Slick road a factor in Chatfield car wreck
CHATFIELD, Minn. – A Chatfield driver suffered sustainable injuries when she lost control on snow and ice and crashed. Catharine Cowdery McCook, 33, was taken 23 miles to a Rochester hospital. The accident was about 4:40 p.m. on U.S. Highway 52 north of Chatfield.
Teen arrested in fatal Austin shooting
AUSTIN, Minn. – Within hours of a fatal shooting in northwest Austin, police arrested a 16-year-old boy. The youth’s name wasn’t released. Nor were details of the arrest. In the incident two men were shot. One died. The second man was hospitalized. Police Chief David McKitchan asked he state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to send agents to aid the investigation.
Five jailed in Red Wing man’s torture, death
CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. — Five people were arrested in western New York state in the death of Sam Nordquist of Red Wing, Minnesota. The case is murder, apparently connected to Nordquist as a vulnerable transgender man. Nordquist was 24. Charges with second-degree murder:
Precious Arzuaga, 38, of Geneva, N.Y. Misdemeanor convictions for petty larcenies, criminal trespass and a sale of an imitation control substance. Investigators said Arzuaga had been staying at Patty’s Lodge with Nordquist and others, some of whom are being sought.
Patrick A. Goodwin, 30, of Rochester, N.Y., who lived at the motel. A registered sex offender from a 2015 case with a pre-teen minor.
Emily Motyka, 19, of Rochester, N.Y.
Jennifer A. Quijano, 30, of Geneva, N.Y.
Kyle Sage, 33 of Hopewell, N.Y.On parole for larceny and disseminating indecent material to a minor.
All were held without bail at the Ontario County jail. If convicted as charged, each could face from 15 years to life in prison. More arrests were possible, sources said. Authorities are guarded about releasing details. Captain Kelly Swift, a New York state investigator, said prosecutors aren’t ready to declare the death a hate crime. Swift said, however, that Nordquist had been subjected to months of “repeated acts of violence and torture” and “profound physical and psychological abuse.” Evidence suggests the death occurred at the motel and the body taken away to conceal the crime, sources said.
ICE agents pounce on Africa refugee in Austin
AUSTIN, Minn. – An Austin man was arrested in a trap set up by federal immigration agents outside the Mower County Courthouse. The man’s daughter, who asked not to be named in news stories for her own safety, said her father had been told to report to the courthouse for a routine probation check-up on Thursday morning. It was a ruse, she said. Federal agents from the Immigration Customs Enforcement agents sprang from vehicles as he walked to the courthouse and took him away. The daughter said her father — his first name, she said, was Mongong — was a refugee from the African nation of South Sudan. She said he was in the United Sates legally in a protected status because his life was in danger in South Sudan. ICE appears not to be recognizing the protected status, she said. The regional ICE operations center in St. Paul ignored news media queries about the Austin operation. In Austin: Mower County Sheriff Steve Sandvik said his officers were not involved. So too, said Police Chief David McKichan. By state law, ICE cannot use local jails to hold detainees. Where ICE agents took Mongong was not known. ICE functions under the new Trump regime without the transparency to which Americans are accustomed with local policing. Nationwide it’s believed ICE has made 2,500 arrests on the past two weeks without local accountability.
Earlier: ICE agents in Rochester: Poised for raids?
Earlier: Protesters at Peace Plaza against immigrant arrests
Earlier: Rochester police: Fed migrant raids may be imminent
Earlier: Ruling: No to Minnesota jails for ICE raid detainees
An ICE arrest. News reporters have been unable to find images of the ICE arrest in Austin, but it fits a pattern of ambush detentions around the country in recent weeks. This image is from Chicago.
Mower County Courthouse. Refugee immigrant arrested on sidewalk while walking into the building. Agents had no search warrant from a Mower County
Verbatim
To news media queries, ICE responds with a standard non-answer: “Due to operational tempo and the increased interest in our agency, we are not able to research and respond to rumors or specifics of routine daily operations for ICE.”
Truck aflame in southeast Rochester
Vehicle engulfed. When firefighters arrived, a pickup truck towing a trailer loaded motorcycle racing gear.was pretty much gone. The fire was extinguished quickly without injury. The trailer was saved. This was the 400 block of Fourth Street Southeast in the morning. Image: Rochester Fire Department
New Levee hotel profile in final form
All topped out. With the fifth-floor under-cladding in place, Winonans have a real-life sense of what the $39 million Levee hotel will look like. Question: Can the Fall 2025 target for occupancy be met. Image: Steve Lunde
ICE agents in Rochester: Poised for raids?
