WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday complained yet again about “STUPID TRADE” with China, doing little to calm investors anxious about the escalating trade conflict between the two economic superpowers.

In a tweet Monday morning Trump said that when a Chinese-made vehicle is sent to the U.S., the tariff is only 2.5 percent, while American cars exported to China are slapped with a 25 percent tariff.

Trump asked, “Does that sound like free or fair trade.” Then answered, “No, it sounds like STUPID TRADE.”

China charges total duties of 25 percent on most imported cars — a 10 percent customs tariff plus a 15 percent auto tax. Since December 2016, Beijing also has charged an additional 10 percent on “super-luxury” vehicles priced above $200,000.

Trump’s top economic advisers have offered mixed messages as to the best approach with China. Beijing has threatened to retaliate if Washington follows through with its proposed tariffs, even as Trump emphasized his bond with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“President Xi and I will always be friends, no matter what happens with our dispute on trade,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “China will take down its Trade Barriers because it is the right thing to do. Taxes will become Reciprocal & a deal will be made on Intellectual Property. Great future for both countries!”

But Trump did not explain why, amid a week of economic saber-rattling between the two countries that shook global markets, he felt confident a deal could be made.

The president made fixing the trade imbalance with China a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, where he frequently used incendiary language to describe how Beijing would “rape” the U.S. economically. But even as Trump cozied up to Xi and pressed China for help with derailing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, he has ratcheted up the economic pressure and threatened tariffs, a move opposed by many fellow Republicans.

The Trump administration has said it is taking action as a crackdown on China’s theft of U.S. intellectual property. The U.S. bought more than $500 billion in goods from China last year and now is planning or considering penalties on some $150 billion of those imports. The U.S. sold about $130 billion in goods to China in 2017 and faces a potentially devastating hit to its market there if China responds in kind.

China has pledged to “counterattack with great strength” if Trump decides to follow through on his latest threat to impose tariffs on an additional $100 billion in Chinese goods — after an earlier announcement that targeted $50 billion. Beijing also declared that the current rhetoric made negotiations impossible, even as the White House suggested that the tariff talk was a way to spur China to the bargaining table.

The new White House economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said Sunday that a “coalition of the willing” — including Canada, much of Europe and Australia — was being formed to pressure China and that the U.S. would demand that the World Trade Organization, an arbiter of trade disputes, be stricter on Beijing. And he said that although the U.S. hoped to avoid taking action, Trump “was not bluffing.”

“This is a problem caused by China, not a problem caused by President Trump,” Kudlow said on “Fox News Sunday.”

But he also downplayed the tariff threat as “part of the process,” suggesting on CNN that the impact would be “benign” and said he was hopeful that China would enter negotiations. Kudlow, who started his job a week ago after his predecessor, Gary Cohn, quit over the tariff plan, brushed aside the possibility of economic repercussions.

“I don’t think there’s any trade war in sight,” Kudlow told Fox.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he didn’t expect the tariffs to have a “meaningful impact on the economy” even as he left the door open for disruption. He allowed that there “could be” a trade war but said he didn’t anticipate one.

Another top White House economic adviser, Peter Navarro, took a tougher tack, declaring that China’s behavior was “a wakeup call to Americans.”

“They are in competition with us over economic prosperity and national defense,” Navarro said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” ”Every day of the week China comes into our homes, our business and our government agencies. … This country is losing its strength even as China has grown its economy.”

Trump’s latest proposal intensified what was already shaping up to be the biggest trade battle in more than a half century.

Trump told advisers last week that he was unhappy with China’s decision to tax $50 billion in American products, including soybeans and small aircraft, in response to a U.S. move to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods. Rather than waiting weeks for the U.S. tariffs to be implemented, Trump backed a plan by Robert Lighthizer, his trade representative, to seek the enhanced tariffs.

The rising economic tensions pose a test to what has become Trump’s frequent dual-track foreign policy strategy: to establish close personal ties with another head of state even as his administration takes a harder line. The president has long talked up his friendship with Xi, whom he has praised for consolidating power in China despite its limits on democratic reforms.

Further escalation could be in the offing. The U.S. Treasury Department is working on plans to restrict Chinese technology investments in the U.S. And there is talk that the U.S. could also put limits on visas for Chinese who want to visit or study in this country.

For Trump, the dispute runs the risk of blunting the economic benefits of his tax overhaul, which is at the center of congressional Republicans’ case for voters to keep them in power in the 2018 elections. China’s retaliation so far has targeted Midwest farmers, many of whom were bedrock Trump supporters.

Associated Press writers Hope Yen and Thomas Strong contributed to this report.

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The history of the Congregational Church is the history of Colonial New England.

Before the birth of the nation and the separation of church and state, the plain Congregational churches that date to the time of the Pilgrims and are found in every community in the region chronicled just about every aspect of life.

Yet that history remains largely scattered and hidden, tucked away in damp, unexplored corners of church buildings from the coast to the mountains.

Now, with the help of a more than $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities being announced on Monday, the Boston-based Congregational Library and Archives Hidden Histories project is locating, securing, and digitizing church records from 1630 to 1800 and putting them online for anyone to peruse for free.

Some records are already online, but the new grant will allow the project to digitize an additional 18,000 documents and transcribe about 7,000 of them, said James Cooper, director of the Hidden Histories project.

The Congregational Library and Archives already has the records of about 40 churches online. But most of them are from Massachusetts. The library has records from two Maine churches, the First Parish Church in Brunswick, founded in 1735, and the North Parish Congregational Church in Sanford, founded in 1786.

Others, like the 1714 First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, the 1793 Congregational Church in Cumberland and 1800 First Congregational Church of Brewer are not currently listed in the records archives, for instance.

The grant will help the project branch into the rest of New England, Executive Director Margaret Bendroth said.

“This is a very big deal for us,” she said. “This is an affirmation of so much work and time and effort and expertise.”

The church was the dominant religion in Colonial New England and the focal point of every community, Cooper said.

And because of that, the records contain more than just information about births, baptisms, marriages and deaths.

“Essentially, everyone was a Congregationalist at that time,” he said. “Almost anything that happened in the community went through the doors of the church. If two people had a squabble, you didn’t go to court, you went before the minister and tried to settle it.”

And fortunately, the ministers, often the town’s sole record keeper, wrote everything down. Often in meticulous detail.

“They provide an amazing insight into the lives and minds of ordinary folks,” Cooper said.

The documents are of immeasurable value to anyone “exploring political culture, social history, linguistics, epidemiology and climatology … as well as to genealogists and members of the public interested in a range of subjects,” The National Endowment for the Humanities said in its announcement.

