Basketball (boys): Prescott Cardinals 59, LaCrosse Logan 47

Hockey (boys): Rochester Century/Rochester Marshall 7, River Falls Wildcats 2

Hockey (girls): Appleton Fox Valley Foxes 8,,Rochester Century/Rochester Marshall 0

DAKOTA, Minn. – A car struck a deer and broke out into flames on U.S. Highway 61 near Dakota. Except for the deer, there were no injuries, the State Patrol said.

WASHNGTON – President Biden signed bipartisan legislation to prevent a government shutdown; to provide $100 billion help localities recover from disasters, including wildfires in Maui and hurricane flooding in North Carolina; and $10 billion to aid farmers. President-elect Trump had fought the bill unless it were amened to raise the national debt to finance tax breaks for giant corporations and the moneyed class. The Sente and House overwhelmingly rejected the Trump plan, even though he threatened to kill the political careers of anyone who didn’t go along.

Earlier:  How they voted: On federal budget /2

Earlier: How they voted: On federal budget /1

Earlier: How they voted: On Trump tax cuts for rich

Gluhwein, hot chocolate and hot apple cider. How folks stayed warm at the outdoor Kristkindlmarkt in Sparta, besides bundling up to brave temperatures in the upper teens. Lots of home-crafted goods to make special gifts.  Images: Andy Frank

WINONA, Minn. – Police arrested a Winona man after responding to a call about domestic assault. Police found a woman at the address, in the 450 block of Sioux Street. She said she had been slapped twice in the face by her live-in boyfriend. Police saw swelling and redness and took Javari Naheem Phillip Walker, age 24, off to jail. The original 911 caller had hung up, but a police dispatcher traced the call to an address and with a mapping system sent officers to investigate. This was about 8:35 a.m. The woman did not want to go to the hospital, police said.

Walker. Charge of intentional domestic abuse.

VIROQUA, Wis. – If nothing else, it was an audacious burglary attempt – at least as police tell it. They say a man from Westby, seven miles away, rammed his car through the glass entry of a Viroqua smoke shop, backed away, and drove back to Westby. This was about 4 a.m. No one was in the shop, but surveillance showed the second-by-second impact as a Mini Cooper shattered into the glass door. The crash activated the shop’s alarm system immediately and brought police right away, but the driver was gone –albeit with at least one headlight askew. Clues were aplenty, police said. The video showed the car’s license. Too, not many Mini-Coopers are registered around mostly rural Vernon County. Arrested in Westby was Corey Simonson, age 49. He was booked for burglary and criminal damage to property.

Evidence aplenty. A video surveillance camera at Smoke World Vape, 830 North Main Street, showed the car second by second through the front door. Image: Vernon ckujty sheriff’

ALTURA, Minn. – An Altura man was arrested after brief police chase that ended when he turned into a backyard in Altura. Arrested and charged with drunken driving was Oscar Miguel Rivera Silva, age 25. The chase began when a deputy pulled up behind a parked ca with its four-way flashers activated on County Road 18 just south of Altura. The driver took off into town, weaving across pavement lines. In Altura, the deputy said, the driver went a couple blocks, then turned into a backyard and slammed a cement retaining wall. The driver took off on foot but was caught almost right away. At jail in Winona, 18 miles away, Rivera Silva’s blood-alcohol tested at 0.17% — double the state impairment threshold.

Rivera Silva. Among charges: Fleeing an officer.

ORONOCO, Minn. – A family realized too late that  their rural house was afire. Although they made it out  safely, the house had damage estimated at $100,000. The fire was out on White Bridge Road. Pine Island firefighters, the first to arrive about 12:35 a.m., found the family huddled outside and the first and second floors on fire with flames spreading to the attic. After extinguishing the fire, crews found debris in a fireplace chimney, which they blamed tentatively as the cause. Crews were at the site four hours. Many personal possessions of the homeowners were saved.

On Olmsted Countv Road 12. The fire was in outside walls and spread toward the roof, firefighters said. Image: Pine Island Gire Department

WINONA, Minn. – A woman who lives outside Lewiston called the sheriff’s office about a man who knocked on her door about 12:30 am. and asked for someone she didn’t know. He left. But the woman got his car’s license number. In Winona an hour later. about 1:40 a.m., police spotted the car and found David Jermaine Griffith, 49, of Winona. He admitted drinking and smelled like it, officers said.  His balance was unsteady in roadside sobriety tests. He was booked for driving under the influence. The knock-knock Lewiston incident had been County Road 25 southeast of town.

WASHINGTON –The U.S. Senate voted 85-11 to fund the federal government into March with roughly $100 billion in disaster relief as well as extending farm aid programs. The bill earlier passed the House despite opposition from President-elect Donald Trump. He had pressed super-aggressively to include a pathway to lower taxes for rich people and corporations per campaign promises. At his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida, sources said, Trump was sullen at the loss – as was  ElonMusk,”who’s come to be called  “the co-president.”  But House Speaker Mike Johnson at the Capitol had a different take. Johnson told reporters that Trump was happy with the bill. Musk took to the online platform X. which he owns, to put a smily face on the situation.