ROCHESTER, Minn. – Federal immigration agents who arrested two kitchen workers on the street Wednesday remain in town at a hotel, sources said. The sources declined to identify the hotel but said the ongoing presence of agents suggests other arrests may be in the offing. The U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency does not maintain a policing unit in Rochester. The agency’s practice for mass raids is to move agents secretly into a targeted area from multiple stations to conduct shock-and-awe strikes. There is concern among ICE critics that reinforcements may be in transit to Rochceste as base for mass raids in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa.
Earlier: Protesters at Peace Plaza against immigrant arrests
Earlier: Rochester police: Fed migrant raids may be imminent
Earlier: Ruling: No to Minnesota jails for ICE raid detainees
Nupa detainees: Where?
The Minnesota chapter of Chicago-based Communities Organizing Latin Power and Action has dispatched a team to Rochester to organize resistance to ICE arrests. of two employees at one of Rochester’s two Nupa restaurants. The status of the Nupa employees, meanwhile, remains secret. The usual ICE practice is to pack detainees into local county jails, but Minnesota law doesn’t allow that. It’s thought that the Nupa employees were shipped elsewhere for holding or perhaps were expedited to a prison camp that ICE has opened at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. It is believed that the two Nupa detainees, who were brothers, had been working atkeastfour years four years, perhaps longer, at the restaurant.
Minnesota prep
Basketball (girls): LaCrosse Aquinas Blugolds 59, Winona Cotter Ramblers 48
Hockey (boys): Winona Winhawks 4, Rochester Mayo Spartans 0
Wisconsin prep
Basketball (boys): Galesville Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau Red Hawks 93, Black River Falls Tigers 54
Basketball (girls): LaCrosse Aquinas Blugolds 59, Winona Cotter Ramblers 48
Basketball (girls): Independence Jndees 41, Cochrane-Fountain City Pirates 23
Basketball (girls): Whitehall Norse 55, Eau Claire Immanuel
Quintana’s Lewiston rape case: Where now?
WINONA, Minn. – The original Winona County investigation into sexual misconduct by Valentin Quintana was for rape, but the charge no longer is on the books. The charge was folded into the multiple-count federal case for whichQuintana was sentenced to 27 years in prison 1-1/2 weeks ago. This, explained a court authority, was a routine subsumption between jurisdictions. The single Winona County rape allegation was deemed less serious than federal charges of soliciting lewd selfies from teen-age girls under false pretenses and then threatening to show the world unless the girls paid up. For the sexploitation Quintana has been ordered by a federal judge to repay $1.7 million restitution– besides the 27 years.
Walz doesn’t deny interest in U.S. Senate
ST.PAUL, Minn. – Governor Tim Walz has sidestepped sudden speculation that he might run for the U.S. Senate in 2026. The MinnPost, however, quoted a Walz aide that the governor hasn’t ruled out the possibility. Walz has had strong statewide support in two campaigns for governor and won favorable national attention as Kamala Harris’ running mate for the U.S. vice presidency in 2024. Speculation about the U.S. Senate swirled quickly Thursday with the surprise announcement that Smith would not run again. The only announced candidate so far is Peggy Flanagan, who has been Walz’s lieutenant governor since 2019. Other names being bandied about for the Smith seat:
> Angie Craig, a Democrat, now in the U.S. House from MN-2.
> Keith Ellison, a Democrat, now the state attorney general.
> Tom Emmer, a Republican, now in the U.S. House from MN-6.
> Al Franken, a Democrat, former U.S. senator from Minnesota.
> Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, now in the U.S. House from MN-5.
> Dean Phillips, a Democrat, a former member of the U.S. House from MN-3.
> Steve Simon, a Democrat, now Minnesota’s secretary of state.
> Peter Stauber, a Republican, now in the U.S. House from MN-8.
Buggy driver injured in Utica pickup crash
UTICA, Minn. – A pickup truck rear-ended a horse-drawn buggy southwest of Utica, ejecting the buggy driver. Norman William Yoder, 36, of rural Utica, suffered a leg injury but declined an ambulance ride to be taken instead by a passerby to a hospital. The pickup driver, Carter Mark Hovlend, 20, of Chatfield, was unhurt. The horse also was unhurt. The accident was about 4:30 p.m. five miles from Utica near the odd-ball intersection of County Road 23, which is paved, and County Road 123. Yoder was gone to the hospital by the time Winona County deputies arrived. Hovlend told deputies the impact occurred as he was putting trash into a back seat container. He said he looked up, saw the buggy, and swerved to avoid a collision — but too late. He estimated his speed at 55 to 60 mph. Deputies said that impairment was not an issue. No charges were filed pending further investigation.
