Dreaded measles outbreak now in North Dakota
ATLANTA, Ga. – The spreading incidence of measles reached North Dakota – the 11th state with an outbreak since 2011 after several measles-free decades due to vaccines. Minnesota has escaped the latest contagion so far. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has counted 935 cases this year, more than triple all of 2024. The current outbreak took root in an isolated religious community in Texas with a disdain for vaccines. The outbreak has become a lightning rod on President Trump’s oddball choice of quack-theorist Robert Kennedy Jr. to head the U.S. Health Department. Kennedy has wiped out major research, decimated public health programs, and encouraged unproven “cures” for ailments of many sorts, including measles.
Minnesota prep
Baseball: St. Charles Saints 6, Lake City Tigers 0
Golf (boys): Golden Valley Breck Mustangs 295, Rochester Lourdes Eagles 303, Albert Lea Lions 303, Rochester Century Panthers 303, Stewartville Tigers 304, Lake City Tigers 310, Pine Island/Zumbrota-Mazeppa 317, Byron Bears 319, Rochester Mayo Spartans 319, Lake City Tigers 320, Kasson-Mantorville Komets 323, Austin Packers 324, Cannon Falls Bombers 338, Rochester Marshall 342, 16. Jordan Hubmen 350, Burnsville Blaze 369
Golf (girls): Rochester Marshall Rockets 342
Lacrosse (girls): Rochester Century Panthers 20, Rochester Marshall Rockets 6
Bicyclist dies on Broadway when hit by car
WINONA, Minn. – A 67-year-old man on an e-bike was injured fatally by a car turning off Broadway Street onto Liberty on the East Side. The victim’s name was withheld by police until kin could be reached. The accident was about 7:55 p.m. It was believed that the bicyclist was not wearing a helmet. Police identified the driver as a 54-year-old man. No charges were filed pending a reconstruction of the accident by State Patrol experts. Neither drugs nor alcohol seemed involved, police said. The setting sun may have been a factor, police said
Gender expert: Minnesota indecency law intact
ST. PAUL, Minn. – There won’t be wanton sex in the streets because of the Minnesota Supreme Court decision allowing women to go topless. The attorney for St. Paul-based Gender Justice, Jess Braverman, noted that the Court didn’t overturn any indecent exposure statute. Overt sexual displays in public remain verboten, Bravernman said in a Minnesota Public Radio interview:
“The law still stands. Nothing about the law has really changed. It’s just that courts have clarified how to interpret it, and that clarification is basically that just saying a woman was outside, she exposed her breasts, that alone won’t cut it. There has to be something else.”
The Gender Justice organization had supported the appeal of a Rochester woman who was ticketed in 2014 for going topless outside a gas station. Lower courts had found Eloisa Rubi Plancarte’s mammary exposure was lewd. But the Supreme Court now says, there must be a canal element for such a display to be legally lewd.
Guilty plea in arranging hotel sex with minor
PRESTON, Minn. – A Spring Valley man, Benjamin Chad Leslie, age 40, pleaded guilty to carnal chats with someone underage and arranging a rendezvous. Judge Jeremy Clinefelter set sentencing for late July. The arrestm in September, was an online police sting in which a sheriff’s investigator posed as a 14-year-old girl. The upshot of the dialogue was supposed to be a rendezvous at a Rochester hotel 37 miles away. The arrest was at the hotel parking lot. When told the “girl” was 14, Leslie said “doesn’t bother me,” according to the criminal complaint.
Judge to Trump deportation agency: Back off
MINNEAPOLIS — An immigration judge terminated the deportation case against a University of Minnesota student who was arrested in March. Judge Sarah Mazzie ruled that President Trump’s ICE deportation agents had failed to demonstrate why Doğukan Günaydin posed a danger to the public. The judge acknowledged that Günaydin had the 2023 drunken driving conviction that JCE had used to justify ambushing him on a St. Paul street and hauling him off for deportation. Mizzie said that although drunk driving was undoubtedly dangerous, “the evidence is insufficient to establish he placed a large segment of the general population at risk.” The ruling doesn’t free Günaydin from federal custody but requires judicial review. ICE has been under pressure to meet Trump quotas for alien deportations to support the President’s claim as tough on criminal gangs. In response ICE has averaged 400 arrests a day since Trump was inaugurated in January. Most of the arrests have had nothing to do with criminal gangs. The agency has recklessly ignored judicial review as a human right guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.
