Twenty-four people were killed in domestic violence situations last year in Minnesota, including nearly half who were bystanders or intervenors, according to a report released Wednesday.

The 11 bystanders or intervenors killed are tied for the highest toll since Violence Free Minnesota began tracking intimate partner homicides in 1989.

The overall number of victims is down since 2023, when 40 people were killed in domestic violence situations — the most Violence Free Minnesota has seen since it began record keeping.

Last year’s killings included the high-profile ambush shootings of Burnsville officers Paul Elmstrand and Matt Ruge and firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth. Police had responded to a 911 report of a domestic disturbance at a home.

“The Burnsville tragedy echoes so many others across the U.S.,” said Nikki Engel, Violence Free Minnesota interim co-executive director, pointing to the link between mass shootings and domestic violence.

Eighteen of the 24 victims last year were killed by a person who used a firearm. For at least five of the victims, the suspect was legally prohibited from possessing firearms, according to the Violence Free Minnesota report.

Violence Free Minnesota made a collage of photos of people who died in 2024 in situations of intimate partner violence, as bystanders or intervenors, or under suspicious circumstances as they released their annual report on Oct. 1, 2025, about such homicides in Minnesota. (Courtesy of Violence Free Minnesota)

‘Lives taken too soon’

Violence Free Minnesota’s annual report is not just about statistics.

“It is about lives — lives taken too soon, families forever changed and communities left with grief and questions that rarely find easy answers,” said Kaleena Burkes, director of Minnesota’s Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls Office.

At the same time, “if we do not fully understand the scope, we cannot build the solutions,” Burkes said. “If we do not see the patterns, we cannot break the cycles.”

Twelve women and one man were killed last year in Minnesota by a current or former intimate partner, according to the new report.

Some of the violence against bystanders and intervenors last year involved multiple people killed at the same time, including the Burnsville shootings and two children who were shot along with their mothers in Duluth.

In both 1999 and 2023, there were also 11 bystanders or intervenors in domestic violence killed in Minnesota.

Intervening before a crisis

Alex Dominguez, program manager for Relationship Safety Alliance in Brainerd, said their community was shaken last year by the killing of 62-year-old Lyle Maske, who was trying to intervene in a domestic violence incident involving his neighbor and her children.

“His death is a devastating reminder that domestic violence doesn’t only harm intimate partners,” she said. “It pulls in neighbors, bystanders and anyone else who’s willing to act and try to help make change.”

While not every tragedy can be predicted, “many can be prevented when systems are equipped to act early and decisively,” Dominguez said. That includes enforcing firearm prohibitions, investing in culturally responsive services and “believing survivors the first time they reach out for help,” she added.

If people “are able to identify and intervene early in a domestic violence relationship, you are going to lower the risk of crisis point even developing,” said Jess Palyan, Violence Free Minnesota’s policy program manager.

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And intervention could mean “every single person in Minnesota knowing the number to a 24/7 domestic violence hotline, having it in your phone and sharing that with someone that you’re worried about,” Engel added. “Saying, ‘You might not need this number now. I might be overstepping my bounds … but I’m concerned about you.’”

Throughout Minnesota, the Day One crisis line can be reached around the clock by calling 866-223-1111 or texting 612-399-9995.

So far in 2025, Violence Free Minnesota has documented at least 18 instances of people killed due to intimate partner violence.

Prior to the high number of homicides in 2023, the previous high was 37 domestic-related homicides in 2013.

Minnesota averaged 26 victims of intimate partner violence annually between 2013 and 2022, Violence Free Minnesota data show.

By MEAD GRUVER, HOLLY MEYER and HANNAH SCHOENBAUM, Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Dallin H. Oaks, a former Utah Supreme Court justice known for his jurist sensibilities and traditionalist convictions on marriage and religious freedom, is expected to be the next president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its more than 17 million members worldwide.

The leadership transition follows the recent death of President Russell M. Nelson and comes as many of the church’s U.S. members are reeling from a deadly attack on a Michigan congregation and a high-profile assassination in Utah where the denomination known widely as the Mormon church is headquartered.

Oaks is the longest-tenured member of a top body of leaders called the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. That makes him next in line to be president under a tradition established more than a century ago to ensure a smooth handover and prevent any lobbying internally or publicly. The formal announcement likely will come at some point after Nelson’s funeral on Oct. 7. He was 101 when he died Saturday.

