Sophie and Colin Hortman have spoken out against Truth Social posts shared by President Donald Trump over the weekend which platform baseless conspiracy theories regarding their parents’ assassinations on June 14.

“My father and mother, Mark and Melissa Hortman, and their dog Gilbert, were killed by a man who believed conspiracy theories and fake news. Words matter. Sharing fake news is dangerous,” Colin said in his statement Sunday night.

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

The video shared by the president falsely implies that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Melissa Hortman’s vote to repeal MinnesotaCare for undocumented adults had something to do with her assassination.

There is no public evidence to suggest the assassination was motivated by that vote. Hortman did not vote for the repeal because she supported it — she and the House DFL were against the repeal. As the caucus leader at the negotiation table, she agreed to be a “yes” vote as part of a budget deal with Republicans to keep the government open.

After Hortman voted for the repeal June 9, she teared up before reporters, in distress over a vote she didn’t want to make. She said that in 20 years, she didn’t remember ever having to vote for “something as painful as that,” but that it was a condition Republicans required to fund the state government.

Former Speaker of the House Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, talks with a colleague on the floor of the House chambers during a special session at the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul on Monday, June 9, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“I’ll continue to have health insurance, so I’m fine. What I worry about is the people who will lose their health insurance. I know that people will be hurt by that vote, and … we worked very hard to try to get a budget deal that wouldn’t include that provision, and we tried any other way we could to come to a budget agreement with Republicans, and they wouldn’t have it,” Hortman said. “So, you know, I did what leaders do, I stepped up and I got the job done for the people of Minnesota.”

In his statement, Colin Hortman said one part of his grief journey has been understanding his last conversation with his mother.

“She loved her job. People respected her job and what she did at her job,” he wrote.

“When I called her after the legislative session ended, I asked why she voted for the bill mentioned in the video shared by President Trump, and she wept. That bill and her vote had nothing to do with fraud. She voted for that bill because it was the only way to avoid a government shutdown. She had seen the impact of shutdowns: people lose their health care, their jobs, and in some cases, from a story she told me, have taken their own lives.

“She was in a very tough position on that vote. She had never really voted against her conscience like that. It was emotional and extremely difficult. Her struggle with that vote makes this conspiracy all the more painful for me,” Colin wrote.

Sophie echoed Colin in her statement, saying the video shared by Trump is “a painful, false twisting of my mother’s final vote.”

“The vote she made was incredibly difficult for my mother; it was not a vote made lightly or with malice in her heart. She made the decision to prevent a government shutdown because she believed our great state protects and helps Minnesotans.

“We must create a society in which we do not harbor hatred and violence toward our political opponents, and this video promotes a false narrative which fuels the flames of political division,” Sophie wrote.

Vance Boelter in a June 16, 2025, booking photo. (Courtesy of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office)

Another part of the video discusses a false theory about Walz having involvement in the assassination, which partially stems from accused assassin Vance Boelter’s confession letter. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson called the letter “delusional” in July and said it “seems designed to excuse his crimes.”

Boelter served on a board under Walz, but it’s since been clarified that the appointments for the 60-person board are much different than Cabinet-level appointments; they are routine, indirect, and Walz’s office has said Walz did not know Boelter or interview him.

Colin and Sophie Hortman both asked Trump to remove the post.

Sophie asked Trump to “please consider the pain and sadness we have faced, and to honor the spirit of the holidays we have just spent without our parents by taking down the post on Truth Social.”

“I am asking President Trump to remove the video that he shared and apologize to me and my family for posting this misinformation and for using my mother’s own words to dishonor her memory,” Colin said.

Several Minnesota politicians, from both political parties, have also condemned the post.

“I hope my kids turn out like the Hortman’s. We shouldn’t take the nutbag assassin’s lunacy as fact,” Rep. Nolan West, R-Blaine, said on X Monday. “The murders were senseless and clearly had nothing to do with some grand conspiracy and suggesting otherwise is irresponsible of a leader. President Trump, take down the bs video.”

Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, on Monday said the posts aren’t something she would ever share or repost, and that she doesn’t believe the conspiracy theories.

“We know that there was a very unhinged person that horribly took the lives of two people and their dog and changed forever the lives of the Hoffmans and our state overall,” Demuth said.

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WOLVERTON, Minn. — A northwestern Minnesota man accused of shooting and killing a partygoer at a New Year’s celebration he was hosting made his first appearance in Wilkin County District Court on Monday.

Myron Johanson, 26, was formally charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter related to the death of 22-year-old Jorden Boehm, of West Fargo and New Rockford, N.D., in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, during a party at Johanson’s Wolverton home at 1772 U.S. 75 in the Red River Valley.

Court records said approximately 10 people were at the gathering, at which witnesses told investigators “everyone was getting along and having a good time throughout the evening.” During the party, witnesses said Johanson carried around a black handgun in a holster, at times taking it out and “playing with it and pointing it at others in the house, and leaving it lie out on the table.”

Before the fatal shooting took place, one witness said she saw Johanson point the gun at one person’s face, only to have that person push it away. Johanson pointed the gun at another witness’s head and asked the person if they trusted him, to which the witness told investigators he responded, “(Expletive) no I don’t,” at which point Johanson laughed, and racked a round into the chamber, according to court documents.

