'Friends' star Matthew Perry dies, Maine mass killing suspect found dead, and more of the week's top news

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence is dropping his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, ending his campaign for the White House after struggling to raise money and gain traction in the polls.

“After much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today," Pence said at the Republican Jewish Coalition gathering in Las Vegas. “We always knew this would be an uphill battle, but I have no regrets," he said.

Pence becomes the first major candidate to leave a race that has been dominated by his former boss-turned-rival, Donald Trump.

The decision, more than two months before the Iowa caucuses that he had staked his campaign on, saves Pence from the embarrassment of failing to qualify for the third Republican primary debate, Nov. 8 in Miami.

But the withdrawal is a huge blow for a politician who spent years biding his time as Trump’s most loyal lieutenant, only to be scapegoated during their final days in office when Trump became convinced that Pence somehow had the power to overturn the results of the 2020 election and keep both men in office — not something a vice president could do.

While Pence averted a constitutional crisis by rejecting the scheme, he drew Trump’s fury, as well as the wrath of many of Trump’s supporters who believed his lies and still see Pence as a traitor.

For updates:

Photos: Mike Pence through the years

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Police teams had already searched a recycling center in Maine twice before eventually finding the body of the man suspected of killing 18 people in Lewiston was found, authorities said Saturday.

Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck said the teams that scoured the Maine Recycling Corp. property that features as many as 60 trailers, including a tactical team, on Thursday night. He said another state police team returned the site Friday and found Robert Card’s body in a trailer rthat hadn’t been searched.

The 40-year-old Card of Bowdoin — a firearms instructor who grew up in the area — was suspected of also injuring 13 people during a shooting rampage at a bowling alley and bar on Wednesday night in Lewiston. Card died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Jim Ferguson, the ATF special agent in charge in Boston, told The Associated Press that the weapons used in the shooting had been purchased legally. Many firearms were recovered from Card although he declined to say their make, model or how many exactly.

“There were a lot more than three,” Ferguson said.

In the Saturday press conference, Sauschuck said Card had a history of mental illness, but there was no evidence that he had ever been involuntarily committed. “Just because there appears to be a mental health nexus to this scenario, the vast majority of people with mental health diagnosis will never hurt anybody,” he said.

As for why Card chose his targets, Sauschuck said it was likely due to paranoia, that he thought people were talking about him.

He also said the note found in Card’s home was meant for a loved one with the pass code to his phone and bank account numbers. Sauschuck said he wouldn’t describe it as an explicit suicide note but that the tone indicated that was the intent.

Street life returned to Lewiston Saturday morning after a days-long lockdown in the city of 37,000. Joggers took advantage of the warm weather. People walked dogs through downtown and picked up coffees and visited other shops that had been closed since the shooting.

“Right now, we want Maine to be remembered as the community that came together after this tragic event,” said Lisbon Police Chief Ryan McGee, recalling how he drove into town Saturday and saw ”people walking the streets, people sitting on porches, waving. Giving the thumbs up."

Whitney Pelletier hung a hand-drawn “Lewiston Strong” sign in the glass door of her downtown cafe, Forage, on Saturday morning.

Like other local businesses, Forage has been closed for days as police searched for Card.

“Last night when they found his body, I think the fear that I had been holding onto just living in downtown Lewiston was replaced with sadness,” she said.

The deadliest shootings in Maine history stunned a state of 1.3 million people that has relatively little violent crime and had only 29 killings in all of 2022. In Lewiston, the 37,000 residents and those in surrounding communities were told to stay in their homes as hundreds of police officers, sheriff’s deputies, FBI agents and other law enforcement officials swarmed the area.

The stay at home order was lifted Friday and hours later authorities announced they had found Card's body.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced Card had been found dead at a Friday night news conference. Then, she called for the healing process to begin.

“Like many people I’m breathing a sigh of relief tonight knowing that Robert Card is no longer a threat to anyone,” Mills said.

Card was a U.S. Army reservist. Leo Madden, who said he ran Maine Recycling Corp. for decades, told the AP that Card worked there for a couple of years and nothing about him stood out. Madden said he didn’t remember when Card was employed or whether he was fired or quit. The facility is located in Lisbon, not far from Lewiston.

