MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor, Sara Rodriguez declared her candidacy in the open race for governor with an unequivocal blast at President Donald Trump. She called him a “maniac.” Rodriguez, age 50, a Democrat is the first candidate to announce. “We’ve got a maniac in the White House,” Rodriguez said in her video announcement. “His tariffs are killing our farmers, and his policies are hurting our kids.” Rodriguez emphasized her career as an emergency room nurse. She pledged to continue Governor Tony Evers’ priorities — protecting reproductive freedom, investing in public schools, and rebuilding the economy. So far no one else has declared, although the county executive in Milwaukee, David Crowley, confirmed he is mulling the possibility. Other Democrats believed interested:

> Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski.

> Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson.

> Attorney General Josh Kaul.

> State Senator Kelda Roys of Madison.

Earlier: Evers: No to third term as isconsin governor

LACROSSE, Wis. — A preliminary autopsy found no sign of foul play in the death of a LaCrosse college student whose body was found Wednesday in the Mississippi River. Police noted that a full autopsy may take several weeks. Meanwhile they renewed their public plea for information on the disappearance of 22-year-old Eliotte Heinz. There remains much they want to know.

Earlier: LaCrosse chatter abuzz on missing collegians

Earlier: Missing LaCrosse woman found dead downriver

Leaving bar district. On her way home, apparently alone, about 3:30 a.m. near riverfront. As captured on surveillance video, enhanced to account for darkness. Image: LaCrosse police

LEWISTON, Minn. — A garbage truck and a semi-truck collied at the confusing 90-degree twist on County 9oad 25 south of Lewiston. Both drivers were injured. They were taken 17 mikes to the Winona hospital. The accident was about 1:50 p.m. at the Count Road 25 convergence with Enterprise Valley Drive and County Road 106. The intersection was blocked closed several hours. A sheriff’s spokesperson said that accident details were still being constructed and it wasn’t clear which driver was in which truck. All that the spokesperson could confirm was that the drives were:

> A 52-year-old man from Dakota.

> A 44-year-ood man from Tomah.

ORONOCO, Minn.  — A motorcyclist found dead with his bike in a ditch near Oronoco has been identified as Chadd Alfred Mayer, age 58, of Kasson. The accident, unnoticed perhaps for days, was discovered by a utility worker. Olmsted County sheriff’s investigators have established the accident occurred in 36-hour window beginning about 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Earlier: Biker’s body found in Oronoco wreckage

LACROSSE, Wis. — The disappearance of a 22-year-old Viterbo graduate student, Eliotte Heinz, has rekindled chatter about a serial killer on the city riverfront. Heinz was found floating dead nine miles downriver Wednesday — the latest in a string of missing college students turning up dead in the Mississippi River going back to 1997. Police dismiss the conspiracy theories as as crackpot speculation. They note the LaCrosse reputation as a hard-drinking college party town. They note too the proximity of the downtown bar district to the riverfront. In the latest death, Eliotte Heinz had been at Bronco’s bar on Front Street and was walking home about 3:30 a.m.

Dubious roots of a commonality

The serial killer theory gained currency in 2008 with a St. Cloud State University criminologist, Doulas Lee Gilbertson. He organized a student project to map and profile the cases of young men who had gone missing and drowned. Two former New York cops, Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, weighed in with a theory connecting the deaths. The theory, no matter how far-fetched, embedded itself in a gullible public consciousness with a 2019 documentary on NBC’s crime-hungry Oxygen network. The documentary played and replayed.

Smiley Face Killer? Gang of Death Dealers?

The deaths were lumped as the Smiley Face Serial Killer Theory based on extrapolation from a smiley-face graffito near at least one victim. The Oxygen documentary broadened the theory to other drownings up and down the Mississippi and even elsewhere in the Midwest and on the East Coast. When a mysterious river death in Minneapolis was reclassified by police as a homicide, the conspiracy theories gad new life. Whether a gang really existed was never established, but the case added mass to three decades of 40-some river deaths throughout the Midwest. Now comes artificial intelligence-generated takeaways from news coverage of the Eliotte Heinz disappearance. The ghoulish conspiracy theories have new currency.

Earlier: Missing LaCrosse woman found dead downriver

Gilbertson. Teaches criminology St. Cloud State. Still taking speaker bureau bookings.

HOMER, Minn. — The Winona police dispatcher received a third rattlesnake report of the summer, this up Cedar Valley four miles south of Homer. A snake -handler was called to relocate the snake. This was about 7:45 p.m. in the 23000 block of Little Cedar Road.