Cooper, a professor emeritus of history at Oklahoma State University, has spent almost three decades tracking down the records, often forgotten by modern day congregations.

“A staggering amount of the records are scattered in small local libraries, historical societies and still within churches, and historians haven’t been able to use them because they are utterly inaccessible,” Cooper said.

They are crumbling, rotting, and water stained.

He’s found them stuffed in pantries next to cans of tomato sauce; wedged into coat closets; and in a safe to which no one associated with the church had the combination. In one case, a church member put the records in a bank, and then died without telling anyone where they were.

“These records are an absolute gold mine,” Cooper said.

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WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump considered U.S. options in Syria, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Monday took aim at Russia for what he suggested was its failure to ensure the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. The Pentagon chief said he would not rule out a U.S. military strike against Syria in response to a suspected poison gas attack.

Trump planned two meetings with senior national security aides on Syria, in addition to a previously scheduled late-afternoon White House conference with leaders of U.S. military commands around the world. Monday was the first day on the job for Trump’s new national security adviser, John Bolton, who has previously advocated military action against Syria.

The White House deliberations came as Russia and the Syrian military blamed Israel for a pre-dawn missile attack on a major air base in central Syria, saying Israeli fighter jets launched the missiles from Lebanon’s air space. A group that monitors Syria’s civil war said the airstrikes killed 14 people, including Iranians active in Syria.

[Syria says strike on military base carried out by Israeli warplanes]

Over the weekend Trump threatened a “big price to pay” for the suspected poison gas attack Saturday in Syria that killed at least 40 people, including children. The government of President Bashar al-Assad has denied using poison gas.

Officials in Washington were seeking to verify early reports by rescuers and others that the Assad government was culpable. The Russian military, which has a presence in Syria as a key Assad ally, said its officers have visited the site of the attack in the suburbs of Damascus, the Syrian capital, and found no evidence to back up reports of poison gas being used.

At a photo-taking session in the Pentagon on Monday, Mattis said “the first thing” to consider in how to respond to the attack is why chemical weapons are “still being used at all.” He noted that Russia was a guarantor of a 2013 agreement to eliminate Syria’s entire chemical weapons arsenal, suggesting Moscow shares blame for the suspected gas attack.

“And so, working with our allies and our partners from NATO to Qatar and elsewhere, we are going to address this issue,” Mattis said in brief remarks to reporters as he began a meeting with the emir of Qatar.

Asked whether he ruled out launching retaliatory U.S. airstrikes in Syria, Mattis said, “I don’t rule out anything right now.”

[Collins says US may need to consider military strike after Syrian gas attack]

The U.S. military has a wide range of warplanes and other capabilities in the Middle East that could carry an attack. They include sea-launched cruise missile aboard ships within range of Syria.

Syria’s state news agency SANA initially said the attack on the T4 air base was likely “an American aggression,” but Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood quickly denied the United States was behind the strike and the agency then dropped the accusation, blaming Israel instead.

Saturday’s suspected poison gas attack took place in a rebel-held town near Damascus amid a resumed offensive by Syrian government forces after the collapse of a truce. Syrian activists, rescuers and medics said the attack in Douma killed at least 40 people, with families found suffocated in their houses and shelters. The reports could not immediately be independently verified.

As U.S. officials consider whether and how to respond, they are looking at what type of chemical agent was used. When Trump ordered airstrikes last year after a chemical weapons attack, it was a response to the use of Sarin gas, which is banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention that Syria has signed. An attack with chlorine, which can be used as a weapon but is not outright banned by the treaty, could raise precedent issues, as there have been numerous recent allegations of chlorine attacks in Syria that have drawn no response from the Trump administration.

[McCain suggests Trump to blame for chemical weapons attack in Syria]

One year ago this month, Trump ordered dozens of cruise missiles to be fired at a Syrian air base after declaring there was no doubt Assad had “choked out the lives of helpless” civilians in an attack that used banned gases. White House advisers said at the time that images of hurt children helped spur the president to launch that airstrike, and television new shows on Sunday aired similar depictions of suffering young Syrians.

On Sunday, Trump tweeted: “Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay. Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!”

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, on Sunday called the suspected gas attack “ absolutely horrific,” and suggested the Trump administration may need to consider a military strike against the Syrian government in response.

“Last time this happened, the president did a targeted attack to take out some of the facilities, that may be an option we should consider now,” Collins said during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

She also urged the Trump administration to ratchet up the pressure — particularly with sanctions — on Moscow for its support of Assad, saying “without the support of Russia, I do not believe that Assad would still be in office.”

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said Assad heard Trump’s signal that he wanted to withdraw from Syria and, “emboldened by American inaction,” launched the attack. In a statement, McCain said Trump “responded decisively” last year with the airstrike and urged Trump to be forceful again to “demonstrate that Assad will pay a price for his war crimes.”

Trump’s homeland security adviser, Thomas Bossert, noted on ABC’s “This Week” the timing of the suspected chemical attack — almost a year to the day of the U.S. missile strikes.

Asked about the potential for an American missile strike in response, Bossert said: “I wouldn’t take anything off the table. These are horrible photos. We’re looking into the attack at this point.”

BDN writer Christopher Burns contributed to this report.

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Last June, a 38-year-old man from Bangor described his experience being arrested on a charge of unpaid fines and fees. He spent six days in Penobscot County Jail where he had no access to his regular dose of methadone.

“It’s extreme anxiety. It feels like you can’t breathe,” he told the BDN.

After he was released, the last thing he remembered was sitting by Kenduskeag Avenue with his hand up, and a car stopping. He had spent the night vomiting, alternating between hot and cold sweats. He could barely hold himself up.

Whomever stopped must have driven him to Acadia Hospital because that’s where he woke up. A doctor there confirmed he had passed out and had a seizure.

Stopping someone’s recovery cold by not allowing him or her access to prescribed medication doesn’t make sense at any time, let alone in the middle of an opioid epidemic.

“If you have a disease, you should be treated for it,” the Bangor man said. “If Acadia is not medically able to just take you off it, then how can [a jail]?”

That is a question Massachusetts is grappling with right now, as the U.S. Department of Justice investigates whether that state’s prison officials are violating federal law by not allowing inmates to continue their addiction treatment medications behind bars.

The investigation could have ramifications for prisons and jails everywhere, including Maine. Does prohibiting an inmate’s access to methadone, buprenorphine or naltrexone violate the Americans with Disabilities Act?

It’s an important question that the courts may answer in the coming months or years, but Maine prisons and jails shouldn’t wait that long.

Taking away someone’s addiction medication doesn’t just tip them into withdrawal, causing nausea, insomnia, muscle and bone pain, cold flashes, diarrhea and potentially seizures, heart problems and breathing difficulties. It puts them at higher risk of relapse.

