by 32 feet wide by 18 feet high (29 meters by 10 meters by 5.5 meters).

It has a voracious appetite, consuming as much as 500 pounds (227 kilograms) of material per hour.

Building homes with a 3D printer

The original printer, christened in 2019, was certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest polymer 3D printer, the university said. It was used to create a 600-square-foot, single-family home made of wood fiber and bio-resin materials that are recyclable. Dubbed “BioHome3D,” it showed an ability to quickly produce homes. To meet the growing demand for housing, Maine alone will need another 80,000 homes over the next six years, according to MaineHousing.

Dagher said there’s a shortage of both affordable housing and workers to build homes. The university wants to show how homes can be constructed nearly entirely by a printer with a lower carbon footprint. The buildings and construction sector accounts for roughly 37% of global greenhouse gas emissions, largely due to the production and use of materials such as cement, steel and aluminum that have a significant carbon footprint, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Such printed buildings can be recycled, which is unique compared to current construction. “You can basically deconstruct it, you can grind it up if you wish, the 3D printed parts, and reprint with them, do it again,” Dagher said before the event.

“It’s not about building a cheap house or a biohome,” he added, referring to the first 3D-printed house made entirely with bio-based materials. “We wanted to build a house that people would say, ‘Wow, I really want to live there.’”

Future plans for 3D printing

The Army Corps of Engineers provided most of the funding for the new printer, which cost several million dollars, said Dannel Malloy, chancellor of the University of Maine System. It was built by the university in collaboration with Ingersoll Rand for construction of the printer and Somatex for the supporting structure, officials said.

Looking ahead, researchers plan to tinker with the material consumed by the machine, including more bio-based feedstocks from wood residuals that are abundant in Maine, the nation’s most heavily forested state.

But it can be used for a variety of other creations and already has been used for a range of things, from boats to defense department structures. In the past, the university showed off a 25-foot boat created by the first printer. Upcoming projects with the new printer include a 50-foot boat and houses to serve homeless people, Dagher said.

As for the original 3D printer, it isn’t going away. The two printers can be used in concert to streamline manufacturing by working on the same project — or even part if necessary — and there will be even more of them working together in the future, officials said.