The man suspected of killing Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and injuring Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, is in police custody facing federal and state murder charges.

Who is the suspect?

Vance Luther Boelter, 57, of Sibley County, is a graduate of St. Cloud State University, attended the Christ For The Nations Institute in Dallas and was an appointee to the Governor’s Workforce Development Board.

From 2019-2023, Boelter served on the same state workforce development board as Hoffman as a business and industry representative, according to the Associated Press. It is unclear whether the two knew each other well.

The Praetorian Guard Security Services website, which is no longer active, lists Boelter as the director of security patrols for the company, which says it provides security services to residential homes. Boelter’s wife is listed as the manager of Praetorian on the Secretary of State filing, and as the president and CEO on the business’ website.

Praetorian Guard, whose main location is listed in Gaylord, in Sibley County, is registered as a business with the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office, but National Public Radio found no record of the firm having clients or providing any services.

While Boelter once engaged with Minnesota Africans United, a nonprofit supporting African immigrant communities in the state, the organization said he “was never hired, paid, or contracted by Minnesota Africans United. He has never served in any official (or unofficial) capacity as a representative of our organization,” and participated in a virtual webinar once in 2022.

What is he being charged with?

Boelter was found in a field in Green Isle, close to a mile from his home, and taken into custody at about 9:10 p.m. Sunday, following a two-day manhunt.

Boelter is being charged federally with stalking Hortman and Hoffman, murdering Melissa and Mark Hortman and with firearms offenses.

He is also charged by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office with two counts of second-degree murder-not premeditated and two counts of attempted murder. The office announced Monday it would seek an indictment on first-degree murder charges as well.

What happened?

At 2:05 a.m. Saturday, police responded to a call from Hoffmans’ adult daughter reporting that her parents had been shot.

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The suspect, impersonating an officer, shot John Hoffman nine times and his wife eight times, according to charges.

The two received medical care and have survived the injuries.

At 3:30 a.m., Brooklyn Park officers went to the Hortman home after learning of the shooting at the Hoffman home. A black SUV was parked outside the Hortman home with police-style lights that were on and flashing, according to the Associated Press.

Officers saw Boelter standing near the front door of the home and saw him fire multiple gunshots inside. Melissa and Mark Hortman were found with multiple gunshot wounds and did not survive. Their dog was also hit.

What happened to the Hortmans’ dog?

Gilbert, the Hortman family’s Golden Retriever, was originally trained by Hortman through the nonprofit Helping Paws MN to be a service dog. When his training didn’t go as planned, he was welcomed into the family.

Gilbert was euthanized due to his injuries.

Helping Paws stated in a Facebook post that they will make a formal announcement establishing a fund in honor of the Hortman family and Gilbert, to support their program placing service dogs with veterans and first responders living with PTSD.

How did he impersonate officers?

This image provided by the FBI on Saturday, June 14, 2025, shows part of a poster with photos of Vance L. Boelter. (FBI via AP)

Boelter was “disguised as a police officer, and heavily armed with firearms and body armor,” according to a criminal complaint. The SUV he used was also altered to look like a police vehicle and had a fake license plate that read ‘Police.’

The suspect approached the homes wearing a flesh-colored mask covering his entire head, a black tactical vest and holding a flashlight.

At the Hoffman house, Boelter knocked on the door and shouted repeatedly, “This is the police. Open the door,” according to the criminal complaint. The Hoffmans reported that the suspect shined a flashlight in their eyes and asked if they had any firearms before shooting.

Where was he between the Hoffman and Hortman shootings?

According to officials, in the 90 minutes between the two shootings, the suspect visited the homes of two other legislators in Maple Grove and New Hope.

The legislator in Maple Grove was not home at the time of Boelter’s arrival and law enforcement intervened at the location in New Hope, causing the suspect to flee. Officials have stated that if the lawmakers were home or there hadn’t been intervention, more people would have likely been harmed.

What are his values and political beliefs?

While officials have not determined a clear motive for the attacks, the incident has been referred to as notably politically charged.

Those who knew Boelter have described him as a devout Christian and a political conservative. Voting records from the early 2000s show that Boelter was a registered Republican in Oklahoma. Friends and former colleagues said he attended campaign rallies for President Donald Trump but didn’t talk much about politics or seem ‘extreme.’

Boelter also appeared to criticize gay and transgender people in several sermons at a church in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the New York Times.

While serving as an evangelical pastor at a church in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2023, Boelter gave a sermon on ‘unity within the body of Christ,’ and expressed his disappointment with abortion in the US, the Associated Press reports.

What evidence was found?

Police found in Boelter’s SUV at least three AK-47 rifles, a 9mm handgun, a medical kit and a handwritten list of more than 45 names, including prominent state and federal lawmakers, mostly Democrats, community leaders, abortion rights activists and addresses and information for health care facilities.