At 93, Oaks will be among the oldest presidents. Seven of the past nine have served into their nineties, including five beyond Oaks’ current age.

An open church confronts violence

For a faith that prioritizes being welcoming — especially at local churches on Sundays — last weekend’s attack on a worship service in Michigan was shocking.

Services in Grand Blanc Township had just started when a former Marine rammed his pickup truck into the church and started shooting. Four people died and eight were wounded in Sunday’s attack about 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of Detroit. The attacker lit a fire before being chased and killed in an exchange of gunfire with police.

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“We all seek answers and understanding in the wake of trauma, shock, and grief. We are grateful to all who are reaching out with service, prayers, and words of support during this difficult time,” Oaks said in a statement that also paid tribute to Nelson.

Nelson’s “timeless teachings” help people find comfort amid suffering, Oaks said.

Utah is also still reeling from the Sept. 10 shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. His alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, grew up as a church member.

Violence could be a talking point this weekend at the church’s twice-annual general conference in Salt Lake City, said Matthew Bowman, a Claremont Graduate University professor specializing in U.S. religious history. Church leaders often address major issues of the moment while leaving some room for the nearly 100,000 in-person attendees and many more watching remotely to interpret religious doctrine for themselves.

Church policy allows only law enforcement officers to bring guns and other lethal weapons on church property. It’s unclear whether new measures are coming.

Experts skeptical an Oaks presidency will bring major change

A longtime prominent voice in the church, Oaks joined the Quorum of the Twelve in 1984 around the same time as Nelson.

When Nelson became president, he elevated Oaks to the First Presidency, the top governing body.

“I suspect that Oaks has had a fairly strong hand in leadership through Nelson’s presidency,” Bowman said. “I think we’re not going to see a very tremendous pivot.”

Early on as an apostle, Oaks was involved in a crackdown on far-right extremism that resulted in some excommunications. In 2020, he gave a speech about having faith in elections without resorting to radicalism or violence.

Whereas Nelson focused on the faith’s global footprint, including picking apostles with international and immigrant backgrounds, Oaks may refocus on the U.S. and its politics, Bowman said.

With Nelson’s death, there is a vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve that Oaks would fill as president — one way church presidents can leave their imprint. Some wonder if he will tap the church’s commissioner of education, Clark Gilbert, who has led efforts at the church-owned Brigham Young University campuses to enforce church orthodoxy, Bowman said.

An Oaks presidency creates anxiety for LGBTQ+ members and allies

Oaks has been a driving force against same-sex marriage and in upholding a teaching that homosexuality is a sin, creating anxiety and concern among the faithful who are gay, lesbian and transgender.

He often delivered speeches reinforcing the faith’s stance, including one in which he said the intended meaning of “gender” in church doctrine is “biological sex at birth.” Church policies introduced in 2024 significantly restricted involvement of members who have transitioned physically or socially, such as changing their name or pronouns.

Some remember surveillance of and a crackdown on gay students Brigham Young University while Oaks was school president in the 1970s. A church spokesman acknowledged in 1979 that BYU security had staked out gay bars but said Oaks put a stop to the practice when he found out about it.

Yet in recent years Oaks has been part of a few key church moves that suggest he might not make the topic a centerpiece of his administration, experts say.

Oaks was Nelson’s closest adviser in 2019 when Nelson rescinded a policy that banned baptisms for children of gay parents and labeled same-sex couples as sinners eligible for expulsion. The move reversed a decision that was devastating and confusing to gay and lesbian church members who had been buoyed in previous years by church leaders’ calls for more love and understanding for LGBTQ+ members.

“It would be really unlikely that he would, you know, go back on that when he was one of the decision-makers in removing that restriction,” said Paul Reeve, Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies at the University of Utah.

Oaks also helped the church strike a compromise in 2022 in which the faith backed proposed federal legislation to safeguard same-sex marriages so long as those laws didn’t infringe upon religious liberty or force the faith to perform same-sex marriages or grant them official church sanction.