LACROSSE, Wis. — The celebrity crochet wunderkid.Jonah Larson left jail by posting a relatively low $5,000 bail on a sexual misconduct charge. The judge didn’t see Larson, age 17, as much of a flight risk. Larson appeared for the bail hearing from jail in a video hook-up. As a condition for bail, Larson was ordered to have no contact with the 16-year-old girl in the case. The charge is forcibly detaining the girl and sexual assault.

Earlier: Teen crochet prodigy jailed for rape, kidnap

ST.LOUIS, Mo. — A federal appeals court has let MyPillow pitchman Mike Lindell off the hook for a $5 million arbitration award. A Colorado man had taken up Lindell’s $5 million challenge for anyone who could fault his logic that the 2020 election was rigged through voting machine manipulation. A Colorado man did so. He sued Lindell to pay up. A Minnesota arbitration board found against Lindell. Now the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overruled the arbitration board. The court cited an offbeat technicality in Minnesota law. Said the judges: “Whatever one might think of the logic of the arbitration panel’s reasoning, it is contrary to Minnesota law.” The Colorado man’s suit was one of several against Lindell for whacky claims about the 2020 election. He’s still staring down defamation cases brought by voting machine companies. The companies want $1 billion-plus in libel damages.

Earlier: Lindell ordered to pay up for 2020 libels

Earlier: Pillow hickster ordered to pay up $5 million

Earlier: Lindell: $5 million only over my dead body

Earlier: Pillow-huckster ordered to pay up: $5 million

MADISON, Wis. — Governor Tony Evers will leave public office next year after eight years, he announced. Evers, age 73, said he plans to spend more time with family. He has been in elected office since 2009, first as state education superintendent, then as governor. “For five decades my family has sacrificed,” he said. “They gave me the gift of service. They’re my world, and I owe to them to focus on doing all the things we enjoy and love doing together.” Were he to be re-elected in 2026, Evers would have become the first Democratic governor elected to three four-year terms. Former Gov. Tommy Thompson, a Republican, was elected to four terms. Thompson was the only Wisconsin governor to serve more than two four-year terms. Evers’ electoral record:

> 1993: Lost a bid to be state school superintendent to John Benson.

> 2009: Defeated Rose Fernandez 57% to 43% yo be state school superintendent.

> 2013: Won re-election as state schools superintendent 61% to 39% over challenger Don Pridemore.

> 2017: Won re-election as state schools superintendent 70% to 30% over challenger Lowell Holtz.

> 2018: Defeated incumbent Republican Scott Walker 49% to 48% to be governor.

> 2022: Won re-election as governor 51% to 48% over Republican Tim Michels.

Evers. A Democrat. Governor since 2018. Earlier a principal in Tomah, a superintendent in Oakfield.

CHESTER, Minn. — A St. Charles motorcyclist was injured fatally in a collision with a pickup truck on J.S. 14 between Eyota and Rochester. Killed was Robert Warren Jackley, age 52. This was about 10:50 a.m. at Chester Avenue. Olmsted County deputies said Jackley was headed toward Rochester. The pickup driver, Daniel Lee Dittes, 53, of Maple Grove, was headed the opposite direction. Dittes was unhurt. Jackley was aboard a 2005 Harley Davidson FL Softail Classic. He was wearing a helmet, deputies said.

LAMOILLE, Minn. — A woman driving out of the Pickwick road onto combined U.S. Highways 14-61 was killed in a pre-dawn crash. The victim: Lois Irene Davis, age 72, of Pickwick. This was about 4:40 a.m. She was on her way to Winona for a shift at a nursing home as an aide. Police have lots of unanswered questions about what happened, but this likely scenario has emerged:

> Davis was coming from County Road 7 from Pickwick. It was an intersection she knew well from living 30-some years up Big Trout Creek near Pickwick.

> Apparently she missed the stop sign at the Highway 14-16 intersection, or maybe had stopped but, because of rain, didn’t see oncoming traffic and proceeded cross..

> Her vehicle crossed all four lanes of 14-61 and went down a ditch along the elevated roadbed of the Canadian Pacific railroad tracks on the Mississippi river.

> Apparently dazed, Davis climbed out of her wrecked car and wandered up the 14-16 embankment.

> A vehicle bound downriver toward LaCrosse on 14-61 struck Davis. So did a second vehicle. One driver stopped, the other didn’t. Which impact was fatal wasn’t determined immediately. but there was no doubt that Davis died on the scene.

Police called for any witnesses to come forward. The second vehicle, police believed, was a semi-truck.