For someone who has taken the difficult but crucial step of entering recovery, jail time coupled with a loss of his or her medication can be devastating.

There is evidence that continuing people’s addiction medication, or starting them on it while in custody, can have long-term benefits not just for those with substance-use disorders but also the corrections system.

When other states have continued or started people on addiction medication in jail and helped them continue treatment after their release, they have increased the chance people will stay in treatment, and witnessed reduced drug use and drug-related criminal behavior.

Treatment is far cheaper than jail, and far more humane.

As word spreads about the Massachusetts investigation, prison and jail officials here should band together to create a comprehensive system that supports people with addiction who enter their facilities, and demand the resources to support it. If they don’t do it, lawmakers should compel them. If lawmakers don’t do it, the courts should.

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SKOWHEGAN, Maine — A jury on Monday found Luc Tieman guilty of murdering his wife less than an hour after the Fairfield man gave his own closing argument in his trial at the Somerset County Courthouse.

The jury of seven men and five women deliberated for about 40 minutes before announcing they had reached a verdict.

A sentencing date has not been set.

In a rare move, Superior Court Justice Robert Mullen had allowed to Tieman to address the jury directly instead of having Tieman’s defense attorney, Stephen Smith of Augusta, present the closing.

Tieman, 34, was charged with intentional or knowing murder in the August 2016 death of his wife, Valerie Tieman, 34.

His trial began April 2 before Superior Court Justice Robert Mullen.

Tieman took the stand Friday and on Monday emphasized many of same things in his closing, in which he again denied killing his wife.

“So far, everything that the state has brought against me has an alternate explanation,” Tieman said. “The only thing we know is that my wife, Valerie, is dead.”

Valerie Tieman’s body was found Sept. 20, 2016, in a shallow grave on wooded property owned by Luc Tieman’s parents, according to testimony. Her body was wrapped in a blanket and placed in a body bag.

Buried with her were flowers, a Mason jar, a wedding band, an empty SweeTarts box, a bag of rippled potato chips, and love notes using Tieman’s and his wife’s pet names for each other. Under her body, police found a bottle of Gucci men’s cologne called “Guilty,” Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea told the jury in her closing argument.

Investigators testified that they believe Valerie Tieman was killed and buried Aug. 25, 2016, because that is the last time she used her cellphone.

Luc Tieman told the jury Monday that the items found in the grave were on the bedside table in the bedroom he and his wife shared in his parents’ Fairfield home. He offered no explanation for how they ended up in her grave.

“I didn’t have an alibi,” he told the jury. “I didn’t think I needed one because I didn’t know my wife was dead. Someone else did. Every time I talked about my wife with police, it was in the present tense because I didn’t know she was dead.”

Tieman did not suggest an alternative suspect to jurors. He did admit beginning an affair with another woman a few days before police believe his wife died.

Zainea told the jury in her closing argument that Tieman killed his wife to be with his new girlfriend, whom he met on Facebook on Aug. 21, 2016.

“Three days [later], she and Tieman met at a pool party in Waterville,” the prosecutor said. “He had sex with her later that day. Two days later, he moved in with her.”

She also said that Luc Tieman, who originally told police his wife had left him for another man, did not immediately report his wife missing. His parents did that Sept. 9, 2016.

“He showed absolutely no concern that his wife was missing,” Zainea told the jurors. “It was only after her parents reported her missing that Luc Tieman spoke with police. It was during that call that he began to spin a tale.”

Valerie Tieman died of gunshot wounds to her head and neck, according the autopsy report. It showed that she had painkillers in her system but no heroin.

Once his wife’s body was discovered, Tieman told police that he had watched his wife shoot up heroin and die of an overdose. When he took the stand, Tieman testified that he made that story up after police threatened to charge his parents. He said he would not have told that lie if he’d known she had been shot.

The murder weapon was found in Luc Tieman’s parents’ home. Tieman admitted Friday that the gun belonged to him.

Tieman told the jury that his DNA was not found on tools believed to have been used in digging the grave, on the items found in it or on the murder weapon.

In her rebuttal closing, Zainea told jurors that was not true. She reminded them that a DNA expert from the Maine State Police Crime Laboratory had testified that Tieman’s DNA and his father’s DNA were found on the murder weapon.

The gun was found in Tieman’s parents’ bedroom along with ammunition, according to testimony.

Tieman faces 25 years to life in prison.

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YORK, Maine — Despite all the conserved land in the upper reaches of the York River, and the fact the area near the mouth of the river is already densely settled, there’s still plenty of potential for housing development in the river watershed areas of York, Kittery, Eliot and South Berwick.

In fact, according to a recently completed analysis by a GIS — geographic information system — mapping consultant, there could be as many as 2,295 potential new buildings in the watershed. That’s nearly as many as the 3,037 existing buildings in the four-town watershed today. The analysis is the last of several major studies commissioned by the York River Study Committee as it prepares to seek voter approval this fall to accept the river as a federal Wild and Scenic Partnership River.

Consultant Judy Colby-George of Spatial Alternatives in Yarmouth was quick to caution that her analysis of potential build-out development is based on assumptions in addition to objective data from all four towns. As such, the 2,295 number should be taken with a grain of salt.

“We tried to be as accurate as we can,” Colby-George said. “We’ve spent a lot of time on this, but it’s a model, and I tend to say all models are wrong but some models are useful. We’ve made assumptions, we’ve had to generalize things, we had four towns’ zoning ordinances. You can’t model intricacy in each town. The purpose is to help us understand what might happen given current zoning regimes.”

When she looked at development potential, she gathered information available from all four towns’ assessing records about each parcel in the watershed area, cross-referenced that with zoning regulations as to how many buildings would be allowed on the parcel, and then removed wetlands from the equation.

“Any parcel that had no building was presumed to be developable,” she said. “Any parcel that had a building but was more than twice the allowable lot size, we presumed it could be split.”

In addition, whatever open space was left she calculated at 85 percent usable land, to take into account impervious surfaces from the house and from a driveway. She also took into consideration buffers around known ponds and streams.

But each parcel could be mitigated by a number of factors. For instance, she said, shoreland zoning regulations in all four towns were “hard to model” because the formulas can be complex. In addition, what she provided was a snapshot of the situation as it exists today. For instance, Kittery has one-acre zoning in its watershed area, while York has two-acre zoning in the western part of town. But if Kittery changed its ordinance, that would reduce the number of buildable lots.