Red Wing man found dead in New York field
Finger Lakes motel. Missing Minnesota man was staying at Patty’s Lodge, a motel in western New York when he was savagely tortured, apparently for weeks, and killed.
Police: Remains show horrific torture for weeks
CANANDAIGUA, N,Y. — The remains of a transgender man from Minnesota, Sam Nordquist, 24, were found in a field in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Nordquist, originally from Red Wing, had been subjected to “repeated acts of violence and torture,” apparently over three months starting in December, according to Captain Kelly Swift of the New York state Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Swift, a 20-year law enforcement veteran, called the murder “one of the most horrific crimes I have ever investigated.” Police began investigating Nordquist’s disappearance on February 9 after his family in Red Wing reported losing contact with him. Because it was believed he was staying at Patty’s Lodge, a motel in the touristy Finger Lakes wine region. At the request of Norquist’s mother in Minnesota, Police conducted a welfare check at the motel. Details of the welfare check and a subsequent search were not released. Police confirmed, however, that Nordquist traveled from Minnesota to the Finger Lakes in September. The remains were in a field 15 miles southeast of Patty’s Lodge.
Nordquist. From a family album
Patty’s Lodge profile
Patty’s Lodge is an aged and sprawling roadside motel where Nordquist was last seen alive. Although facing Highways 5 and 20, the motel is easy for passersby not to notice much. The motel is near touristy Canandaigua, population, 10,000. The motel’s 22 rooms are rented out mostly to people on government housing stipends. The manager, Manny Patel, said that Nordquist stayed in Room 22. Neighbors said he was with someone going by the name Precious Arzuaga.
Lieutenant Governor Flanagan goes for U.S. Senate
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan announced she will run for the U.S. Senate to succeed Tina Smith, who has chosen not to seek re-election in 2026. Like Smith, Flanagan is a Democrat. Her announcement came moments after Smith announced her decision to bow out of public life at the end of her term. As lieutenant governor, Flanagan helped establish the country’s first government agency for missing and murdered indigenous people. She also has worked to make childcare and housing affordable. She is vocally prominent for abortion rights. Flanagan began pubic service in 2004 on the Minneapolis School Board. She worked for the progressive group Wellstone Action, where she trained organizers, elected officials and candidates. Among her trainees was Tim Walz, now governor and under whom she is governor. Back then Walz was a high school teacher aspiring to Congress. Ater her School Board experience Flanagan was elected twice to the state House of Representatives.
Flanagan. Number 2 Minnesota state executive since 2020.
Protesters at Peace Plaza against immigrant arrests
ROCHESTER, Minn. – A couple dozen placard-hoisting marchers gathered to protest federal immigration agents for the ambush arrest of two kitchen workers on their way to work at a Rochester restaurant. The demonstration was at Peace Plaza downtown in the bitterly cold morning. Said protester Ryan Perez: “We’re here to say ICE is not welcome here.” He said the arrests, part of Trump-ordered raids nationwide on brown-skin immigrants, was ripping hard-working people from their workplaces, their families and their friends. Meanwhile, the two restaurant workers have disappeared into an ICE custody abyss without any charges in any court and not even their names being released.
In bitter cold outside Kahler Hotel. The protest was organized by Communities Organizing Latin Power and Action. COPAL is a member-based organization established in 2018 to improve the quality of life of Hispanic families.
Hit-run driver arrested in Mazeppa
ZUMBROTA, Minn. — Zumbrota Police confirmed they know who crashed a car into a Zumbrota home and fled the scene. Charges were being drafted against the 25-year-old man from rural Mazeppa, police said. He was in custody and had signed a cknfession, police said.
Melrose man’s murder trial set for 2026
WHITEHALL, Wis. – The judicial calendar has been laid out for a Melrose man accused of murder in a gruesome roadside shooting in May 2024. Trial for Todd Erick Gieck was scheduled for five days in April 2026. Judge Thomas Clark also set a pre-trial conference for February 2026. Meanwhile, Gieck, age 62, is in the Trempealeau County jail in lieu of $1.5 million bail.