Mango’s ready for Cinco de Mayo crowd
Welcome all. Mango’s Mexican eatery on Winona’s West End has a special on Mexican brews on the holiday. Only 3.9% of Winona County’s population is of Hispanic or Latin extraction. But who cares when it comes it celebrating. It was on May 5, 1862, that Mexico defeated the Second French Empire at the Battle of Puebla. Image: Steve Lunde
College scores
Preemptive admission to cops: Six beers
WINONA, Minn. – A driver suspected of being drunk admitted it: “I’m drunk. You don’t need to give me any tests.” The officer did anyway. The blood-alcohol level for Jose Luis Tellez-Navarro. 32, of Winona, showed at 0.21% –more than 2-1/2 times the threshold for impaired driving. He admitted to six beers, officers said. His car had been reported entering the city limits on U.S. Highway 61 from Minnesota City and Goodview and weaving erratically. Officers found the vehicle two miles later at the Westgate bowling alley with Tellez-Navarro at the wheel. This was about 8:40 p.m. He was booked for felony drunken driving — a charge elevated from the usual DWI misdemeanor because of a previous conviction and a pending case.
Tellez-Navarro. Police reported glassy eyes, slurry speech, odor.
Injury in southeast Winona County wreck
MONEY CREK, Minn. – A Houston driver was injured when he veered off the road, entered a ditch, and stuck a culvert. Travis James Frank, 31, suffered sustainable injuries. He was taken 30 miles to a LaCrosse hospital. The accident was on State Highway 76 north of the Houston-Winona county line. This was about 3 p.m. Frank was heading north toward Interstate 90 and Witoka in a 2017 Buick Envision.
Can you believe it? Gardeners as thieves?
WINONA, Minn. – The stereotype about gardeners as back-to-the soil purists — authentic and honest – isn’t entirely right. Ask the people who run the seasonal garden center in the Hy-Vee parking. They told police that tw0 people – a criminal gang, no less — had stolen a bag of mulch and a flat of perennials. The theft is on video, the Hy-Vee security team said. So too is the license plate of the get-away vehicle. A shoplifting citation is in the works — albeit the forensic evidence undoubtedly is already part of an a home garden somewhere and nonrecoverable. Please pardon us, dear reader, if this story doesn’t seem worth the space on your on-screen landscape. It’s been a slow news day.
A Sunday lunch break for bikers
Beautiful day for cruising. Temperatures broke into the gorgeous 70s for a convoy of motorcyclists from The Cities to reach Winona’s Family Restaurant for the baked ham special, then cross the bridge to Wisconsin and cruise home. Image: Steve Lunde
Army delays usual Fort McCoy open house
FORT MCCOY, Wis. –The annual Armed Forces Day open house at Fort McCoy, scheduled for May 17, has been postponed. It was unclear whether Trump budget-slashing was a factor. The Army said only that it had staff shortages.
WSU’s latest Common Book looks to wildlife science
WINONA, Minn. – The English profs at Winnona State want everybody at the university to be reading Mary Roach’s “Fuzz: Where Nature Breaks the Law.” The New York Times bestseller has been prescribed as the university’s 2025 “common book.” The idea is for every course on campus, as much as possible, to have a component built around the book, said English prof Andrew Higl, project chair. The author Mary Roach, a science journalist, examines the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology. Roach offers observations and insights from an uncommon application of forensic science to conservation science. Higl said Roach will visit campus in the fall to kick off book club discussions, a film series, and collaborations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and local conservation organizations. An over-arching purpose of the Common Book project is to give Winona State students a shared campus experience that plays into their identity and values in enduring ways.