Colby-George said she also did a “quick analysis” of how the overall analysis would change if all four towns created conservation subdivision requirements, which preserves 40 to 70 percent of buildable land. For example, she said, there are 35 miles of road in the watershed. If there was a complete build-out, 36 additional road miles would be created, she said. However, if there were conservation subdivision requirement, that number would be reduced to 18 miles.

Colby-George presented her findings at a recent meeting of the York River Study Committee, when members discussed possible ways to use the information, along with information from other studies, as they look to place measures on the November ballot in all four towns.

Paul Schumacher, of the Southern Maine Planning and Development Commission, suggested the committee present the watershed as a whole and not town by town, “to create the sense of, ‘We’re all in this together,’” he said. “It makes sense to view it as a whole and the impacts as a whole. Then you can dive down if you want to.”

He suggested the committee think about proposing a watershed overlay district for all four towns. “Should there be a goal to have a York River District, so that there would be an opportunity over time to have some consistency? If you could get it in place to start, it would be a lot earlier to insert things as you went along. You’re always going to have to deal with all four towns, but some structure could be helpful.”

But committee member Jean Demetracopoulos of South Berwick reminded the group that the immediate goal has to be getting support in all four towns for the November ballot initiative to designate the York River as part of the Wild and Scenic Partnership program.

“We may get lost in the weeds if we have a four-town overlay district,” she said. “I don’t want that to be a straw. Let’s try to keep our eyes on the first goal, which is designation. I could see the overlay district as a long-term goal, but I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time on it at this point.”

Member Cindy Donnell of York said if the river is designated, there will likely be more federal funds to implement the project.

According to Jennifer Hunter, coordinator for the committee, the goal is to have a proposed management plan completed in June, in time for the series of public hearings before various boards that will be necessary to put it before voters in November.

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HUMBOLDT, Saskatchewan — Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Justice said Monday one of the deceased in the crash that killed 15 people en route to a hockey playoff game was misidentified, partly because the players all had blond-dyed hair and similar builds.

The ministry said the body of Parker Tobin was mistaken for that of Xavier Labelle.

It said Labelle is injured but alive, and Tobin is among the deceased. The accident occurred Friday. Drew Wilby, spokesman for the ministry, said the error was discovered Sunday night.

“The new information came to light last night that raised questions with the health care professionals. In turn they were able to identify Xavier Labelle as Xavier Labelle who of course we had previously said was Parker Tobin,” Wilby said.

“A lot of these boys looked alike. They had the blond hair that was supportive of their team for their playoff run. They had very similar builds and all very similar ages.”

Wilby and the Office of the Chief Coroner apologized for the misidentification.

“To find who they had thought was their loved one wasn’t their loved one I can’t even fathom,” Wilby said. “I don’t know enough could ever be said. All I could do is offer our sincerest apologies.”

The news comes as this shattered town mourned its revered local youth hockey team, trying to come to grips with a devastating highway accident Friday that also injured the other 14 people on their bus.

Over the weekend, Tobin’s family had tweeted that their son was alive.

“This is one of the hardest posts I have ever had to make. Parker is stable at the moment and being airlifted to Saskatoon hospital,” Rhonda Clarke Tobin wrote.

Meanwhile, Xavier Labelle’s family had confirmed his death over the weekend, with his brother Isaac writing in an Instagram post that he was heartbroken.

Humboldt Mayor Rob Muench called it “an unfortunate mistake.”

“It’s hard to comprehend that,” he said.

Broncos club president Kevin Garinger said he was contacted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police early Monday about it and said the error makes a difficult situation more challenging.

“At this point, I just want to reach out and support the families,” Garinger said. “It’s not about understanding anything.”

People filed into the team’s home arena Sunday night for a vigil, filing up entry steps piled with flowers, jerseys and personal mementos in a makeshift memorial.

At the vigil, Sean Brandow, the local pastor and team chaplain, described how he happened upon the horrific accident scene Friday night and heard sounds of people he knew dying after a semi-trailer slammed into the bus taking the team to a playoff game.

“We travelled up and arrived at the scene … and walked up on a scene I never want to see again, to sounds I never want to hear again,” Brandow said.

The small town’s disaster was a blow, too, for Canada and its national sport. Among the dead were Broncos head coach Darcy Haugan, team captain Logan Schatz and radio announcer Tyler Bieber.

Brandow said he was on his way to the Broncos game and arrived at the scene right after the collision. He described hearing the cries and holding the hand of a lifeless body.

“To sit and hold the hand of a lifeless body,” he said. “All I saw was darkness and hurt and anguish and fear and confusion. And I had nothing. Nothing. I’m a pastor, I’m supposed to have something.”

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the driver of the truck that hit the bus was initially detained but later released and provided with mental health assistance. Police have given no cause for the wreck, saying a lot of issues remained to be investigated, including weather conditions at the

Garinger, the team president, choked back tears as he read out the names of the 15 dead to those at the vigil. People embraced each other, crying. Boxes of Kleenex were passed down rows.

Flowers ringed the team logo at center ice. Pictures of the dead and injured stood in front of the audience.

Nick Shumlanski, an injured player who was released from the hospital, attended the vigil wearing his white, green and yellow team jersey, with a bruise under his left eye.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the injured at the hospital Sunday and then attended the vigil. He sat among the crowd with his 11-year-old son, Xavier, who is a hockey player.

Most of the players were from elsewhere in western Canada and they lived with families in Humboldt, a town of about 6,000 people. Families who provide homes for players are a large part of junior hockey in Canada, with players spending years with host families.

Forwards Jacob Leicht, Logan Hunter and Conner Lukan and defensemen Stephen Wack, Adam Herold, Logan Boulet were also among the dead, according to family members and others. Assistant coach Mark Cross, bus driver Glen Doerksen and stats keeper Brody Hinz, who was 18, were also killed.

The Broncos were a close-knit team who dyed their hair blond for the playoffs. Garinger said the team won’t disband. The home page of the team’s website was replaced with a silhouette of a man praying beneath the Broncos’ logo of a mustang.

Her aged Hampton Beach motel property coveted by condo developers, 97-year-old Evelyn Lea is mysteriously murdered. It’s up to Kittery reporter Kay Leavitt and her sidekick pug to sniff out which hopeful heir did the deed to cash in on the real estate.

“Last Resort” is the third installment in Rye, New Hampshire, author Amy Ray’s series that centers on Kay and her small canine friend, Poe, featured in the newly-released short story collection “Murder Ink 3.” It’s the first Kay Leavitt story to take place at Hampton Beach, a vacation spot beloved by Ray since she was a young girl.

The Seashell Stage, Marine Memorial and other landmarks color the background of a story driven by greed, the culprit hopeful of inheriting the fictitious Lea-by-the-Sea motel through Evelyn’s will.

