Cincinnati >> Spencer Steer hit a two-run home run and Nick Lodolo allowed two runs on three hits in five innings to help the Cincinnati Reds beat the Minnesota Twins 4-2 in a game called in the sixth inning because of rain.

The start was delayed two hours and seven minutes by severe weather. With two outs in the bottom of the sixth, rain returned and the game was called after a 53-minute delay.

The loss, the Twins’ sixth in a row, dropped them below the .500 mark at 36-37. They are now 1 1/2 games behind in the race for the final American League wild-card playoff spot.

The Reds have won four straight and nine of their last 12 games to climb within one game of the third NL wild-card spot. They are a season high four games above .500 at 39-35.

Byron Buxton’s 11th career leadoff homer put the Twins ahead 1-0. It was his second leadoff homer this season, and first since May 4 at Boston.

Nick Lodolo (5-5) allowed a run and two hits following Buxton’s home run.

Steer put the Reds ahead 2-1 in the first with a two-out, two-run homer off Bailey Ober (4-4) who allowed four runs on nine hits in 5 2/3 innings.

RBI singles by Matt McLain in the second and Will Benson in the third extended the Reds’ lead to 4-1.

Key moment

After waiting more than two hours for the game to start, Buxton launched Lodolo’s first pitch into the left-field seats for his 13th home run of the season.

Key stat

The Reds have scored 57 runs in the first inning, second most in the major leagues behind the Dodgers, who have scored 58.

Up next

Reds RHP Nick Martinez (4-7, 3.92 ERA) will face Twins RHP Chris Paddack (2-6, 4.30) in the series finale on Thursday.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Hundreds of people, some clutching candles or carrying flowers to lay in front of a memorial, gathered outside Minnesota’s Capitol on Wednesday evening for a vigil to remember a prominent state lawmaker and her husband who were gunned down at their home.

As a brass quintet from the Minnesota Orchestra played, Gov. Tim Walz wiped away tears and comforted attendees at the gathering for former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, who were killed early Saturday in the northern Minneapolis suburbs.

Walz has described Hortman as his closest political ally and “the most consequential Speaker in state history.”

Wednesday’s vigil also included a Native American drum circle, a string quartet and the crowd singing “Amazing Grace.”

The memorial, which sprang up outside the Capitol after the killings, features flowers, American flags, photos of Hortman and sticky notes with such messages as, “Thank you for always believing in me and in Minnesota” and “We got this from here. Thank you for everything.”

Around the gathering, there was a heavy police presence, with law enforcement blocking off streets leading up to the Capitol and state troopers standing guard.

The event didn’t have a speaking program planned and attendees were instructed not to bring signs of any kind.

The man charged in federal and state court with killing the Hortmans, Vance Boelter, is also accused of shooting another Democratic lawmaker, Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, at their home a few miles away in Champlin. They survived and are recovering. Federal prosecutors have declined to speculate about a motive.

Boelter’s attorneys have declined to comment on the charges.

Hortman had served as the top House Democratic leader since 2017, and six years as speaker, starting in 2019. Under a power-sharing deal after the 2024 election left the House tied, her title became speaker emerita and Republican Rep. Lisa Demuth became speaker.

The Hortmans were alumni of the University of Minnesota, which held a midday memorial gathering on the Minneapolis campus.

Rebecca Cunningham, the university’s president, spoke during the event about the grief and outrage people are grappling with along with questions about how things got to this point.

“I don’t have the answers to these questions but I know that finding answers starts with the coming together in community as we are today,” she said.

Funeral information for the Hortmans has not been announced.

HERMANTOWN, Minn. — A judge had issued a warrant to apprehend a man about 30 minutes before he was found dead with his wife in an apparent domestic violence shooting Friday.

Bradley Duane Nelson, 63, was under a civil commitment for mental illness and had been off his medications and acting aggressively toward family members, according to court records.

His wife, Lissette Joy Nelson, 62, had been staying away from their Hermantown home out of fear for her safety, authorities wrote, and she had called police on Thursday after being confronted by her husband.

The Hermantown Police Department said the couple was found dead from gunshot wounds in the home following a domestic violence report, but police have not officially confirmed the circumstances of their deaths.

Bradley Nelson, who was reported to have suffered from major depressive disorder and other conditions, had been hospitalized and placed under civil commitments twice since November 2023.

“His family has expressed concerns regarding Mr. Nelson’s erratic behavior and non-compliance with prescribed medication,” St. Louis County social worker Natalie Listemaa wrote to the court hours before the deaths.

