AUGUSTA, Wis.  – A kayaker found the body of an Eau Claire man who disappeared while fishing in the Eau Claire River. The body was near Highway 27 and Black Bear Road, which is just downstream where Robert A. Hanson, 35, had been fishing with a friend who saw him go under in the fast current Saturday. The friend said that Hanson was crossing to the far bank. The body was recovered about 2:30 p.m.

Earlier: River search near Lake Eau Claire Park

WHITEHALL, Wis.  – Bail was set at $5 million for Todd Eric Gieck, who has been charged with chasing an Ettrick man down U. S Highway 53 and fatally shooting him unprovoked. Judge Thomas Clark set the unusually high bail. If Gieck posts bail, he would be barred from alcohol, nonprescription drugs, and firearms.

Earlier: New judge to try Gieck for murder 

Earlier: Judge recuses from Ettrick murder case

Earlier: Charges filed in Ettrick drive-by fatality

ROCHESTER, Minn. — An Iowa woman arrested Saturday at an Interstate 90  car crash near Eyota has been charged with transporting a corpse. The body was found in the wreckage of the car driven by Margot G. Lewis. At an arraignment hearing the bail for Lewis was set at $1 million. Found wrapped a bloody sheet in the car was the body of Liara Tsai of Minneapolis. Lewis, who suffered minor injuries in the crash, has been silent with authorities. This, it was thought, may be for religious reasons. Evidence suggests that Tsai died in her Minneapolis home, which police found splattered with blood. No charges have been filed is the apparent homicide.

Earlier: Autopsy: Body found dead in car died earlier

Lewis. Taciturn with investigators about what happened.

WINONA, Minn. – After filling up at the Kwik Trip on Cottonwood Drive, the driver turned too tight and his U-Haul  rental vehcle knocked over a gas pump. An automatic shut-of device did its job. There was no fire. This was about 10:30 a.m.

LEWISTON, Minn. – The U.S. Hihway14 overpass at Farmers Park continues to be a canvas for grafitti. A deputy found the latest spray-paint scribbling and notified the state Highway Department, which is respomsible for the overpass. Time for surveillance cameras?

Earlier: New grafitti at Farmers Park underpass

APPLE VALLEY, Minn. — – The Minnesota Zoo’s  29-year-old Burmese python Nikita has died. The 14-foot attraction  suffered ongoing health issues and was euthanized, the Zoo announced. . She was one of the oldest pythons in human care and had grown to nearly 150v pounds over her long life. The zoo’s announcement:  “She was a remarkable ambassador for her species, helping to build an understanding of the critical role of snakes in healthy ecosystems around the world. With her beauty and size, we are confident Nikita left a big — and lasting — impression on the millions of Zoo guests who visited her over her long life.”

Annual checkup. With zookeepers in 2016.

Python profile

Burmese pythons are native to Southeast Asia. They averages 16 feet but some grow to 29 feet. They can weigh as much as 400 pounds. Their importation has been banned in the Untied States since 2012, after becoming an invasive species in Florida. They are nocturnal.

Nikita’s life

Nikita arrived at the zoo in the 1990s. Her habitat was the nocturnal portion of the Tropics Trail — a warm  and high humidity space like southeast Asia. She received a nutritious diet of small mammals, which swallowed whole. She weighed 148 pounds. It took a team of fine zookeepers, sometimes seven, to lift her.

RUSHFORD, Minn. – The electricity co-op MiEnergy asked subscribers to ease their power usage through 6 p.m. Peak demand was expected, which could force the co-op to buy extra energy from its suppliers at premium rates. “Keep electricity rates stable and affordable by shifting electricity use to 6 p.m. or later today,” MiEnergy said. The co-op has 23,000 mostly rural members.

WINONA, Minn. – A man moving out after a romantic break-up told police he discovered $3,000 to $4,000 cash missing from a dresser drawer. He blamed the ex-girlfriend. She told police he was angry over the break-up and made it all up. Without evidence either way, police put the investigation on a back-burner. Officers had been called to the address, in the 100 block of Chatfield Street, about 1 p.m.

Fear: Worst to come. If thee Rapidan Dam itself collapses, a wall of water would rush downriver. A flash flood alert has been issued. Menwhile, water has washed out the embankment at the far end of the dam and cerated an uncntrollable new channel. The dam, 114 years old, is rated in poor condition on he National Inventory of Dams.

Dam itself messed up with flood debris

WINONA, Minn. – The dikes built in the 1960s and 1980s to protect Winona have been holding well against this spring’s high water, said Ben Klinger, the county emergency management director. The Mississippi has been at 13 feet – short of 15 where modest flooding can occur. The crest will come Tuesday at 15 feet, the National Weather Service predicts. Meanwhile, the city has foot patrols on all 15 miles of levee from Prairie Island in Minnesota City to the Winona South End. The patrols look for “boils,” caused when water seeps under the levee and weakens the barrier. An outright breach can mean a 1965-scale Doom’s Day. Short of that, the city has pumps to keep ahead of leaks, but that an be can be problematic. In 2007 a few neighborhoods mostly west of downtown took water.