Hortman’s and Hoffman’s addresses, along with the public official in Maple Grove and the home addresses for at least two other state officials, were logged in the vehicle’s GPS navigation system history.

Officers also found a ballistic vest, a disassembled 9mm firearm, a face mask and a gold police-style badge near the area where the vehicle was found.

Boelter purchased an electronic bike and a Buick sedan from a stranger he met at a bus stop in Minneapolis around 7 a.m. Saturday, which he used to evade officers.

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When law enforcement searched the abandoned Buick, a handwritten letter directed to the FBI, read that “Dr. Vance Luther Boelter” was “the shooter at large in Minnesota involved in the 2 shootings the morning of Saturday, June 15th,” according to a criminal complaint.

Are the victims receiving support?

Community memorials have been created both inside and outside the State Capitol. Members of the public and state leaders, including Gov. Tim Walz, have visited the site to pay their respects and grieve the loss of state leadership.

Fundraisers have been established on GoFundMe for the Hortman family (gofund.me/08964165) and the Hoffman family (gofund.me/f82790ae).

By DORANY PINEDA, JOHN LOCHER and MARK THIESSEN

GALENA, Alaska (AP) — Eric Huntington built his dream cabin nestled in the wilderness of central Alaska, eventually raising two daughters there. But over the years, he learned that living in this quiet, remote village came with a hefty cost.

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Every year, the Huntington family spent about $7,000 on diesel to heat the cabin during bone-chilling winters, and a few years back, a power outage at the town’s diesel plant left residents freezing in minus 50 F. When power finally returned hours later, water pipes had frozen, leaving about two dozen homes without running water for days.

“We just didn’t open our door all morning until the lights came back on,” said Huntington, a member of the local Louden Tribe.

In Galena, a sprawling village of 400 people on the banks of the Yukon River, a community built around a former military base is shifting to clean energy in an effort to reduce its reliance on expensive, imported diesel. Local leaders say their nearly completed solar farm, along with an existing biomass plant, will boost the town’s savings and protect residents from blackouts during extreme weather. The technology has the potential to provide clean backup power in emergencies and improve the power grid’s resiliency, all while diversifying the village’s energy sources and providing job opportunities for locals.

The projects come at a precarious time for renewable energy transition in the United States. The Trump administration has canceled billions of dollars of clean energy grants in an effort to bolster fossil fuel production, and billions more in investments have been scrapped or delayed this year. So far, the village’s federal grants for the solar array haven’t been impacted, but local leaders know the risk remains. Whatever the future of public funding, the village is an example of how renewable energies can save costs, boost reliability during extreme weather and create jobs.

Workers install panels at a solar project Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Galena, Alaska. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Once online, the solar array will ensure that the village’s power grid has a backup system, said Tim Kalke, general manager of Sustainable Energy for Galena Alaska — or SEGA — a nonprofit that will operate it. So when the power goes out, it doesn’t result in tens of thousands of dollars in repairs, he added, and heat is guaranteed in times of extreme cold.

“You’re dealing with life, health and safety,” he said.

A biomass project keeps a bustling school heated

In May, dozens of high school students in navy blue caps and gowns stood with nervous excitement in a locker-brimmed hallway, each waiting their turn to walk through yellow tinsel into a packed auditorium. It was graduation day for Galena Interior Learning Academy.

The school’s vocational training courses and cultural offerings attract some 200 students annually from across Alaska, boosting the village’s population and energy needs.

Students here can take classes on sustainable energy, aviation, carpentry and much more. But in order to keep it running — especially during long, cold winters — it needs heat.

That’s where the biomass project comes in. Every winter since 2016, trees (mostly paper birch) are locally harvested and shredded into wood chips that fuel a large boiler plant on campus, offsetting about 100,000 gallons of diesel annually for the school district and the city, said Brad Scotton, a Galena City Council member who also serves on SEGA’s board. It’s notable as one of the state’s first large-scale biomass plants and is the most rural, he added.

Cost savings from using biomass has allowed the Galena City School District to hire certified professionals in trade jobs and do upkeep on campus facilities, said district superintendent Jason R. Johnson in an email.

It’s also created a local workforce and a job base the village never used to have. “It’s keeping the money that used to go outside within the community and providing pretty meaningful jobs for people,” Scotton said.

A new solar farm to offset more diesel use

In rural areas of Alaska, the costs for many goods can be high, as they must be brought in. Galena burns just under 400,000 gallons of diesel annually to produce electricity, and an energy price hike around 2008 helped the village realize something needed to change. Scotton remembered when a gallon of diesel was $1.64 and then skyrocketed to $4.58 another year. At that wholesale price, the city was paying more than $1.8 million to keep the lights on.