>

Fatal Lamoille intersection. On a drier day. Where Winona County Road 7 dead-ends. Most drivers cross lanes to turn north nine miles  to Winona.  The driver of one vehicle, a 2001 Chevrolet S10, was Chad Walter Erlandson, 44, of Winona. The second driver? Who knows. Drove off.

DAKOTA, Minn. ­— A man who lives just off U.S. Highway 14-61 came home from work and, surprise, found a man inside wearing one of his shirts and making himself right at home. Although the guy was amiable enough, albeit it strangely, the homeowner told him to take off the shirt and leave, then called the sheriff. Deputies arrested Harrison Bradley Margolis, age 39. of Decorah, Iowa. He was hitchhiking toward Dakota. Margolis was booked. at the county jail in Winona,20 miles away, for burglary of a dwelling. Margolis may have been experiencing a mental health issue, deputies said. For the homeowner it had been a long day. He had left his place on Fern Glen Road for work about 4 a.m. Driving up home in the evening, he told deputies, things didn’t look right: The basement light was on, his mail was missing, a trash bin wasn’t where it should have been. Inside he found Margolis, whom he didn’t know from adam. The homeowner told him to take the shirt, which he did. Told to leave, the man cried and apologized and then left. The homeowner told deputies the house had been locked. Apparently, he said, Margolis crawled in through a doggy door and spent all day in the house.  All these details are the criminal complaint, including that Margolis had helped himself to two chicken patties, pulled clothes from a washer-dryer and put them on; burned some papers; cleaned up poop from the homeowner’s dog; and rearranged furniture. There were things too, according to the criminal complaint, that Margolis had brought with him: a baby doll, a Christmas ornament, a plastic figurine, and a plush reindeer antler.

ELBA, Minn. — It’s déjà vu for Winona County Sheriff Ron Ganrude. Deputies, responding to reports of a teen-age mega-beer blast in the woods, stopped carloads of minors roaming the roads downriver from Elba — either lost and looking for the party or already drunk and leaving. Ticketed were kids from all over — Rochester, 33 miles away; Blooming Prairie, 60 miles away; Lake City, 35 miles away; and Owatonna, 69 miles away. Is this all the same again as summer a year ago?  “Sure looks like it,” Ganrude said. Like last summer, Ganrude said, the free-for-all had been organized on Facebook with online directions for driving there. The site was somewhere near the same remote Beaver crossroads as last summer —  near the  State Route 74 crossroads with  County Road 30. This was up a minor tributary to the Whitewater River near Beaver — hidden at an elbow bend at a dead-end dirt trail on a state wildlife and fauna protection site. It was hardly a place to be out wandering around in the dark, especially if boozed up. Last year thee were fights, falls and injuries at these parties.

Policing priority: Get drunks off roads

Three Winona County deputies responded to calls about this summer’s inaugural beer blast, but they never got to the party itself. The deputies were fully occupied stopping carloads of drunken teens meandering on backroads  around the Beaver crossroads. Stops included drunken driving, underage consumption and drunkenness,  speeding, and erratic driving.  Some drivers said they were lost. Deputies gave them directions to get home.

Policing lessons from 2024

Last summer  Ganrude and fellow sheriffs finally got a handle on the clandestine parties by monitoring social media, assigning extra patrols to suspected sites, and inter-agency coordination. Of urgent concern then and now were drunken falls and injuries at remote and hard-to-reach locations, drunken automobile accidents, and campfire-triggered forest fires.

Earlier: Cops nip Beaver Creek bust early

Earlier: How cops pre-empted yet another rural beer bash

Earlier: Cops caucus on early alerts for beer blowouts

Earlier: Cops bust 300 revelers at drunken bash

Larson. In orange at LaCrosse County jail.

BROWNSVILLE, Minn. — The body of a 22-year-old LaCrosse woman, missing four days, was found seven miles downstream on the Minnesota side of the river.  The body was recovered by Houston County deputies near Brownsville. In LaCrosse, police said there was no doubt that the body was that of Eliotte Heinz. An autopsy was ordered. Although Brownsville is only seven miles from LaCrosse by river, it’s a 13-miles drive via LaCrescent and the Interstate 90 bridge at Dresbach. The last that police in LaCrosse were aware of anyone seeing Heinz was about 3:30 a.m. on Sunday. She was walking along the river less than a half-mile from the country music bar Bronco’s in downtown LaCrosse on Front Street. Posters seeking Heinz’ whereabouts described her as 5-foot-4 with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was last seen in a white T-shirt and jean shorts.

