By STEVE KARNOWSKI

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman, who was shot nine times by a gunman posing as a police officer who authorities say went on to kill another lawmaker, is out of the hospital and is now recovering in a transitional care unit, his family said.

“John has been moved to a rehab facility, but still has a long road to recovery ahead,” the family said in a statement Monday night.

The family released a photo showing a smiling Hoffman giving a thumbs-up while standing with a suitcase on rollers, ready to leave the hospital.

Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were awakened around 2 a.m. on June 14 by a man pounding on the door of their home in the Minneapolis suburb of Champlin, who said he was a police officer. According to an FBI agent’s affidavit, security video showed the suspect, Vance Boelter, at the door wearing a black tactical vest and holding a flashlight. He was wearing a flesh-colored mask that covered his entire head.

Yvette Hoffman told investigators they opened the door, and when they spotted the mask, they realized that the man was not a police officer. He then said something like “this is a robbery.” The senator then lunged at the gunman and was shot nine times. Yvette Hoffman was hit eight times before she could shut the door. Their adult daughter, Hope, was there but was not injured and called 911.

Boelter is accused of going to the homes of two other lawmakers in a vehicle altered to resemble a squad car, without making contact with them, before going to the home of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in nearby Brooklyn Park. He allegedly killed both of them and wounded their dog so seriously that he had to be euthanized.

The chief federal prosecutor for Minnesota has called the lawmaker’s killing an assassination.

Yvette Hoffman was released from the hospital a few days after the attacks. Former President Joe Biden visited the senator in the hospital when he was in town for the Hortmans’ funeral.

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Boelter, who remains jailed without bail, is charged in federal and state court with murder and attempted murder. At a hearing Thursday, Boelter said he was “looking forward to the facts about the 14th coming out.”

Prosecutors have declined to speculate on a motive. Friends have described him as an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views.

It will be up to Attorney General Pam Bondi to decide whether to seek the federal death penalty. Minnesota abolished its state death penalty in 1911.

A woman who died after she was shot in a vehicle traveling on a Minneapolis interstate was officially identified Tuesday as a 24-year-old from St. Paul.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said Anassia Wiseman died at the hospital of a gunshot wound to her head on June 25. She and another woman in the vehicle were shot on westbound Interstate 394 near Penn Avenue.

The two women got themselves to the hospital after shots were fired into their vehicle. Police were notified about 10:40 p.m. on June 22. The other woman in the vehicle had a non-life threatening injury, police said.

“Two families have had their lives forever changed by gun violence,” said Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara in a statement. “One of those families had hope that their loved one would recover and experienced further tragedy when that hope was lost. Our investigators will not let her family lose the hope that whoever is responsible will be brought to justice.”

No one had been arrested as of Tuesday morning, and police said their investigation is ongoing. Police ask anyone with information to contact them at policetips@minneapolismn.gov or 612-673-5845, or anonymously to CrimeStoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).

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By JULIA FRANKEL

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s defense minister has outlined plans to pack hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into a closed zone of the Gaza Strip along the border with Egypt, according to local media reports.

It appears to be the latest version of plans by the Israeli government to maintain lasting control over the territory and relocate much of its population of some 2 million. Critics say that would amount to forcible displacement in violation of international law because Israel’s offensive and blockade have made Gaza largely uninhabitable.

Israeli officials say the aim is to separate the civilian population from Hamas, which still controls parts of Gaza and holds dozens of hostages abducted in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war 21 months ago. Palestinians would then be given the option of emigrating, they say. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said he is narrowing in on a ceasefire and hopes to eventually end the war, has also voiced support for the mass transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza.

A ‘humanitarian city’ atop the ruins of Rafah

Defense Minister Israel Katz outlined the latest plans in a closed briefing with Israeli military reporters on Monday. His office did not respond to a request for comment on their reports, which appeared in several Israeli media outlets.

Katz reportedly said he had ordered Israel’s military to draw up plans to build what he called a “humanitarian city” in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, which has been heavily damaged in the war and is now largely uninhabited.

Katz reportedly said that Palestinians would not be able to leave once they enter the zone.

The military would initially move 600,000 Palestinians from an existing so-called humanitarian zone along the coast, with the aim of eventually transferring the whole population to Rafah. Katz said Israel was searching for an unspecified international body to deliver aid as Israeli troops secured the perimeter.

He said the military could start building the ‘city’ during a 60-day ceasefire that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are discussing in Washington this week.

Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces. Palestinians view Gaza as an integral part of their national homeland and oppose any plans to uproot them.

Rights groups see preparations for mass expulsion

Both Trump and Netanyahu have said Gaza’s population should be relocated to other countries through what they refer to as voluntary emigration. During their meeting on Monday at the White House, Netanyahu said Palestinians should have a “free choice” on whether to stay or leave.