“It was really quite a shock to everybody’s system in terms of trying to operate with those elevated costs,” said Scotton. “So that really got the community assessing whether or not we could continue business as usual with that reliance.” That’s when they started looking for grants to build a solar array.

On an overcast May day, on a field flanked by boreal forests, workers in reflective safety vests slotted rectangular panels on a metal grid. They were working on the nearly-completed, 1.5 megawatt solar farm that will connect to a battery system.

Workers install panels for a solar energy project Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Galena, Alaska. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Once in use, the community will be able to turn off its diesel engines and run on 100% clean, renewable energy on sunny summer days, and any excess power will be battery stored for nights, emergencies or heating the local indoor pool. The solar array will allow them to shut off the diesel operation between 800 to 1,000 hours a year, totaling about 100,000 gallons.

The solar farm won’t necessarily lower people’s electricity bills. But like the biomass plant, the hope is that it will stabilize energy costs, allowing those savings to go back into the community, all while providing work opportunities for residents like Aaren Sommer.

Last year, the 19-year old graduated from the academy, where he learned about solar energy. Now he’s helping to install the solar array. “That’s going to reduce the diesel usage a whole bunch over at the power plant, which is going to help us out,” he said.

Tribe members save with energy-efficient homes

In addition to the solar farm and biomass project, the Louden Tribe is building new energy-efficient homes that will help members be less reliant on diesel. Some of the siding used in the homes comes from wood harvested in the area.

In November, the Huntington family moved into a new, stilted house with a solar-compatible roof, 13-inch walls and 18 inches of insulation to keep the cold at bay. When they lived in the cabin, the $7,000 a year Huntington spent on diesel was a good chunk of his annual income.

The new home’s energy-efficient features are already saving them money. The 300-gallon diesel tank Huntington filled before moving cost him about $2,400. Six months later, he still has unused fuel in the tank.

The Huntingtons are one of eight families the tribe has moved into sustainable homes, and they plan to turn over the keys to three more this year.

Kalke, SEGA’s general manager, is often asked what Galena produces. He used to just say education.

“But since 2016 you can say education and wood chips. And soon, solar energy,” he said.

Pineda reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press journalist Alyssa Goodman in New York contributed to this report.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Lawyers for the Daily News, The New York Times and other news outlets suing ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI, have asked a Manhattan judge to reject an effort by the technology giant to continue deleting data that could prove it stole journalists’ work.

Manhattan Federal Magistrate Judge Ona Wang last month ordered OpenAI to preserve its output logs and any related information slated for deletion after the news outlets accused the tech company of permanently dumping enormous swaths of data, hindering their ability to prove AI products could circumvent paywalls to “plagiarize and regurgitate copyrighted content.”

OpenAI has asked Wang to vacate the order, arguing that continuing to store the data would be a “massive burden” and infringe on the privacy of users.

The news outlets say that the argument runs contrary to what OpenAI tells its users about being subject to retaining data if the law requires it. They have noted that the AI companies don’t deny the data deleted were pertinent to the lawsuit.

“What it does not dispute is that the output log data is relevant to the News Cases, which as OpenAI has long recognized, include infringement claims based on outputs generated by [OpenAI’s] models and products,” lawyers wrote Tuesday.

“Nor can it dispute that, as a highly sophisticated technology company that is currently valued at more than $300 billion, it has both the means and ability to preserve this concededly relevant data.”

The news outlets say that OpenAI has used every trick in the book to skirt accountability. In addition to the mass deletions, they have accused the tech company of installing filters “designed to make it harder” to elicit answers containing journalists’ copyrighted works.

“OpenAI’s preferred course of action to ‘protect its users’ data and privacy’ — immediately resuming mass deletions — will also, coincidentally, allow it to continue to destroy data that would show its liability for copyright infringement,” lawyers for the news outlets wrote.

Addressing privacy concerns, Wang’s May 13 order outlined that it was solely meant to preserve and segregate information that would not be provided “wholesale” to anyone — or stored “forever” — but used to address concerns raised in the suit.

If Wang is inclined to entertain the AI companies’ objection, the newspapers said she should give them a chance to analyze different populations of data and present findings to the court.

The suit alleges OpenAI has illegally harvested millions of news stories to train its large language models and build generative AI products that can vomit them out — or versions of them — to users. That has sometimes resulted in journalists’ pirated reporting being misstated or misrepresented, misinforming ChatGPT users, the newspapers have argued.

While the newspapers’ publishers have spent billions of dollars to send “real people to real places to report on real events in the real world,” the two tech firms are “purloining” the papers’ reporting without compensation “to create products that provide news and information plagiarized and stolen,” according to the lawsuit.