Last summer, Card underwent a mental health evaluation after he began acting erratically during training, a U.S. official told the AP. A bulletin sent to police across the country shortly after the attack said Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks after “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” a military base.

The military said Card was training with the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment in West Point, New York, when commanders became concerned about him. State police took Card to the Keller Army Community Hospital at West Point for evaluation.

On Wednesday, Card attacked the bowling alley first, then went to the bar. Police were quickly sent to both locations but Card was able to escape. For the next two days authorities scoured the woods and hundreds of acres of Card's family-owned property, and sent dive teams with sonar to the bottom of the Androscoggin River.

Law enforcement officials had said they hadn't seen Card since his vehicle was left at a boat ramp Wednesday shortly after the shootings.

Hours before Card's body was found, the names and pictures of the 15 men, two women and 14-year-old boy who died in the shootings were released at a news conference.

The Maine Department of Public Safety said it would open a Family Assistance Center in Lewiston starting Saturday morning to offer help and support to victims at the Lewiston Armory.

The Maine Educational Center for the Deaf said the shootings killed at least four members of their community.

Tammy Asselin was in the bowling alley with her 10-year-old daughter, Toni, and was injured when she fell in the scramble as the shooting began. She had said she hoped the shooter would be found alive because she and her daughter had many questions that they hoped he could answer.

On Saturday morning, she told the AP in a text message that her daughter was relieved by the news, and she was able to sleep peacefully.

“I am relieved as well, but also saddened at a lost opportunity to learn as much as we can,” she said. “Now we are on the journey to heal, and I am looking forward to working on this. It will be difficult but I’m optimistic we will be stronger in the long run."

The Cards have lived in Bowdoin for generations, neighbors said, and various members of the family own hundreds of acres in the area. The family owned the local sawmill and years ago donated the land for a local church.

Family members of Card told federal investigators that he had recently discussed hearing voices and became more focused on the bowling alley and bar, according to the law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. When he was hospitalized in July in New York, Card had told military officials he had been hearing voices and said he wanted to harm other soldiers, the officials said.

Sauschuck also praised Card’s family called investigators to provide his name to law enforcement soon after police released surveillance pictures of the shooter.

“This family has been incredibly cooperative with us,” Sauschuck said. “Truth be told the first three people that called us ... were family members.”

The Lewiston shootings were the 36th mass killing in the United States this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

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Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire and Whittle from Portland, Maine. Associated Press journalists who also contributed: Robert Bukaty and Robert Bumsted in Lewiston; Michael Balsamo in New York; and Michael Casey in Boston.

A woman wearing a costume of a Dos Equis beer bottle last Saturday approached me at a Halloween party.

“Matthew Perry died,” she said somberly.

How appropriate that I heard the news from a bottle of booze, I thought. Perry struggled for most of his life with drinking and addiction problems. The talented but troubled actor was found unresponsive in a hot tub at his house.

Police said no foul play was involved. The Los Angeles County coroner has deferred the investigation to determine a cause of death, which may take weeks. Toxicology tests will determine what, if anything, was in Perry’s body.

It doesn’t matter to me how he died. It’s a miracle he lived to 54. He abused his body for much of his life. He said this publicly many times.

“Alcoholism and addiction took over decades of my life,” Perry said in one interview.

I admired him more for his candid feelings about his off-screen demons than I did for his on-screen performance as Chandler Bing in the mega-popular TV show “Friends.” Along with millions of other fans, I loved that show and I laughed at his character’s sarcastic one liners, which echoed the edgy sense of humor of my big brother, Joe.

Perry always reminded me of Joe, who also struggled with drinking and addiction problems. Alcoholism and addiction took over decades of his life, just like with Perry. Joe started drinking alcohol as a teenager, just like Perry. Joe wasted ridiculous amounts of money to feed his addictions, just like Perry. And Joe died prematurely, just like Perry.

“Taking all those drugs, and it was a lot of drugs, was just a futile attempt to feel better,” Perry wrote in his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.”

My brother also took a lot of drugs in a futile attempt to feel better. He looked for relief in the bottom of hundreds of beer, wine and liquor bottles. He tried just about every illegal substance you can think of. He pawned stuff to feed his addiction. He sold his soul to get the next fix.