“It felt natural to use my favorite childhood vacation spot as a setting in one of my stories,” said Ray. “I have vivid memories of the time I spent there, and I wanted to convey my character’s love of her hometown, so Hampton Beach seemed to be the perfect choice.”

“Murder Ink 3” is a collection of pulp fiction murder mysteries by New England authors, released through Plaidswede Publishing Co. Reporters and newsrooms are central to the stories in the collection, and many of the tales are written by current and former reporters. Ray previously reported on North Hampton for the Atlantic News. The first two Kay Leavitt stories appeared in the previous “Murder Ink” volumes.

Ray said “Last Resort” and the other Kay Leavitt stories fall into the cozy mystery genre, contrasting with darker, gorier murder stories in the “Murder Ink” series. The collection’s editor, Dan Szczesny, said he was skeptical a story about a crime-solving dog would fit alongside grizzlier tales but was surprised to find Poe worked quite well. In the first Kay Leavitt story, “A Nose for News,” Poe discovers a scent that leads to the rescue of a key character.

Poe, who belongs to Kay’s boss and friend Wayne Turgeon, is based on Peter, a 5-year-old pug belonging to Ray’s close friend. Ray said Peter’s apparent precocity always caught her attention, a quick learner during training sessions earlier in life.

“I noticed how intelligent Peter is, and that’s just where I got the idea that a pug could be perfect as a sidekick for my main character,” said Ray.

Ray never solved a murder mystery herself while at the newspaper, but said her work at the Atlantic News was not unlike that of her protagonist Kay, who covers a small-town beat for the Kittery Crier newspaper.

As a girl living in Merrimack Ray spent summers with her family at Hampton Beach in a Dover Avenue cottage named the Rose G, which she said is still there. She said she has always been a passionate Skee-Ball player and enjoys fried dough on the boardwalk and live music on the beach’s popular bandstand. At age 15, she started working at a store at Seabrook Beach in the current state liquor store plaza and eventually owned it up until the 1990s, at one point renaming it Marybeth’s Gifts.

Hampton Beach also serves as a backdrop for Ray’s 2014 mystery thriller novel “Dangerous Denial,” the main character’s childhood home being based on the Dover Avenue cottage where Ray spent her summers.

Ray said she developed her love for shocking plot twists after she read “Great Expectations” in high school, saying she was blown away by the surprise in the Charles Dickens classic.

“I hope when people read my books they get the same kind of thrill, that they didn’t see it coming,” said Ray. “That’s what I want to strive for.”

“Murder Ink 3” can be purchased through www.nhbooksellers.com, and “Dangerous Denial,” released by Barking Rain Press, can be bought through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as at the Book Outlet in North Hampton. Ray anticipates releasing her next novel, “Color of Betrayal,” later this year. For more information, visit www.writeramyray.com.

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KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine — The Maine Superior Court issued a final ruling in the Goose Rocks Beach lawsuit late Friday, finding in favor of the town of Kennebunkport, granting title rights to the town of all beach areas in front of all but one of the 23 plaintiffs’ beachfront properties down to the low water mark.

The 274-page ruling from Justice Wayne R. Douglas ends an almost 9-year battle over public access to Goose Rocks Beach. In the fall of 2009, 23 beachfront property owners filed a lawsuit against the town over their property rights at Goose Rocks Beach, fighting to halt public beach access.

Attorney Amy Tchao, of Drummond Woodsum who serves as the town attorney said, “this is an important win for the town of Kennebunkport and for all who believe that Goose Rocks Beach should be open for all to enjoy, not just to those fortunate enough to own property fronting the beach.”

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Bangor’s three women city councilors called on a local concert promotion company to reassess whether its owner, who pleaded guilty to a domestic violence charge last year, should continue leading the company.

“It is high time for Waterfront Concerts to think hard on whether it wants someone guilty of violence against women representing its brand and presence in this community,” Councilors Clare Davitt, Sarah Nichols and Laura Supica wrote in a statement about Waterfront Concerts owner Alex Gray.

Separately, in a Bangor Daily News OpEd published Monday morning, the three vowed to improve the city’s policies on domestic violence, and acknowledged “Bangor’s own failings to address this issue.”

“We hear the call for action,” they wrote. “We can and must do more to address domestic violence in our city.”

[Opinion: Bangor must do more to combat domestic violence]

Their statements came after Gray’s ex-girlfriend, Erica Cole, called on Bangor and Portland to stop doing business with the promoter. Gray in October pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor domestic violence assault charge after Cole accused him of choking her and slamming her head against the floor of his Portland condominium. The next month, Bangor inked a 10-year contract with Gray’s company to continue bringing concerts to Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion.

Bangor officials have repeatedly said they cannot legally sever their contract with Gray without facing significant costs. But several council members have said they wish they’d could work with someone other than Gray.

Gray said Monday that stepping down from his company is never really something he’s considered before.

“I really don’t know. It’s something I would really have to ponder,” he said. “I’d say my first response is that I don’t know that anybody, if replaced, would put in the effort that I put in.”

Following Cole’s letter, Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling said he wants to cancel the city’s negotiations with the company over running a summer concert series at the Maine State Pier. The Portland City Council was scheduled to discuss it at its Monday night meeting.

“You are also setting an example for young men and women that — in the city of Portland — money trumps morality,” Cole wrote in the letter addressed to Portland City Manager Jon Jennings.

[Bangor should be able to ditch contractors convicted of violent crimes, official says]

Davitt, Nichols and Supica on Monday praised Cole for speaking out, and said they want the city to draft other policies to take a harder stance against domestic violence.

Their proposals include strengthening and mandating extensive workplace training on domestic violence prevention and sexual assault, vetting future contractors’ domestic violence training policies before deciding to work with them, and roping in local experts from organizations like Partners for Peace, to help. Bangor-based Partners for Peace provides support services to abuse survivors. That organization has already been working with the Bangor to draft new educational policies and training for city employees, but there’s more to be done, said Casey Faulkingham, the leader of Partners for Peace’s community response team.

“I would love to see Bangor City Councilors listening to survivors about how it feels to see in the newspaper that the city is doing business with a perpetrator,” she said. “I wish that our city were stronger in its convictions. … By doing business with [Gray], he’s not being held accountable. We’re just lining his pockets.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence and would like to talk with an advocate, call 866-834-4357, TRS 800-787-3224. This free, confidential service is available 24/7 and is accessible from anywhere in Maine.

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A 28-year-old driver injured a Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office deputy and his passenger Sunday when he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into the officer’s parked cruiser.