Noah Hanson, who is gay and grew up in the religion, worries Oaks’ ascension will drive a greater wedge between LGBTQ+ people and their devout family members. Under Nelson, the church largely backed off talking about homosexuality, Hanson said, giving his parents the space to “make a little progress.”

“They’ve started telling my husband that they love him,” said the 27-year-old from Logan, Utah.

If Oaks is as outspoken about LGBTQ+ people as he has been in the past, Hanson worries that progress will slip. His parents revere church presidents, who are considered prophets by members, even if their policies are harmful to their own children, he said.

“If Dallin H. Oaks doesn’t soften his stances on how marriage is only between a man and a woman, or that the act of homosexuality is a sin, like if he lays down that hammer, I feel like that’s gonna ruin my relationship with my parents,” Hanson said.

Oaks’ presidency could be stylistically different

Well known for dry sermons and speeches that appeal more to reason than emotion, Oaks brings a jurist’s sensibility to his work. Compared to Nelson’s sentimentalism, Oaks is cooler, more precise and lawyerly, Bowman said.

Becoming president, though, could inspire him to adopt a more personal approach, suggested Patrick Mason, a religious studies and history professor at Utah State University.

“It’s a very different thing to be president of the church and to recognize that now you are meant to be all things to all people within the church,” Mason said.

Oaks has been outspoken about maintaining civil public discourse, urging people shortly before the 2024 presidential election to “avoid what is harsh and hateful” and be peacemakers in their communities.

Following anti-vaccine backlash from church members after celebrating the COVID-19 vaccines on social media, Nelson and Oaks began talking more about the need for moderation, political dialogue and avoiding conspiracy theories and hate.

“That really, I think, alarmed Nelson, and it alarmed Oaks,” Bowman said. “I think this is back on Oaks’ radar, that political extremism in the church is a problem. And he may be, I think because of his training and because of his background, perhaps more willing than Nelson was to take concrete steps.”

Gruver reported from Fort Collins, Colorado, and Meyer from Nashville. AP corporate archivist Sarit Hand in New York City contributed to this report.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By RENATA BRITO

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Activists on board a flotilla of vessels sailing toward Gaza said they were prepared for the Israeli navy to intervene as they approached the besieged Palestinian territory on Wednesday, after a tense night in the Mediterranean Sea.

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The Global Sumud Flotilla, with Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela, and several European lawmakers aboard, consists of nearly 50 boats and 500 activists and is carrying a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid. It has remained undeterred in its mission to break the Israeli blockade of the coastal strip and reach Palestinians.

“Every minute we advance a little more,” Thiago Ávila, one of the flotilla leaders and spokespeople, told reporters Wednesday in an online news conference from aboard the Alma, one of the flotilla’s motherships.

The vessels were sailing in international waters north of Egypt on Wednesday afternoon and had entered what activists call a “danger zone,” which Israeli authorities had warned them not to cross and where the Israeli navy had stopped attempts by other flotillas in the past.

This map shows the location of the pro-Palestine activist flotilla as of October 1, plus two locations it has allegedly been targeted by drone attacks. (AP Digital Embed)

Overnight, the activists said two Israeli warships aggressively approached two of their boats, circling them and jamming their communications, including the live cameras on board.

“It was an intimidation act. They wanted us to see them,” said Lisi Proença, another activist who was on board the Sirius, a vessel that was targeted alongside the Alma.

After the close encounter overnight, the military vessels eventually left and the flotilla continued on its journey, broadcasting live cameras from many of its boats.

By Wednesday afternoon, the atmosphere appeared to be more relaxed on board the decks of some of the sailboats that broadcast their journeys live. Some activists held up messages of solidarity with people in Gaza and chanted “Free Palestine!” on camera. Music could be heard playing in the background.

If undisturbed, the flotilla, which began its journey from the Spanish port of Barcelona a month ago, was to reach the shores of Gaza by Thursday morning, the group said. However, activists said that was unlikely and that they were expecting Israeli authorities to try to stop them at any moment, as they have done in past attempts.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called the flotilla a provocation and warned them to stop and transfer their aid through other channels into Gaza. “It is not too late,” he posted on X.

The Italian fleet of the Global Sumud Flotilla departs from the port of Siracusa, Italy, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025. (Sebastiano Diamante/LaPresse via AP)

Israel’s government has accused some of the flotilla members of being linked to Hamas. Activists have strongly rejected the accusations and said Israel was trying to justify potential attacks on them.