Joe’s preferred pain killer was painkillers, just like with Perry, who at one point was downing 55 Vicodins a day during his “Friends” days. Joe also downed dozens of pills a day, if he had them. For one of his birthdays later in life, I gave him a plastic baggie filled with assorted pills from my medicine cabinet.

“Happy Birthday!” I wrote on a note.

I had no idea what the pills were originally prescribed for. He could identify them like a pharmacist. It may have been the best gift I ever gave him. That baggie was empty by nightfall.

I deliberated about giving him such a “gift.” Was I an enabler or a brother? Both at times. Neither at times. We had a love-hate relationship. I loved him. I hated his addiction. It was very difficult for my family to differentiate our feelings to both entities. My poor mother did everything possible to unconditionally love and protect Joe despite his addiction. And despite how he abused her.

This is what angered me most about my brother’s addiction, and his actions to satisfy it.

At heart, Joe was a kind and generous soul. He would buy gifts for his nieces and nephew. He would bring me doughnuts and a newspaper every morning, dropping them off in my mailbox before I woke up.

He often woke very early to get his first fix of the day. Later in his life it was methadone, an oral medication used to treat opioid use disorder. He had a little metal box filled with his daily doses he received from a methadone clinic. I joined him once to learn more about the process.

“I’m always in pain,” he told a counselor. “Always.”

I tried keeping this in mind when he mistreated his body and my mother. If she were still alive, I wouldn’t have written this column with so many candid details. But, just like with Perry, I believe that more people need to share their experiences about addiction. It can possibly rescue others who are drowning in it. Or at least we can make a connection.

Perry said he attended more than 6,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and entered rehab 15 times, spending upwards of $9 million trying to get sober. My brother didn’t have the luxury of such wealth. He spent relationships to try to get sober. Ours is still a complicated one even though he’s been dead for years.

“When I die, I don’t want ‘Friends’ to be the first thing that’s mentioned,” Perry said one year ago this month. “I want that [helping other addicts] to be the first thing that’s mentioned.”

It didn’t happen that way. “Friends” comes first, addiction second, if you’re scoring at home.

I hope my brother’s troubled life and premature death can help other addicts and their tortured families. Addiction is as common as a lie. Or a rationalization. This is especially true for addicts who don’t know where to turn or who to confess their deepest secret.

“Find someone who’s smarter than you about this and talk to them, and be honest about it,” Perry said in that interview last year.

My brother was always the smartest person in the room. Any room. His addiction wasn’t impressed. Or intimidated. He died Jan. 21, 2009. I’m not sure what was in his 50-year-old body. It doesn’t matter to me how he died.

When that bottle of beer approached me at the party and said, “Matthew Perry died,” I wanted to reply, “So did my brother.” But no one there cared about his death. Or his life. So I made a bad joke about addicts drowning in regrets.

The beer bottle winced, but I bet that Perry and my brother would have laughed.

Anheuser-Busch Inbev said Tuesday that revenue growth in most of its global regions was offset by a drop in North American sales, in a sign of continuing fallout from a promotion with a transgender influencer that cost it sales.

The world's largest brewer and parent company of Bud Light said adjusted earnings for the latest quarter rose 4.1% to $5.4 billion on revenues that climbed 5% to $15.6 billion.

Revenue in the United States for the July-September period, however, tumbled 13.5%. AB InBev, based in Leuven, Belgium, noted that sales to retailers were down "primarily due to the volume decline of Bud Light."

Bud Light sales plunged amid a conservative backlash after the brand sent a commemorative can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in early April.

The controversy toppled Bud Light from its position as America's best-selling beer for more than two decades. In June, it dropped to second place in U.S. retail sales behind Modelo Especial. Modelo – which is owned by InBev but imported and sold by Constellation Brands in the U.S. – remains the market leader, with nearly 9% share in year-to-date retail sales through Oct. 21. Bud Light has an 8% share.

U.S. dollar sales of Bud Light were down 29% in the four weeks ending Oct. 21 compared to same period a year ago, according to Nielsen data compiled by Bump Williams Consulting. They are down nearly 19% for the year to date.

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