Palestinians fear that even if they leave temporarily to escape the war, Israel will never allow them to return — a possible repeat of the mass exodus that occurred before and during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

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Katz expressed hope that the “emigration plan” would happen and said Netanyahu was already leading efforts to find countries willing to take in Palestinians, according to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.

Rights groups fear that concentrating the population along the border with Egypt would create catastrophic conditions that leave Palestinians no choice but to leave.

“Forcing people into what amounts to a large concentration camp echoes dark chapters of history,” said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli group advocating Palestinians’ right to freedom of movement.

“Israel’s leadership hasn’t been shy about the goal to expel Palestinians from Gaza and maintain permanent control over wide swaths of the territory,” she said.

An Israeli-backed aid system is already in place

Israel and the United States have already rolled out an aid distribution program in Rafah that has been marred by violence and controversy.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed or wounded while trying to reach sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a contractor supported by Israel and the U.S., according to local hospitals.

Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire toward crowds of people heading to the sites. The military says it has fired warning shots at people who approached its forces in what it describes as a suspicious manner.

GHF denies there has been any violence in or around the sites themselves, which are in Israeli military zones off limits to independent media. Two U.S. contractors told The Associated Press that their colleagues used live ammunition and stun grenades as crowds scrambled for food, allegations denied by the foundation. GHF has also denied involvement in any population transfer plans.

But in a press conference in May, Netanyahu appeared to link the two initiatives, saying Israel would implement the new aid program and then create a “sterile zone” in southern Gaza, free of Hamas, where the Palestinian population would be relocated.

Netanyahu has said Israel will maintain lasting control over Gaza and has ruled out any role for the internationally-recognized Palestinian Authority, led by political rivals of Hamas.

By Jessica Nix, Bloomberg News

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ended its emergency response for bird flu as the outbreak that sickened dozens of people, spread to cattle and drove up egg prices has abated.

The emergency designation ended in the last week, according to a person familiar with the matter who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about it.

The CDC merged its bird flu updates with those routinely reported for seasonal influenza starting on Monday, and will post the number of people monitored and tested for the virus also known as H5N1 on a monthly basis, the agency said. It will no longer include infection rates found among animals on its website.

States that were among the hardest hit have also dialed back their efforts. California ended its emergency declaration in April, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Health told Bloomberg. Washington, which had 11 human cases in 2024, is also downsizing its response, state epidemiologist Scott Lindquist said.

The CDC’s emergency bird flu response was deactivated to transition back to regular program activity, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services. Surveillance, readiness and response for bird flu will be included with existing efforts from the CDC’s Influenza Division and other agency programs, they said.

Hard to Spot

While the states said they’re still monitoring bird flu activity and will coordinate with federal officials, doctors and researchers said the moves will make it harder to detect potentially dangerous changes. If the virus continues to jump between species or the human case count grows, there’s a greater risk that it could mutate and become more easily transmissible between people, they said.

“We are letting our guard down,” said Michael Kinch, an infectious disease expert and chief innovation officer at Stony Brook University in New York.

Ending the emergency response comes amid a broader federal pullback from preparing for another outbreak. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services canceled a $766 million federal contract with Moderna Inc. to develop mRNA vaccines for bird flu.

A CDC emergency declaration redirects people and resources to increase testing, surveillance and communications during an outbreak. During the H5N1 response, 375 staff members from the CDC were assigned to work on the outbreak, the HHS spokesperson said.

Reducing attention to the virus could leave a gap when it is still circulating in migratory birds in the U.S., health experts said.

“If you do miss an uptick, then you’ll be one step behind and then that could lead to more widespread transmission and more herds being infected, more people being infected,” said Dean Blumberg, head of pediatric infectious disease at University of California, Davis.

The CDC previously held regular calls with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response and the White House to update the press and epidemiologists on the status of the virus and the federal response. The calls ended before President Trump’s inauguration in January.

Declining Infections

Other factors may also hinder efforts to identify and track infections. Most of the human infections detected in the U.S. occurred among agricultural workers who were in close proximity to sick dairy herds and poultry. State governments and farm owners have to invite CDC investigators to conduct surveillance, a difficult proposition to reach migrant workers during mass immigration raids across the country.

California, which had the highest human case count in 2024 with 38 people infected, started offering $25 gift cards as an incentive to get people to test for influenza A, the flu strain that contains H5N1, in April.

Bird flu started circulating among cattle last year, and eventually led to 70 infections in people confirmed by the CDC. Signs include flu-like symptoms and conjunctivitis, and it can be treated with the anti-viral medication Tamiflu. While one person died from the disease in January, the current risk to humans remains low, the CDC says.

(With assistance from Michelle Amponsah and Ilena Peng.)

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