“He has not been in contact with his case manager and has had his wife engage on his behalf. Family members indicate that he has not taken his medication regularly for weeks, is not eating or bathing, and has a myopic fixation on his finances. Most recently, his paranoid ideation that his family has stolen money is resulting in aggressive, violent behavior that causes his family to fear for their safety.”

The social worker said Bradley Nelson had confronted Lissette Nelson over money on Thursday morning and “harassed her to the point of (her) calling both Hermantown police and the St. Louis County sheriff because she does not feel safe in his presence.”

That afternoon, he also reportedly “showed up at his daughter’s place of employment and caused a scene, demanding ‘his money’ and insisting that she stole it and is keeping it in her house.”

“Without active support to stabilize his mental health symptoms and ensure he is on the correct medication, Mr Nelson is at risk of further psychiatric and behavioral decompensation which puts himself and others at risk of harm,” Listemaa wrote in the Thursday evening letter.

Bradley Nelson had been under a provisional discharge — conditional release from a treatment facility while still under court jurisdiction for mental health care. But the county requested an apprehension order to return him to a hospital or mental health facility.

Judge Theresa Neo signed the warrant around 8:30 a.m. Friday. Hermantown police said the 911 call was placed just before 9 a.m.

The Nelsons had been married since 1991, according to public records, and Bradley Nelson operated a logging business.

He was convicted three times for domestic assault and once for violating a no-contact order in the early 2010s. At least seven domestic violence orders for protection were sought against Bradley Nelson around the same time, including four filed by Lissette Nelson, who also filed for divorce but did not complete it.

Full court records from those years are not immediately available.

More recent records indicate Bradley Nelson had attempted suicide several times while struggling with depression and anxiety. In November 2023, it was reported he had been admitted for psychiatric treatment three times in three months.

“Mr. Nelson has not engaged in recommended treatment in the community, only to experience ongoing rumination and thoughts of hurting self,” wrote Anjenette Dreiling of St. Louis County Public Health and Human Services. “He has attempted to strangle self, has cut his arms and has banged his head on the walls of his home.”

Nelson, who also reportedly attempted to start his home on fire, had a commitment order stayed in 2023 on conditions that he participate in treatment and meet other requirements. However, that was later revoked, and he was ordered to receive neuroleptic medications and undergo electroconvulsive therapy.

Another commitment case was initiated last September as he was under an emergency hold at the locked psychiatric unit at Aspirus St. Luke’s. It was reported that Nelson had stopped taking his prescribed medications some four months earlier and was experiencing worsening depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation.

Nelson later agreed to a six-month commitment, as well as a six-month extension in March.

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A page in a notebook of the man charged with shooting Twin Cities legislators and their spouses was titled “Finding people.”

And the notes that followed, according to federal charges, weren’t top-secret methods: Vance Boelter, 57, listed websites that are readily available to look up people to find their addresses and names of relatives. Some are government websites that are free and others are private people-search engines, according to the federal charges against him.

“Anyone with a credit card can get this information,” said Todd Axtell, former St. Paul police chief who now runs the Axtell Group, which consults with corporations on executive protection.

The criminal complaint doesn’t specify what methods Boelter ultimately used to find the addresses of the four legislators whose homes he’s accused of going to early Saturday.

Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were photographed Friday, June 13, 2025, at the annual Humphrey-Mondale Dinner in Minneapolis. (Courtesy of Minnesota House DFL Caucus)

He is charged in the fatal shootings of Democratic-Farmer-Labor state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, at their Brooklyn Park home, and in the shootings that injured DFL state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman, at their Champlin house.

After the violence, the Minnesota Legislature removed lawmakers’ home addresses from its website, though not all legislators’ addresses were included in their online bios. Hoffman’s address was previously listed on the website; it didn’t appear Hortman’s had been recently.

But a search by the Pioneer Press on one of the various websites that Boelter had written in a notebook quickly turned up Hortman’s address. The search cost $0.95 for a single record with seven-day trial membership. A more detailed search was available for another $19.95.

Internet data privacy service sees spike in subscribers

Various people-search engine websites say they source information from public records, mailing lists, surveys, public social media profiles and other sources.

One of the sites suggests people can use its info to date safely online and reconnect with old friends. It includes reviews from a man who said he used the website to find a phone number after a crash because the driver initially gave him an incorrect phone number, and from another man who said he checked out someone he was going to buy a puppy from, which kept him from being scammed.

Axtell said he subscribes to a people-finder website for research for his security consulting firm.

People-search engines include instructions about how individuals can have their information removed from the sites.