OpenAI has argued that the vast amount of data used to train its artificial intelligence bots is protected by “fair use” rules. The doctrine applies to rules that allow some to use copyrighted work for purposes like criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching and research.

However, lawyers for the newspapers have argued that the fair use test involves transforming a copyrighted work into something new, and the new work cannot compete with the original in the same marketplace.

The judge has rejected OpenAI’s position that the newspapers haven’t produced “a shred of evidence” that people are using ChatGPT or OpenAI’s API products to get news instead of paying for it.

The newspapers noted Tuesday that engineers for the tech companies had all but admitted it themselves by acknowledging the chatbots weren’t designed to slip past paywalls — not that they couldn’t. They also cited another suit involving Google, in which an OpenAI engineer acknowledged local news was a “pretty common quer[y]” among ChatGPT users.

The Times originally brought the Manhattan Federal Court suit in December 2023.  The News, along with other newspapers in affiliated companies MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing, filed in April 2024.

The other outlets included The Mercury News, The Denver Post, The Orange County Register and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and Tribune Publishing’s Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Lawyers for OpenAI did not respond to The News’ requests for comment.

Lawyers for the New York Daily News, The New York Times and other news outlets including the Pioneer Press suing ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI, have asked a Manhattan judge to reject an effort by the technology giant to continue deleting data that could prove it stole journalists’ work.

Manhattan Federal Magistrate Judge Ona Wang last month ordered OpenAI to preserve its output logs and any related information slated for deletion after the news outlets accused the tech company of permanently dumping enormous swaths of data, hindering their ability to prove AI products could circumvent paywalls to “plagiarize and regurgitate copyrighted content.”

OpenAI has asked Wang to vacate the order, arguing that continuing to store the data would be a “massive burden” and infringe on the privacy of users.

The news outlets say that the argument runs contrary to what OpenAI tells its users about being subject to retaining data if the law requires it. They have noted that the AI companies don’t deny the data deleted were pertinent to the lawsuit.

“What it does not dispute is that the output log data is relevant to the News Cases, which as OpenAI has long recognized, include infringement claims based on outputs generated by [OpenAI’s] models and products,” lawyers wrote Tuesday.

“Nor can it dispute that, as a highly sophisticated technology company that is currently valued at more than $300 billion, it has both the means and ability to preserve this concededly relevant data.”

The news outlets say that OpenAI has used every trick in the book to skirt accountability. In addition to the mass deletions, they have accused the tech company of installing filters “designed to make it harder” to elicit answers containing journalists’ copyrighted works.

“OpenAI’s preferred course of action to ‘protect its users’ data and privacy’ — immediately resuming mass deletions — will also, coincidentally, allow it to continue to destroy data that would show its liability for copyright infringement,” lawyers for the news outlets wrote.

Addressing privacy concerns, Wang’s May 13 order outlined that it was solely meant to preserve and segregate information that would not be provided “wholesale” to anyone — or stored “forever” — but used to address concerns raised in the suit.

If Wang is inclined to entertain the AI companies’ objection, the newspapers said she should give them a chance to analyze different populations of data and present findings to the court.

The suit alleges OpenAI has illegally harvested millions of news stories to train its large language models and build generative AI products that can vomit them out — or versions of them — to users. That has sometimes resulted in journalists’ pirated reporting being misstated or misrepresented, misinforming ChatGPT users, the newspapers have argued.

While the newspapers’ publishers have spent billions of dollars to send “real people to real places to report on real events in the real world,” the two tech firms are “purloining” the papers’ reporting without compensation “to create products that provide news and information plagiarized and stolen,” according to the lawsuit.

OpenAI has argued that the vast amount of data used to train its artificial intelligence bots is protected by “fair use” rules. The doctrine applies to rules that allow some to use copyrighted work for purposes like criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching and research.

However, lawyers for the newspapers have argued that the fair use test involves transforming a copyrighted work into something new, and the new work cannot compete with the original in the same marketplace.

The judge has rejected OpenAI’s position that the newspapers haven’t produced “a shred of evidence” that people are using ChatGPT or OpenAI’s API products to get news instead of paying for it.

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The newspapers noted Tuesday that engineers for the tech companies had all but admitted it themselves by acknowledging the chatbots weren’t designed to slip past paywalls — not that they couldn’t. They also cited another suit involving Google, in which an OpenAI engineer acknowledged local news was a “pretty common quer[y]” among ChatGPT users.

The Times originally brought the Manhattan Federal Court suit in December 2023. Newspapers in affiliated companies MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing filed in April 2024.

Along with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, those outlets included The Mercury News, The Denver Post, The Orange County Register and Tribune Publishing’s Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Lawyers for OpenAI did not respond to The News’ requests for comment.