Schuyler Mann of South Portland was driving a 2004 Pontiac Vibe southbound on Route 27 in Belgrade when he dozed off and veered into the breakdown lane, slamming into the rear of a 36-year-old Deputy Jeremy York’s marked cruiser, according to Maine Department of Public Safety Spokesman Steve McCausland. The collision occurred just after 6:15 p.m., he said, and resulted in serious damage to both vehicles.

York and Mann’s passenger, 27-year-old Katherine Hynd of South Portland, were taken to MaineGeneral Hospital in Augusta and treated for minor injuries, McCausland said.

State troopers are reconstructing the crash, he said.

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ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Duluth squeaked into the NCAA Tournament — and celebrated like crazy when it was over.

Karson Kuhlman had a goal and an assist, and the Bulldogs beat Notre Dame 2-1 Saturday night to win the school’s second NCAA hockey championship.

Jared Thomas also scored and Hunter Shepard stopped 19 shots for the Bulldogs (25-16-3). UMD also won the 2011 title at the Xcel Energy Center.

“We were fortunate enough to make the tournament and we ran with that opportunity,” Kuhlman said.

No kidding.

Minnesota Duluth looked like a long shot for the 16-team NCAA field after it dropped its second game in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference tournament on March 17. The Bulldogs needed six conference finals that evening to go their way.

They did, allowing UMD to edge Minnesota by .0001 in the formula used to determine the at-large teams. Notre Dame’s overtime win over Ohio State in the Big Ten title game put the Bulldogs in the tournament.

“One day you think you owe them a little bit like a thank you and the next day you’re playing them in the national title game,” said Kuhlman, who was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

Andrew Oglevie scored and Cale Morris made 33 saves for Notre Dame (28-10-2), winless in two national title games. The Irish lost to Boston College in 2008.

“They became that team of destiny that you’re always hoping to be at the end of the year,” Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson said.

Minnesota Duluth lost to Denver in last year’s championship. The Bulldogs had seven seniors on that team, and then three underclassmen departed early for the NHL, including the starting goaltender.

Five of Minnesota Duluth’s top six defensemen are freshmen, and Shepard, a sophomore, recorded a sub-2.00 goals against average with eight shutouts.

“We felt our forward group was pretty good. We were replacing scoring, but we had some good depth,” coach Scott Sandelin said. “The job that young group back there did, I think it really moved forward when Shep grabbed the net and played the way he did. It gave our whole team confidence.”

UMD has played 11 consecutive one-goal games in NCAA Tournament play, winning eight of them.

For the second straight game, the Bulldogs scored two first-period goals and held on. They beat Ohio State 2-1 Thursday.

UMD took advantage of two Irish turnovers.

Pressured by Kuhlman, Notre Dame’s Jordan Gross lost the puck in the neutral zone. Jade Miller poked the puck ahead to Kuhlman at the Irish blue line, and after a brief hesitation in the right circle, the captain beat Morris with a rising shot.

An aggressive forecheck led to Thomas knocking Andrew Peeke off the puck in the right corner. The puck went to Kuhlman and back to Thomas, who banked a shot from near the goal line off Morris and in with 1:21 left in the period.

Oglevie redirected a pass from Cam Morrison for a power-play goal in the second period to get the Irish on the board.

“There was never a panic, there was never any doubt in that room,” Thomas said. “If we needed to win the game 2-1, we were going to win the game 2-1. You saw it on third-period play where we really shut them down.”

Struggling to get pucks deep, Notre Dame had just five shots in the final 20 minutes.

Since Feb. 21, 2015, UMD is 56-0-3 when taking a lead into the third period, including 23-0-1 this season.

Notre Dame had won its previous five postseason games by one goal, with the game-winners coming in the final 31 seconds of regulation or overtime.

The day before announcing the University of Maine’s next president, the university system received $5 million to start a fund to attract and retain quality leaders at the state’s flagship campus in Orono.

On Monday, the university announced the Harold Alfond Foundation gift, meant to establish a “Maine leadership endowment fund.” The money will be used to help the university system “fund a nationally competitive compensation package for the next University of Maine president,” according to a news release.

Current UMaine President Susan Hunter, who is slated to retire this summer, earns $275,000. The University of New Hampshire recently hired James Dean Jr. to lead the state’s largest public university, and is paying him $445,000 per year in base pay.

The university expects to announce its 21st president during an event Tuesday morning.

University of Maine System trustees approved the hiring during a meeting last month, but their choice’s identity was withheld until they had a chance to iron out details of a contract with Chancellor James Page.

The finalists:

— Sally Reis served as vice provost for academic affairs at the University of Connecticut from 2011 to 2017. She was named a distinguished professor there, and she has 40 years of teaching experience ranging from middle school to college. She was head of the educational psychology program at UConn from 2000 to 2006, and has a doctorate in educational psychology from the UConn.

— Amit Chakma has worked as president and vice chancellor at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada, since 2009. He also is a chemical engineering professor at the university. Prior to that role, he was academic vice president and provost at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He earned a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of British Columbia.

— Joan Ferrini-Mundy is chief operating officer of the National Science Foundation, an organization in which she’s held leadership roles since 2007. Prior to her work with the foundation, she held administrative roles at Michigan State University and the University of New Hampshire. She has a doctorate in mathematics education from the University of New Hampshire.

Another candidate, University of New Hampshire Provost Nancy Targett, withdrew after being named a finalist.

Whoever takes on the UMaine presidency will be leading not only the system’s largest campus, but also its smallest, the University of Maine at Machias. The Machias campus struggled for several years from budget deficits, shrinking enrollments and cuts aimed at keeping the institution afloat. The University of Maine has since taken UMM under its wing, accepting the bulk of administrative responsibility for the smaller campus.

Watch bangordailynews.com for updates.

Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter at @nmccre213.

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A couple walking in the woods off Route 100 in Falmouth Sunday morning discovered human skeletal remains, authorities said.

The Maine medical examiner’s office is now trying to identify the person, whose bones were found above ground, according to Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland. He declined to say where exactly they were found, although he said the location was close to the Portland city line.

After the bones were reported, police checked and found that no missing persons have been reported to the Falmouth police, McCausland said. Maine State Police detectives are waiting on the medical examiner’s office for more information that would allow them to expand their investigation, he said.

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An attempt by a tribal representative to the Legislature to have the Maine Supreme Judicial Court determine whether tribes in Maine could operate casinos failed Monday in the House of Representatives.

Rep. Henry John Bear of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians has been at the forefront of attempts at tribal gaming for years — all of which have failed at the ballot box and in the Legislature. On Monday, Bear tried to take the issue to the high court but was defeated in a 73-67 House vote.

The issue is now dead.

Bear, a non-voting member of the Legislature, argues that a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court case argued in California on behalf of the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians gives tribes the authority to operate casinos if the states where their reservations are located allow casinos.