DeleteMe, an internet data privacy service, has seen an approximately 300 percent increase in daily subscribers, co-founder Rob Shavell said Tuesday. The service, which costs $129 a year for one person, says it removes “your personal information that’s being sold online.”

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“This is a horrific trend,” Shavell said of the violence in Minnesota and instances in other states. “… All enabled by data brokers collecting and selling personal info on every American.”

In 2020, authorities say a man who’d found the address and personal information online of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas posed as a deliveryman when he went to her New Jersey house, and fatally shot her 20-year-old son and wounded her husband.

In 2022, when the husband of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was attacked in their California home, their address was “hardly a secret,” Politico wrote. The Pelosi house had been the site of political protests and defacement.

“Unfortunately, we know the tragedy of when political violence hits home very well,” Pelosi wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday after the Minnesota lawmakers were targeted.

Internet makes targeting easier

Since UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson, of Maple Grove, was gunned down on a New York street, security experts have been hearing more from business executives.

While they have the financial resources for security assessments of their homes and other measures, “state lawmakers aren’t necessarily wealthy people, so my heart really goes out to them,” said Carol “Rollie” Flynn, formerly executive director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and now president of the Arkin Group, a security and intelligence firm based in New York.

Still, an initial assessment can help public figures determine “what they really need,” she said.

In the Twin Cities shootings, Boelter is accused of posing as a police officer and ambushing the two couples at their homes in the middle of the night. “That makes it pretty hard if you sleep in your residence and a suspect shows up at 2 o’clock in the morning,” Flynn said.

For public officials, there’s a balance between being available to constituents and protecting their own safety, Axtell said. As police chief, Axtell was the subject of threats, and said he was fortunate they didn’t lead to anyone going to his home.

In his work now, Axtell recommends executives hire services that continually review any online personal information about them, their families and their home addresses.

Some people advise, to keep personal information from public property tax records, to buy a house under a limited liability company, but that can also bring financial drawbacks, Flynn noted.

Political assassinations, while rare, have been seen throughout history. “But the … profiling of individuals who are potential targets has become easier because of the internet,” Flynn said.

Matt Ehling, board member of the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information, expects lawmakers’ home addresses will be a future topic at the Legislature.

“It’s a terrible, tragic situation, and legislators will obviously be looking for a way to address this kind of thing going forward,” he said. “In a democratic and free society … there has to be a way for the public to reach out and interact with their public officials. And so those things are … going to be looking for a balancing point.”

Judges’ home addresses protected

In addition to home addresses being stricken from the Minnesota Legislature’s website, the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board removed home addresses from its website last weekend.

After the killing of the federal judge’s son in New Jersey, Congress passed the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act in 2022.

Ramsey County Senior Judge John Guthmann, co-chair of the Minnesota District Judges Association’s judicial safety committee, has been working on protecting judges’ home addresses from public access in Minnesota.

When he was elected as a judge in 2010, Guthmann’s certificate of election included his home address and was posted on the Minnesota Secretary of State’s website. He asked to have his address redacted or the document taken down and worked with the Minnesota Judicial Branch for two years, but was told it was a public document and would remain online.

After a law passed in the 2024 legislative session to make home addresses of judges private information, Guthmann said the certificate of election with his home address was finally removed from the state website within an hour of his requesting again that it be taken down.

Additional provisions passed in this year’s legislative session will mean judges’ home addresses won’t appear in public property tax records when requested.

“I think this type of protection is really important for all public officials, as evidenced by our recent events,” Guthmann said. “Someone should not have to die in order to bring attention to the need for this kind of protection. Public officials sacrifice a lot just to be in the position they are to do good for the public, and no one intended to perform public service at the cost of their life or the life of their loved ones.”

Safe at Home program

Minnesota has a program, called Safe at Home, that anyone can apply to for address confidentiality.

There are approximately 40 states with a similar program, though Minnesota is one of few that allows broad eligibility, according to Dianna Umidon, Safe at Home director. While domestic violence is the most reported reason that people apply, Safe at Home is open for anyone who fears for their personal safety.

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People with safety concerns due to their profession are eligible to apply and, since 2020, the state has seen an increase in people applying for that reason, Umidon said. There are about 5,000 people enrolled in Safe at Home, of which approximately half are children of people in the program.

The program has received some inquiries about applying over the past few days, but Umidon said it’s too soon to note if it will be a trend.

Safe at Home provides a government-issued post office address in lieu of a person’s real address for all interactions.

“There is no way to truly and effectively erase information that has already been shared, disseminated and made public,” Umidon said. “It’s virtually impossible to put toothpaste back in the tube. Therefore, relocation around the time of enrollment is the only way for Safe at Home to be an effective safety strategy.”