Earlier: Judge recuses from Ettrick murder case
Earlier: Charges filed in Ettrick drive-by fatality
Earlier Murder charges prepared against Melrose man
Earlier: Official: Name released in Ettrick highway murder
Earlier: Cops jail suspect in drive-by Ettrick fatality
U.S. Senator Smith not seeking re-election
WASHINGTON – Minnesota’s two-term U.S. Senator Tina Smith plans to leave public life and not seek re-election in 2026. She called her decision “entirely personal.” Smith, age 66, said she wants to spend the future back in Minnesota with family. Smith a Democrat, emphasized that politics was not a factor. Smith said her focus in the coming two years will focus on policy and not the politics of re-election. Addressing Minnesotans in her announcement, she said: “I plan to use every single day working as hard as I can to represent your interest in the United States Senate and make sure that your voices are heard.” In the 3-1/2 minute message she mentioned her four grandchildren and an aging parent with whom she wants to spend more time.
Electoral record
In her early work in public service Smith was a staunch advocate for women’s health and reproductive rights. She served as an executive for Planned Parenthood. Her start in politics was managing campaigns. Eventually she became chief of staff for Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, then chief of staff for Governor Mark Dayton. In 2014 she was elected as Dayton’s lieutenant governor. When Senator Al Franken’s resigned from the Senate in 2017, Dayton appointed Smith to fill the vacancy. In the 2018 general election, she defeated Karin Housley, a Republican, to finish out Franken’s term. In 2020, she defeated Republican talk-show host Jason Lewis 49% to 46%. For the 2026 campaign Smith already has amassed a $3.1 million war chest. In 2020 she spent $16.1 million and in 2018 $8.7 million
Congressional record
She has been a leader for racial justice, women’s reproductive rights, and clean energy. She championed establishment of Juneteenth as a national holiday, the return of 11,000 acres of land to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, and a path to citizenship for Minnesota’s Liberian community. Her current Senate committees:
> Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.
> Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
> Healthcare, Labor and Pensions.
Smith. Born in New Mexico. A college degree from Stanford University and graduate work in business at Dartmouth. Worked her way through college on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, where she was a labor union member.
Fresh charges in New Lisbon triple homicide
MAUSTON Wis. – A New Lisbon man accused of murdering his girlfriend and two teen-age girls is, so to speak, having the book thrown at him — as if that were meaningful considering that he already faces three homicide charges. The new charges against 47-year-old Virgil Thew:
> Hiding a corpse.
> Possessing of a firearm as a felon.
Thew was toldformally of the charges in a preliminary hearing in Juneau County Court. After the court appearance was taken back to jail in shackles. He’s held in lieu of $5 million bail. His next court date was set for May.
Earlier: New Lisbon murder suspect captured
Earlier: Triple murder update: Suspect’s car found
Earlier: New Lisbon murder suspect thought long gone
Earlier: First-degree murder charges filed in three deaths
Earlier: Cops: All victims of New Lisbon slayings female
Earlier: New Lisbon triple homicide timeline taking form
Senate opponents derail sports gambling
ST.PAUL, Minn. – Sports gambling has hit a road block in a state Senate committee. The State and Local Government Committee voted to table a bill proposed by Matt Klein, D-Mendota Heights. The bill purported to address objections that doomed sports gambling proposals in previous years. He committee’s lack of enthusiasm also boded ill for a separata sports betting bill proposed Jeremy Miller R-Winona. Klein said his bill, SF-757, had backing from Minnesta’s 11 sovereign tribal nations, Canterbury Park, the Allied Charities, and the Minnesota professional sports teams. Among objections:
> Senator Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, worried that gambling can lead to addiction. “Idon’t think we should be doing bills that create problems with the hope that government is going to come around and fix them, because, as we know, it doesn’t.”
> John Marty, D-Roseville: “If we’re going to legalize, if we’re going to expand this, I think we have to do everything in our power to prevent real safeguards, and not just ones that the industry finds they can live with.”
> Erin Quade, D-Apple Valley: “We have a lot of work to do before I think this could earn anywhere near positive remarks
Drugs-by-mail package not cocaine but meth
ROCHESTER, Minn. – Tipped that a man would be picking up a large package of cocaine at a postal station, police watched from a distance and then followed the man’s car as he drove off. A few blocks away came the stop. The package was in the backseat, police said. Arrested was Rodolfo Resendiz Garcia, age 24. The package turned out, police said, not to contain cocaine but 2.3 pounds of meth. Garcia was booked for drug possession and sale. Police said the package had a return address in Littlerock California, in the almond-growing Antelope Valley northeast of Los Angeles.