Bear said the revenue could help Maine’s tribes on a range of public health and infrastructure issues. He also said a casino would benefit Aroostook County’s economy.

“We need jobs. We want to pay our own way,” said Bear during House debate. “That’s the simple response to the question to us of ‘why do you want to do it? Why do you want gaming?’”

Under the Maine Constitution, the governor, House or Senate can ask the Supreme Judicial Court to “give their opinion upon important questions of law, and upon solemn occasions.” That means Bear’s order only needed majority approval in the House, but it didn’t happen.

Bear’s order came while a bill to authorize tribal gaming is all but dead. LD 1201 has already been voted down in the Senate on a 21-13 vote and faces more votes in both chambers.

Numerous legislative attempts at granting gaming facilities to tribes have been defeated in recent years, with arguments against them usually centering around the fact that despite there being two privately run casinos here, Maine does not have a comprehensive gaming strategy or rules for their development.

For a roundup of Maine political news, click here for the Daily Brief. Click here to get Maine’s only newsletter on state politics via email on weekday mornings.

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YORK, Maine — By more than a 2-1 margin, the voters of York decided on Saturday to keep Dick Bachelder on the York School Committee.

The final tally in the recall election was 315 in favor of his recall from office and 744 opposed — capping a months-long removal campaign started by members of the group Coaches and Kids Matter.

[Lead-up to recall vote for school board member ‘suspiciously quiet’]

When voting results were announced Saturday night, a clearly emotional Bachelder said he was thankful to the people who took the time to cast ballots for him.

“I’m extremely moved,” he said. “And I’m very grateful for the support, that people took the time to vote. I think it’s a very positive thing for our town. I was concerned that if I lost, it would have an impact on people’s interest in wanting to serve. Going through this was extremely difficult for me and my family, so if you go through this and you lose, what kind of message does that send to people who will want to serve on the school board?”

The effort to recall Bachelder was mounted in January, with Coaches and Kids matter alleging he violated the School Committee’s Code of Ethics — particularly surrounding the termination of former York High football and basketball coach Randy Small. They were charges Bachelder categorically denied.

[School board member facing recall vote: ‘I have done nothing wrong’]

Kent Kilgore of Coaches and Kids Matter said Saturday night, “We did our job. We created a concern. I think we sent a message that the School Committee needs to look at some things. Let the chips fall where they lay. I don’t feel bad about it at all. I feel good that we brought up these issues.”

Bachelder said he was not unmindful of the fact that the town clerk and poll workers gave up a spring Saturday to sit at the high school gym all day, and thanked them as they trickled out of the gym after the results were known.

Town clerk Mary-Anne Szeniawski said the 1,059 people who voted Saturday represent about 10 percent of the roughly 11,000 registered voters in York. “Not bad for a single issue ballot measure,” she said. Some 500 voters cast absentee ballots; the remainder came to the polls on Saturday.

Bachelder, along with chair Julie Eneman and newcomer Meaghan Schoff, are all seeking election to two open seats on the committee in just over a month, when the regular municipal elections are held May 19.

In the meantime, said Bachelder, “it’s time to get back to work.”

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Bangor residents on Monday night demanded the city cut ties with a prominent concert owner who pleaded guilty to domestic abuse.

Nearly 20 people showed up at a Bangor City Council meeting to criticize the city’s decision to sign a 10-year contract with Waterfront Concerts owner Alex Gray.

“No one is arguing that Waterfront Concerts [isn’t] a huge economic boon for the area,” Andrea LaFlamme, 30, told councilors at the meeting. “All we’re saying is that we don’t want to do business with Alex Gray, and I think we can have it both ways,” she said, adding that Gray was quickly becoming a “liability.”

This is the first time Bangor residents have publicly condemned the city’s deal with Gray, spurred in part by a letter written last month by his ex-girlfriend, Erica Cole, who brought the charge against him. Cole called upon Bangor and Portland officials to stop doing business with Gray.

“The contract that the city has with Gray brings in millions of dollars per year. So where’s the line?” LaFlamme asked. “What amount of money justifies the city entering into a contract with someone [like Gray]? Is the beating of one woman easier to excuse than several?”

Bangor officials have repeatedly said they cannot legally sever their contract with Gray, though several council members have said they wish they could work with a different promoter.

“I want everybody to know that you’ve been heard,” City Council Chairman Ben Sprague told those who spoke. “We will be revisiting some of these ideas that were brought up.”

The city inked a 10-year contract with Waterfront Concerts in September, after the misdemeanor charge had been brought against Gray but before he pleaded guilty.

Gray last month presented to the council a plan to build a permanent structure at the outdoor venue, which would require extending the contract by 20 to 30 years. The city is still in early talks about the proposal and Sprague said he didn’t know how the public’s response on Monday will affect negotiations.

Earlier Monday the council’s three women, Councilors Clare Davitt, Sarah Nichols, Laura Supica called on Waterfront Concerts to rethink having Gray as the face of the company.

“It is high time for Waterfront Concerts to think hard on whether it wants someone guilty of domestic violence representing its brand and presence in this community,” they said in a statement, which was later followed by a separate Bangor Daily News OpEd.

Einstein Hickman, 33, a clinical therapist, said the council had the power to “make decisions to represent the morals and values of its people. The city council chose not to do that.”

LaFlamme said she thinks Bangor and Portland are in an appropriate position to pressure Waterfront Concerts into severing ties with Gray, and urged councilors to take that step.

But Councilor David Nealley called the criticisms “false,” suggesting that those who criticized the council didn’t know all the facts of the city’s negotiation with Gray.

“I just think it’s sort of reckless to be suggesting that we’ve done something that was less than thou in serving the people of Bangor,” he said.

Amy Blackstone, a sociology professor at the University of Maine said if the city is going to continue working with Gray, “Let’s be certain that Alex Gray’s values align with the city’s before we go even further down the path of a partnership that we find it even more difficult to extricate ourselves from.”

She suggested the city request that Gray to demonstrate how he supports gender equality in his company, and “require that he put mechanisms in place to prevent and respond to gender abuse and sexual harassment when it happens at his business.”

In Portland on Monday night, a large crowd of residents attended the city council meeting, where councilors considered in a first reading whether to end contract negotiations with Gray, but no discussion was held.

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Independent state Rep. Marty Grohman of Biddeford announced Tuesday that he will challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree for her congressional seat, setting up an at least three-way general election contest.

Grohman, a former Democrat who unenrolled from the party in September 2017, is nearing the end of his second term in the Legislature and said Tuesday he is not seeking re-election. Grohman told the Bangor Daily News that he wants to serve in Congress to “work together” with Republicans and Democrats.