European governments, including Spain and Italy, which had sent their navy ships to escort the flotilla during part of its journey, urged the activists to turn back and avoid confrontation. But while Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni said late Tuesday the flotilla’s actions risked undermining U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent proposal for resolving the war in Gaza, Spain’s prime minister defended them.

“We must remember it is a humanitarian mission that wouldn’t be taking place if the Israeli government had allowed for the entry of aid,” Pedro Sánchez told reporters on Wednesday. Spaniards taking part would benefit from full diplomatic protection, he added.

“They present no threat nor danger to Israel,” he said.

By JOEAL CALUPITAN and AARON FAVILA

BOGO, Philippines (AP) — Rescuers used backhoes and sniffer dogs to look for survivors in collapsed houses and other damaged buildings in the central Philippines on Wednesday, a day after an earthquake killed at least 69 people and injured more than 200 others.

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The death toll was expected to rise from the 6.9 magnitude quake that hit at about 10 p.m. on Tuesday and trapped an unspecified number of residents in the hard-hit city of Bogo and outlying rural towns in Cebu province.

Sporadic rain and damaged bridges and roads have hampered the race to save lives, officials said.

A dangerous quake

On Wednesday night, rescuers in orange and yellow hard hats used spotlights, a backhoe and bare hands to sift through the rubble of concrete slabs, broken wood and twisted iron bars for hours in a collapsed building in Bogo city. No survivor was found.

“We’re still in the golden hour of our search and rescue,” Office of Civil Defense deputy administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said in a morning news briefing in Manila, the country’s capital. “There are still many reports of people who were pinned or hit by debris.”

The epicenter of the earthquake, which was set off by movement in an undersea fault line at a dangerously shallow depth of 3 miles, was about 12 miles northeast of Bogo, a coastal city of about 90,000 people in Cebu province where about half of the deaths were reported, officials said.

Rescuers search for survivors underneath rubble in Bogo, Philippines, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

The Philippine government is considering whether to seek help from foreign governments based on an ongoing rapid damage assessment, Alejandro said.

The United States, Japan, Australia and the European Union expressed condolences.

“We stand ready to support the Philippine government’s response as friends, partners, allies,” MaryKay Carlson, U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, said in a post on social media platform X.

A desperate search

Workers were trying to transport a backhoe to hasten search and rescue efforts in a cluster of shanties in a mountain village hit by a landslide and boulders, Bogo city disaster-mitigation officer Rex Ygot told The Associated Press early Wednesday.

“It’s hard to move in the area because there are hazards,” said Glenn Ursal, another disaster mitigation officer, who added that some survivors were brought to a hospital from the mountain village.

Deaths also were reported from the outlying towns of Medellin and San Remigio, where three coast guard personnel, a firefighter and a child were killed separately by collapsing walls and falling debris while trying to flee to safety from a basketball game in a sports complex that was disrupted by the quake, town officials said.

The earthquake was one of the most powerful to batter the central region in more than a decade and it struck while many people slept or were at home.

A traumatized region

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology briefly issued a tsunami warning and advised people to stay away from the coastlines of Cebu and the nearby provinces of Leyte and Biliran due to possible waves of up to 3 feet.

No such waves were reported and the tsunami warning was lifted more than three hours later, but thousands of traumatized residents refused to return home and chose to stay in open grassy fields and parks overnight despite intermittent rains.

Cebu and other provinces were still recovering from a tropical storm that battered the central region on Friday, leaving at least 27 people dead mostly due to drownings and falling trees, knocking out power in entire cities and towns and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.

Schools and government offices were closed in the quake-hit cities and towns while the safety of buildings were checked. More than 600 aftershocks have been detected after Tuesday night’s temblor, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology director Teresito Bacolcol said.

Rain-soaked mountainsides were more susceptible to land- and mudslides in a major earthquake, he warned.

“This was really traumatic to people. They’ve been lashed by a storm then jolted by an earthquake,” Bacolcol said. “I don’t want to experience what they’ve gone through.”

The Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, is often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the ocean. The archipelago is also lashed by about 20 typhoons and storms each year.

Associated Press journalist Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.