Earlier: Levee break unleashes wall of water

Earlier: Rains send creeks flooding, Mississippi

Levee profile

The first part of the Winona dike system was in place before the devastating 1965 flood. What followed was a major civic engineering project that took several years to complete. The $22.5 million levee system was finished in1988. Its presence today mostly is taken for granted.  It’s the foundation for Riverview Drive from Huff Street to the fleeting harbor and north to Theurer Boulevard in Goodview, and also the causeway to Prairie Island and north to Minnesota City. The system’s most obvious presence is Levee Park downtown.

WHTEHALL, Wis. – A judge whose usual jurisdiction is Buffalo and Pepin counties will take over rhe Geick murder case at the Trempealeau County Courthouse in Whitehall. Judge Thomas W. Clark was assigned the case after Trempealeau’s judge, Rian Radtke, recused hsmelf to avoid questions about a possible conflict of interest. Gieck is accused in the drive-by death of a motorist near Ettrick in May.

Earlier: Judge recuses from Ettrick murder case

ROCHESTER, Minn. – An autopsy identified the body found in the back seat of a wrecked car near Eyota as Liara Tsai, 35, of Minneapolis. The fatal injuries had been inflicted prior to the crash, the expedited autopsy concluded. Being held is the driver of the vehicle, Margot G. Lewis, 32, of North Liberty, Iowa. Lewis was injured in he accident but not seriously. Police followed up in Minneapolis with a welfare check on Tsai’s home and found a violent scene. Friends told a KTTC reporter that Tsai had moved from Iowa City a few months earlier to be near a strong transgender community and to pursue her love for music. She was described as a phenomenal disc jockey who drew a crowd. Authorities are pursuing possible connections between Tsai and Lewis. Tsai had lived n Iowa City, Lewis eight miles away in North Liberty. Both are 4-1/2 hours from Minneapolis.

Earlier: Body found in bloody sheet in wrecked car

Tsai. New to Minneapolis from Iowa.

GRAND FORKS, N.D. – A retired North Dakota state senator, Ray Holmberg, R-Grand Forks, pleaded guilty to sex tourism, specifically for travel to the Czech Republic for teen sex. Holmberg, age 80, was the longest-serving member of the Legislature in consecutive terms. He left the Legislature in 2022 after 45 years and chairing the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. According to federal investigators he made repeated trips to Prague from 2011 to 2016, for commercial sex. In a plea deal, Holmberg has agreed to plead guilty to sex tourism if charges of receiving child pornography be dropped. As part of the deal, prosecutors said they would seek a sentence at the low end of sentencing guidelines. The guideline max is 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Senate colleagues noted that Holmberg traveled internationally on taxpayer-funded cultural exchange trips through the organization Golden Bridges and that destinations included Prague. Unclear was whether those trips coincided with anything sexually. illicit.

Holmberg. Ignominious epilogue to record 45 years in North Dakota Senate.

WEAVER, Minn. – The flood-prone road from U.S.  Highway 61 on the Mississippi from Weaver up the Whitewater River to Beaver junction and Elba has been closed. The river has overrun its channel through lowland  swamps and sloughs traversed by State Highway 74.

ELKHORN, Wis.– After game wardens found people harvesting cicada insects in Beach Foot State Park, the state Natural Resources Department issued a warning: Don’t. The agency said that cicada are a nutritious food source for birds, mammals and reptiles. Removing them is a violation of Wiscosin law. Cicadas, especially the meaty females, are valued in human nutrition in much of the world and parts of the United States.

Cicadas. One to two inches long with wide-spaced bulbus eyes. Creepy, some say. Major infestationa occur in17-year cycles in North America but are short-lived and inconsequential, except for annoying and deafening mating calls. This was a 17th year.

WINONA, Minn. – A Mankato motorcyclist lost control on a Stockton Hill curve and crashed. Jon Dorien Brown, 51, was taken back down the hill to the Winona hospital with non-life threatning injuries. The accident was about 4 p.m. Brown was climbing the bill westbound toward Rochester on a 2007 Honda about a mile short of the summit. Road conditions: Dry.

RUSHFORD, Minn. – An Iowa motorcyclist lost control on a curve up a coulee on State Highway 43 south of Rushford and crashed. Janine Anne Schrieber, 50, of Waverly, Iowa, was taken 58 miles to a Rochester hospital. Her injuries that appeared sustainable to Fillmore County deputies. The crash was about 2:20 p.m. at Bobcat Road. Schrieber was headed south toward Iowa. She was drivmg a 2009 Harley Davidson. She was helmeted, deputies said.

DOVER, Minn. – Two drivers were taken to a Rochester hospital after crashing near the Winona-Olmsted county line on U.S. Hghway14. Neither Margaret L Vevang-Dickie, 84, of Rochester, nor Adeline Rae Wolter, 17, of Dover, appeared seriously hurt, police said. Vevang-Dickie was in a 2019 Buick Encore headed west. Wolter, in a 2012 Subaru Impreza, was headed east. This was about 9:45 a.m. Both drivers were belted, police said;