“I don’t think that anybody thinks what is going on right now is working in Washington,” Grohman said. “I know I would be just one voice, but you’ve got to start somewhere.”

Grohman, who manages a roofing manufacturing company, has not yet filed candidacy paperwork, according to the Federal Election Commission’s website. Pingree and Mark Holbrook, a counselor from Brunswick who won a 2016 Republican primary for the seat but lost to Pingree in the general election, have qualified for the ballot.

When he left the Democratic Party, Grohman told the Bangor Daily News he was bothered by the influence of “special interest groups” in Augusta and thought he could accomplish more as an independent.

Pingree is seeking her sixth term representing the southern and coastal Maine district. She easily beat Holbrook in 2016.

For a roundup of Maine political news, click here for the Daily Brief. Click here to get Maine’s only newsletter on state politics via email on weekday mornings.

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Should the government guarantee everyone a job at a living wage? The idea is gaining momentum among progressives. By 2020, it may join Medicare for All, debt-free college, a $15 minimum wage, antitrust revival and Social Security expansion as part of a bold reform agenda that Democratic presidential aspirants will have to embrace or debate.

A Good Jobs Guarantee would be a federally funded, locally administered program. Municipalities and towns, linked with nonprofits, would create community job banks that would organize real jobs with good pay and benefits. By addressing needs largely ignored by private markets, the program would avoid competition with private business. By paying a living wage — most plans call for a minimum of $11 to $15 an hour with benefits — the jobs guarantee would lift the floor under workers, ensuring that no one works full time and remains in poverty.

Calls for a job guarantee have deep roots in the Democratic Party. In 1944, coming out of the Great Depression and still entrenched in World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for an Economic Bill of Rights, with the right to a job and living wage the first two principles. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. picked up that charge, understanding that economic justice was an essential challenge of the civil rights movement. After King’s assassination, his widow, Coretta Scott King, helped build the public pressure that culminated in 1978 with the passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, a bill that was diluted in its final passage to make full employment a goal rather than a guarantee.

The guarantee is needed today because this economy doesn’t work for working people. Wages of the middle 60 percent of workers have essentially stagnated through this century. The Economic Policy Institute reported that more than 1 in 4 workers labor at poverty-level wages.What is worse, entrenched discrimination condemns African-Americans to nearly twice the unemployment levels as whites.

Wage stagnation and unemployment have worsened spreading epidemics of despair — opioid and other drug addiction, spousal and child abuse, physical and mental illness, suicide, divorce — that have produced a decline in American life expectancy. Trump may boast about top-line unemployment being near record lows, but nothing in his agenda will redress this harsh reality.

A central cause is that the United States has an explicit policy that condemns a percentage of the population to unemployment as a way to manage the business cycle. Currently, the Federal Reserve, concerned about the possibility of inflation not yet apparent, is raising interest rates to slow the economy and keep more people out of work. This is combined with the imbalance in power between workers and employers, as corporations use globalization, monopoly power and assaults on labor unions to roll back wages and benefits.

A good job guarantee stabilizes the business cycle not with a pool of unemployed workers, but with a pool of workers publicly employed at a living wage. The number expands when the private economy goes into recession, countering the downturn. It will decrease when the private economy grows, while preserving a floor for wages and conditions. They can be flexible to meet local needs. They can be supplemented with training programs to provide useful skills.

Finding good work won’t be a problem. Rebuilding crumbling roads, bridges and other parts of our infrastructure tops the list. Cities could use the program to clean up abandoned lots, rebuild parks, plant trees, arrest soil erosion and more. Essential care for the most vulnerable — elder care, after-school programs, support for new mothers and veterans and at-risk children — could finally be addressed.

A study released by the Levy Institute suggests that initially, the Good Jobs Guarantee would need to employ anywhere between 11 million and 16 million workers. That might cost in total about 1.3 percent to 2.4 percent of GDP. Much of the cost would be paid by savings from the costs of unemployment — unemployment insurance, food stamps, mass incarceration, opioid and drug treatment, policing and more. More would be covered by the increased growth and productivity that would be a direct result of lifting the floor under workers. And with inequality reaching new heights, reversal of the Republican tax cuts on corporations and the rich, plus a sensible estate tax to address the threat of oligarchic dynasties would more than pay the tab.

The discussion of a guarantee has just begun. In addition to the Levy Institute, other think tanks like the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and the Center for American Progress have also outlined different versions of a jobs guarantee. Policy analysts are now beginning to publish more comprehensive views. Polls reveal the concept already has remarkable popular support. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is likely to put together model legislation and basic principles. The progressive energy coming out of the 2016 election will push town meetings, study groups and city council resolutions. Don’t be surprised if by 2020, a Good Job Guarantee is a centerpiece of one or more Democratic Party presidential hopefuls.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation magazine, is a Washington Post columnist.

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A Maine Superior Court justice has been nominated by President Donald Trump to replace U.S. District Judge John Woodcock, according to Maine’s U.S. senators.

Lance Walker, 46, of Falmouth was nominated to the state District Court bench in early 2014 by Gov. Paul LePage and unanimously confirmed. He became a Superior Court justice in November 2015.

Walker, through his secretary at the Cumberland County Courthouse in Portland, declined to comment.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Walker would be the U.S. District judge in Bangor. Federal judges are appointed for life.

Woodcock went on active senior status last summer, creating the vacancy on the federal court bench. Judges are allowed to move to active senior status after they have reached the age of 65 and been on the bench for 15 years.

“During his nearly two decades of experience as both an attorney in private practice and as a judge in Maine’s judicial system, Justice Walker has demonstrated that he has the intelligence, temperament, and integrity required for this important position,” Collins and King said Tuesday in a joint statement. “Justice Walker has made numerous contributions to Maine’s legal community and would serve our state well as a federal judge. We look forward to working with our colleagues in the Senate to confirm Justice Walker.”

On the Maine District Court bench, Walker presided over a wide variety of dockets, primarily in Androscoggin and Oxford counties, the senators said in a news release. He also worked for more than a dozen years in the Portland law firm Norman, Hanson & DeTroy as a trial and appellate attorney as well as a legal consultant specializing in complex litigation and insurance law. He became a partner after six years.

Walker was born in Milo and raised in Dover-Foxcroft, where his parents owned and operated a hardware store and travel agency. His father was also an engineer on the Canadian Pacific Railway in Brownville Junction. After graduating from Foxcroft Academy in 1990, Walker attended the University of Maine, where he earned a bachelor of arts in philosophy, and the University of Maine School of Law.

Walker lives in Falmouth with his wife, Heidi, and their two daughters, Ava and Dylan.

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