Bluebirds sample winter feeder, warm bath
WINONA, Minn. – To every birdwatchers’ delight, a few hungry bluebirds have emerged in recent days from winter nests in old woodpecker holes for whatever snacks they can find. These include dried berries on sumac and also dried mealworms in bird feeders. In the last 40 years, eastern bluebird populations have made an astonishing comeback from a massive decline, largely with help from people putting up bluebird nesting boxes at the edge of open fields. While their numbers have rebounded, they still are not a common winter sighting.
Warm water treat. A flock of a half dozen bluebird have been congregating at this heated winter birdbath up East Burns Valley. Image: Andy Frank
Car goes wayward, hits Third Street house
WINONA, Minn. – A driver lost control, crashed into a residential yard, and unmoored a strut on the front porch of the house. No one was injured. This was about 8:55 a.m. in the 650 block of East Third Street. Police said the driver, age 22, was not charged pending further investigation.
WSU slashes asking price to unload Lourdes Hall
Sale now up to Texas firm. A national realty company, CBRE, a division of Coldwell Banker, now has the contract to sell the former Winona State University dorm. CBRE’s listing heralds 452 “residential units, office space, classrooms, apartments, recreation spaces, and food service facilities. There also is a non-operable 1927-vintage swimming pool.
You can have it all for a reported $750,000
DALLAS, Texas – A Texas commercial realty company, CBRE, has advertised Winona State University’s former Lourdes Hall for sale. The company didn’t list the asking price, but sources said it was only one-quarter of the $3 million that university first asked but found no takers. Winona State acquired Lourdes Hall and two other buildings from Catholic sisters who operated the College of St. Teresa before they shut down in 1989. Winona State then operated Lourdes as an auxiliary overflow dorm but, 1-1/2 miles from the main campus, it never caught. The university shuttered the Lourdes operation in 2021 due to declining enrollment, budget shortfalls, high upkeep costs, and the failure of its so-called “Residential College” concept. By law the university first had to offer the facility to municipal and other governmental entities. That failing, the university looked more broadly for a buyer. Pitches included multi-family residential, senior housing, and recreational possibilities. There were nibbles but no offers.
Earlier: How low will WSU go to unload Lourdes
Earlier: Lourdes: WSU’s dorm that nobody wants
Earlier: WSU has offers for once-touted West Campus
Earlier: $5 million deal: Cotter buys two WSU dorms
Earlier: Want to buy a campus? WSU taking offers
ICE agents arrive: Restaurant workers nabbed
ROCHESTER, Minn. – Federal immigration agents gabbed two men off a parking lot at a Rochester restaurant, presumably as undocumented workers, and took them who knows where. Because ICE agents function largely outside the traditional judicial system, the men’s names we not available to news reporters through usual channels. Nor were the charges known. State law forbids ICE from holding its detainees in local jails. In the current wave of mass immigration raids authorized by President Trump, most detainees have been shipped immediately without any judicial review to the off-shore prison that was opened in 2022 at the Guantanamo naval station in Cuba for international terrorists. Uncertain was whether the Rochester arrests marked the first of a broader Minnesota initiative. Data the Migration Policy Institute in 2019 calculated that 81,000 undocumented individuals were in the state, 35,000 from Mexico. ICE had kept is plans for a Rochester operation secret from local police until the last minute. The agency has a record of distrust of local policing agencies, which often are unsympathetic to ICE intrusions into local issues as well as a reputation for operating roughshod on traditional American safeguards to assure civil liberties and protect citizen rigs. Here’s what is known from several sources about the Nupa arrests:
> ICE agents arrested two brothers about 11 a.m. in a parking lot at the Nupa restaurant near downtown.
> Nupa, which specialties in Greek and Mediterranean cuisine, shut down indefinitely after the arrest because of sudden staffing issues.
> A second Nipa location, at 412 Crossroads Drive, also shut down too but was expected to re-open Thursday.
> Nupa doesn’t have a hiring apparatus in place because of there has no need to do any hiring in four years.
> The detained brothers had shown what appeared to be appropriate documentation when they were hired.
> Unclear was whether ICE agents sked the brothers for work visas or other documents when arrested. ICE has an n even record in making arrests, following a pattern of “nab now, ask later.”
> Unknown was how ICE was tipped about the Nupa employees.
Earlier: Rochester police: Fed migrant raids may be imminent
North side. On Civic Center Drive.
South side. On Crossroads Drive.
Verbatim
George Psomas , owner of the Nupas, told a KIMT news reporter, that he needed to keep his emotional racti himself. He did, however, quote the Greek philosopher Aristotle from 2,400 years ago: “At his best, man is the noblest of all animals. Separated from law and justice, he is the worst.”
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