Here’s how Minnesota and Wisconsin senators voted:

For budget extension

Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin

Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota

Tina Smith, D-Minnesota

Against

Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin

Earlier: How they voted: On federal budget /1

Basketball (men): Joliet Junior 87, Rochester Community 81

Basketball (women):, Rochester Community 85, Joliet Junior 60

WINONA, Minn.– Adam Fravel has said good-bye to Winona perhaps forever. Two jailers and a deputy cheriff drove him180 miles to the state prison fortress in St. Cloud to begin his life sentence for murdering his ex-girlfriend Maddi Kingsbury. Fravel was taken in a Dodge Durango, the standard Winona County jail transport vehicle. Meanwhile as protocol with all first-degree murder convictions and sentences, the Minnesota Supreme Court is reviewing his case. It is rare that a case is overturned or remanded. At the St. Cloud prison, Fravel was photographed, instructed on house rules, and issued personal items. He had been jailed 561 days in Winona after his June 2023 arrest — except for three weeks when he was held in Mankato where his trial was conducted. Jailers in Winona said there were no significant issues during his local incarceration. The St. Cloud prison is used largely for prisoner intake into the state Corrections Department system. Most inmates eventually are reassigned in system’s 12 facilities.

St. Cloud prison. A Level 4 close-security institution. Built 1889. About 1,000 male inmates.

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WINONA, Minn. – Police arrested a Wisconsin woman wearing slippers that, according to Fleet Farm, had just been shoplifted from the store. The arrest was about 4:20 p.m. at a nearby gas station. In the woman’s car police spotted capped and uncapped syringes and then found 13 grans of meth in the front-seat console. Police had been called to the Fleet Farm megastore, at 920 U.S. Highway 61. Store detectives said two customers were stacking carts suspiciously full of merchandise, including slippers off a rack. The couple ditched the carts inside the store and left. Polic followed the car. The arrest followed. Lyndsy Marie Ward, 35, of Cross Plains, Wisconsin was charged with possessing drugs, shoplifting and giving police a false name.

Ward. She could hardly wait to slip into her new footwear.

DECORAH, Iowa – A Decorah man has denied stealing corn and soybeans worth tens of thousands of dollars from Winneshiek County farmers. Kurt Patrick Krauskopf, age 48, pleaded not guilty. A judge set trial for March. A criminal complaint accuses Krauskopf of tapping farmers’ grain bins and driving the crops to  elevators, and selling the as if  they were his own. The haul, according to the complaint, totaled 24-1/2 semi-loads of grain, netting $175,000. Krauskopf also is accused of chopping about $8,500 worth of corn for silage on roughly eight acres belonging to another farmer.

Earlier: Cops: Farmer stole semi-truck loads of crops

LACROSSE, Wis.— A new charge of meth and fentanyl peddling were filed against a French Island man who was already accused of reckless homicide in an overdose death. The new charge against Todd Pfaff:  Possession of drugs with intent to deliver. Pfaff, age 47, was already in jail on for $100,000 bail in the July death on La Crescent Street on French Island. Pfaff had been arrested two weeks ago at his French Island home. It was there that suburban Campbell police later found further evidence to support the new charge.

Pfaff. Original charge was first-degree homicide.

SPARTA, Wis.  – A teenager playing with a cigarette lighter in the fabric section at the Sparta Walmart and causing a $7.6 million damage is going to jail. Emma Smith, 18, was sentenced to 60 days plus eight years probation. Smith pleaded guilty to two arson-related charges. Two other charges were dismissed through plea-bargaining. About the jail term: Smth will be released to work a day job but must spend nights in a Monroe County jail cell. No, her day job isn’t at Walmart.

Earlier: Teen in $7 million Walmart fire free on bail

Earlier: Teen to cops: “No idea why I started Walmart fire”

Earlier: Walmart fire was started in fabric section

Earlier: Walmart arson blamed on teen-ager

Earlier: Fire at Sparta Walmart: Smoke damage at $7 million

Luckily an empty room. This corner hotel room was vacant when a semi-truck spun out of control into Quality Inn on Rose Street in north LaCrosse. Here crews are beginning repairs in the morning. The accident was about 1:20 a.m. The driver walked away uninjured.

Chilly garden sculpture. This studious barefoot lad, book in lap, is undeterred by 22 degrees and snow on an East Burns Valley patio deck. Will it melt before Christmas? Image: Andy Frank

GOODVIEW, Minn. – Police responded to a call about a gunshot at the Lake Village trailer court on West Sixth Street. The shot was fired inside a trailer house. There were no injuries. Police charged Troy Curtis Dubbels, age 40, with reckless discharge of a firearm.

Dubbels. Jailed overnight.