Heinz. With cap in hand on her graduation day from Viterbo. Image: Family album

These geese don’t know either. This gaggle stopped traffic on Parks Avenue en route to the Winona Health campus on Lake Winona. Image: Steve Lunde

WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 34 emergency medical calls plus 23 fire calls in recent days:

> Tuesday, July 22: 7 medical call plus 4 fire calls

> Monday, July 21:7 medical calls plus no fire calls.

> Sunday, July 20: 3 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.

> Saturday, July 19: 5 medical calls plus 7 fire calls.

> Friday, July 18: 5 medical call plus 2 fire calls

> Thursday, July 17: 5 medical calls plus 7 fire calls

> Wednesday, July 16: 2 medical calls plus no fire calls.

Earlier: Emergency, fire crews make 47 calls

FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. — Among 33 new foods on the ever-growing menu at the Minnesota State Fair, which opens August 21:

Grandma Doreen’s dessert dog: Vanilla ice cream, sandwiched between pieces of Grandma Doreen’s Coffee Cake  a family recipe from Elgin in Wabasha County made by Wrecktangle Pizza. Skewered on a stick. Drizzled with strawberry rhubarb jam. Garnished with cinnamon toast-flavored crispy treats, whipped cream and sprinkles. Vegetarian. At West End Creamery at West End Market, northwest section.

Green apple sucker ice cream: Tart green apple ice cream with swirls flavored like a caramel apple lollipop. Served in a cup. Created by A to Z  Creamery. Vegetarian. Glute-free. At Granny’s Apples + Lemonade in the Food Building, west wall.

Hot honey jalapeño popper donut: Hand-cut yeast-raised donut frosted with homemade jalapeño cream cheese. Topped with crumbled bacon, pickled jalapeños and drizzled with hot honey. At Fluffy’s Hand-Cut Donuts on the northwest corner of Carnes Avenue & Chambers Street.

Earlier: Fair fodder /5: Many items promising, some daring

TWIN LAKES, Minn — A two-year-old Emmons girl suffered minor injuries when a truck and car collided on Highway 69. The toddler, Payton Ann Leiberg, was taken eight miles to the Albert Lea hospital. The accident was about 7:15 a.m. According to the State Patrol, a 2016 Ford Escape and a 2021 Peterbilt straight truck collided. Both were heading north toward Albert Lea. Unhurt were Samantha Leiberg, 22 of Emmons, the Escape driver, and Matt Joseph Gehling, 47, of Preston, the truck driver.

Crowd-pleasing fly-over. At North Dakota State Fair moments before near collision with Delta airliner landing at airport. Quick evasive turn by Delta pilot averted collision. Image: Norh Dakota governor

Bomber crew had clearance for fly-over

MINOT, N.D. — The Air Force has blamed an FAA traffic control lapse for a near collision of a B-52 bomber and a Delta airliner Friday. A spokesperson at the Minot Air Force Base, home port of the behemoth B-52, said the plane had clearance from the FAA tower at the city-operated Minot airport for its flight path. The B-52 had just made a ceremonial pass-over at the North Dakota State Fair and the crew was heading back to its base 13 north of the city. Here’s what happened as compiled from the Air Force version and other sources:

> Pre-flight clearances: The flyover had been approved earlier by the Federal Aviation Administration, including the agency’s Minot control center.

> Mission notification: The B-52 crew contacted the Minot tower to prepare for the flyover.

> The B-52 crew circled in a holding pattern 12 miles east of the fairgrounds.

> While holding, the B-52 crew communicated its flyover plan to both FAA’s Minot approach center and control tower.

> 7:40 p.m.: The B-52 crew advised the Minot tower they were departing the holding point for the fairgrounds.

> 7:50 p.m.: The B-52 crossed the fairgrounds stadium.

> After the flyover the B-52 crew contacted the airport tower they were continuing two miles west.

> 8:08 p.m.: The scheduled arrival for Delta Flight 3855 from Minneapolis. Touchdown was delayed by the unexpected mid-air crisis.

> The tower did not advise the inbound Delta pilot about a possible air space conflict. Nor did the tower notify the B-52 crew that the Delta plane was in a descent path to land.

> The B-52 cleared Minot control tower’s airspace and returned 13 miles to the Minot Air Force Base.

Minot airport terminal. For a population of 48,000, the isolated North Dakota city of Minot has an unusually busy airport. The Air Force Base, a few miles out of town, has 5,500 uniformed military members and 6,300 military family members. These personnel rely largely on scheduled airline service in and out.

Earlier: Quick, sharp maneuver avoids Minot crash