Witnesses then saw Johanson walk up to Boehm and put the gun under his chin, again asking, “Do you trust me?” according to court documents.

“The next thing witnesses recalled was that the gun went off … (and) the victim bleeding from his neck,” an investigative report said. “One witness stated that he turned around to see the defendant holding the gun and saying, ‘Oh (expletive), call 911.’”

Johanson met sheriff’s deputies inside the home when they arrived at the scene, where he pointed them toward where Boehm’s body was lying in a pool of blood. He then showed the deputies where his gun was in his bedroom.

Johanson is being represented by Fargo defense attorney Luke Heck. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Jan. 27 in Breckenridge.

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By PATRICK WHITTLE

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — One of the world’s rarest whale species is having more babies this year than in some recent seasons, but experts say many more young are needed to help stave off the possibility of extinction.

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The North Atlantic right whale’s population numbers an estimated 384 animals and is slowly rising after several years of decline. The whales have gained more than 7% of their 2020 population, according to scientists who study them.

The whales give birth off the southeastern United States every winter before migrating north to feed. Researchers have identified 15 calves this winter, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday.

That number is higher than two of the last three winters, but the species needs “approximately 50 or more calves per year for many years” to stop its decline and allow for recovery, NOAA said in a statement. The whales are vulnerable to collisions with large ships and entanglement in commercial fishing gear.

This year’s number is encouraging, but the species remains in peril without stronger laws to protect against those threats, said Gib Brogan, senior campaign director with environmental group Oceana. The federal government is in the midst of a moratorium on federal rules designed to protect right whales until 2028, and commercial fishing groups have pushed for a proposal to extend that pause for even longer.

There is still time left for more baby whales to be born this winter, but 50 is not a reasonable expectation because of a lack of reproductive females in the population, Brogan said.

“We’re not going to be able to calve ourselves to recovery,” Brogan said. “We also need to be doing more to tackle the two primary causes of right whale deaths, being entanglement in fishing gear and being hit by boats.”

The whales have fared better than last winter, when they gave birth to only 11 calves, according to NOAA data. The whales have reached 20 calves only twice since 2010, and they gave birth to no calves in a disastrous 2018 season. The whales are less likely to reproduce when they have suffered injuries or are underfed, scientists have said.

The whales were hunted to the brink of extinction during the era of commercial whaling and have been federally protected for decades. They remain in a crisis at the moment because there have been more deaths than births in the population in the past decade, NOAA said in its statement.

By BRUCE SCHREINER

President Donald Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela has emerged as a flash point in the closely watched Republican primary campaign between Kentucky U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a long-running Trump antagonist, and retired Navy SEAL officer Ed Gallrein, who has the president’s backing.

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Massie, showing his non-interventionist leanings, fired off a series of social media posts criticizing the military operation that captured Nicolás Maduro and removed him from the South American country.

“Wake up MAGA,” Massie wrote. “VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for.”

The congressman claimed that Trump wrongly circumvented Congress when ordering the attack.

“In the Constitution, the Founders vested war making power in Congress, not the Executive branch,” he wrote.

Gallrein responded that Massie had “shown his true colors” by criticizing the military operation.

“This operation sends a clear message: the United States will not allow rogue regimes to enable criminal networks or use oil and other resources to fuel our global adversaries,” Gallrein said on social media. “Holding bad actors accountable is how we restore law and order, deter aggression, and protect American families.”

Gallrein added that American intervention “opens the door to a new chapter for the people of Venezuela — one defined not by decades of oppression, but by the possibility of peace and prosperity.”

He is Trump’s choice to challenge Massie, a maverick who has had an up-and-down relationship with Trump. The primary election in May will test Trump’s hold over Republican politics. The sudden emergence of Venezuela as an issue will test the president’s ability to hold together his coalition during a challenging election year for Republicans that could be defined by domestic concerns like health care and affordability.

The libertarian-leaning Massie has won reelection by lopsided margins since entering Congress in 2012 — even when he incurred Trump’s wrath.

The military action in Venezuela is the latest example of Massie standing up to Trump.

The congressman opposed the massive tax breaks and spending cuts package last year that Trump calls “beautiful” but Massie says will grow the national debt and hurt the economy. Massie said the president lacked authority to attack Iran’s nuclear sites without congressional approval. And Massie was at the forefront of efforts to force the public release of case files on the sex trafficking probe into the late Jeffrey Epstein.

In his bid to unseat the congressman, Gallrein has the president’s vaunted political operation on his side, and a super PAC launched by Trump aides has run ads attacking Massie. But he will confront an entrenched, well-funded incumbent in Massie.

Trump on Monday reiterated his support for Gallrein on his social media platform and urged other Republicans to stay out of the May primary.

“I have heard that there are other Candidates exploring a run for this seat, but I am asking all MAGA Warriors to rally behind Captain Ed Gallrein, the Candidate who is, far and away, best positioned to DEFEAT Third Rate Congressman Thomas Massie, a Weak and Pathetic RINO from the beautiful Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Trump said.

So far, at least two Democrats have filed to run for the congressional seat stretching across northern Kentucky, along with a third Republican besides Massie and Gallrein. The eventual Republican nominee will be heavily favored in a district last represented by a Democrat two decades ago.