“Fuzz.” Published in 2021 by W.W. Norton 220 pages. $26 hardcover, $17 soft.
Higl. A scholar in Medieval studies. At Winona State since 2009. Doctorate from Loyola of Chicago.
Roach. San Francisco-based science sleuth whose numerus books are characterized by intense curiosity and humor.
News summary at week’s end: May 3, 2025
CRIME: What a dump: Where Winona drug bust went down
CRIME: Police seize huge drug cache, also $148,000 cash
CRIME: Cops: Driver too wobbly to test impairment
GOVERNANCE: Judge cuts off secret UM student deportation
GOVERNANCE: Court relaxes ban on baring female breasts
Driver arrested drunk on way home from wedding
WINONA, Minn. – A Rochester driver, confused by one-way signs for road construction on East Second Street, was caught going the wrong way late at night, police said. Debra Lynn Stafford, 69, was also drunk. Police said that her breath was heavy with alcohol and that a test showed her blood was 0.11% alcohol. She explained she had been at a wedding and, yes, had consumed a couple drinks. At 0.11%, her blood-alcohol was almost 1-1/2 times into the state inebriation zone. This was about 11:40 p.m. at Second and Market streets near the downtown bar district. The arresting officer said Stafford almost drove through recently poured concrete from the road project.
College scores
Minnesota prep
Softball: Byron Bears 3, Winona Winhawks 0
Softball: St. Charles Saints 9, Watertown-Mayer Royals 1
Softball: St. Charles Saints 8, Rochester Mayo Spartans 6
What a dump: Where Winona drug bust went down
Alley dwelling. After fire destroyed his house at 661 East Second Street, Justin Dionysius set up housekeeping in this fifth-wheel camper cramped in the the backyard on the alley. From here, police say, he was dealing drugs. Lot of them. Also seized on premises by police: $148,000 cash and an arsenal of handguns. Image: Steve Lunde
A peek at summer: Levee activity picking up
Floating classroom. Winona State University’s river craft Cal Fremling is out of winter storage and tied up at the Levee for class trips, alumni reunions, and sight-seeing. Cruising by is one of the season’s first pleasure boats. Bundled-up on a low-60s afternoon are a couple of anglers. Image: Steve Lunde
Sheriff’s patrol boat readied for summer dut
WINONA, Minn. – A sheriff’s crew towed their river patrol boat out of its winter storage shed for summer duty, mostly in the no-wake zone along the Winona Levee. The boat’s summer home: A slip at Dick’s Marina on Latsch Island. Sheriff Ron Ganrude said river patrols begin Memorial Day weekend.
May in Minnesota: Big Box garden centers sprouting
Mulch by the ton. Parking is a bit tighter at Fleet Farm these days. Again the store has cordoned off space for Winona Green Thumbers to shop al fresco. Image: Steve Lunde
Good, good news: Honesty at Whitewater
ELBA, Munn. – A hiker found a bank envelope containing $1,925 on a trail at Whitewater State Park. The hiker turned in the envelope at the ranger station. Later another hiker showed up and said he had lost the envelope and provided relevant identifying detail. This, dear reader, is the happy ending of this story.
Driver injuries minor when car overturns
DAKOTA, Minn. –A driver from northern Wisconsin survived a one-car rollover north of Dakota on U.S. Highway 61. Mario Isaac Lemagnes, 43, of Hawkins, was taken to the Winona hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The accident was about 5:45 a.m. Winona County deputies said Lemagnes was southbound toward LaCrosse in a 2009 Toyota Camry. Pavement was dry.
No wonder Winona school meals so good
WINONA, Minn. –The Winona Schools nutrition director, Jennifer Walters, has been named the state School Nutrition Association’s director of the year. Walters was cited for enhancing a farm-to-school program with local farmers. She even purchased cattle from a student’s family. She expanded a hydroponic farm in the school kitchen to harvest fresh lettuce on-site.
Walters. Honored for encouraging healthy eating habits and strengthening community connections.
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