Baseball: LaCrossse Central RiverHawks 4, Holmen Vikings 2

Softball: Tomah Tinberwolves 8, LaCrossse Central RiverHawks 0

LEWISTON, Minn. – A deputy stopped a car on Rolling Hills Road where a man and woman were engaged in a heated argument. The man, Dominic Joseph Stanley, 26, of Winona, appeared high on marijuana, the deputy said. An arrest was made on suspicion of driving while impaired. The deputy said Stanley’s eyes, speech and balance suggested impairment. Also, said the deputy, he smelled of marijuana. This was about 10:25 p.m. off U.S. Highway 14 at the crest of the Lewiston grade east of town. The woman was not arrested.

WINONA, Minn.– The police officer making a traffic stop over the Highway 43 bridge to Latsch Island said he could smell freshly lit marijuana wafting from the driver’s open window. Gabriel John Penic, 20, of Winona, was taken in on suspicion of driving high. This was about 7:55 p.m. The officer said Penc’s eyes were blood-shot, his speech slurred, and his gait unsteady. At the jail a urine sample was taken, but because the county doesn’t have equipment to test for drugs, the sample was sent to the state crime lab. The result, when returned, will determine whether a charge is warranted.

Penic. Marijuana impaiment suspected.

ST. CHARLES, Minn. – The Winona County deputy’s radar showed the biker at 100 mph on Interstate 90 approaching the exit into St. Charles. The biker turned south onto two-lane State Highway 74 toward Fillmore County. By the time the deputy turned around and gave chase, the biker was back upwards of 100 mph and a half-mile ahead. This was dangerous stuff. The deputy backed off. He radioed Fillmore County deputies on what was headed their way. He never heard back. Not a score we like to report: Bad Guy 1, Cops 0.

MADISON, Wis.  – The University of Wisconsin’s chancellor, Jennifer Mnookin, has bought time to ease campus tensions over the university’s connections with Israel’s war on Palestinian Gaza. Mnookin announced that negotiations with Students for Justice in Palestine have concluded with protesters agreeing to take down a tent encampment on campus and not disrupt graduation ceremonies. In exchange, Mnookin promised to arrange a meeting between student protest leaders and the university’s corporately separate arm, which controls the endowment investments. Investments that support Israeli aggression have been a protest target. Mnookin noted, however, that the university doesn’t have “direct control” over how the endowment is invested. In other negotiated points, the university agreed to:

> Review projects, opportunities, study abroad programs and internships that engage with people and places impacted by war.

> Consult with Palestinian members of the campus community.

> Invite at least one scholar from a Palestinian university each of the next three years.

> Hire a staff member to support students affected by war, violence and displacement.

Verbatim

Mnookin: “This has been a difficult period for our campus, our nation and the world. We want to be clear that UW-Madison supports peaceful student protest, fully respects the First Amendment, and has done so throughout this year. We appreciate that the encampment, named by SJP the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, although in violation of Chapter 18, was motivated by understandably passionate feelings about the devastation in Gaza, and was a source of community for many participants.”

Mnookin. Madison campus chancellor since 2022. A legal scholar. Earlier at UCLA law school.

Earlier: Amid Gaza crises elsewhere, local colleges copasetic

Earlier: Gaza tensions ease at UM; tents coming down

Earlier: UM cops break up “tent city” Gaza protest

Earlier: Truce after riot police tear out UW-Madison protest

WHITEHALL, Wis. – A judge ordered a rural Galesville woman to shut down the daycare center she operated out of her house. A child had been burned in April, apparently scalded, while in the care of Maegan Elizabeth Valley, 33. Her facility was unlicensed. Valley has been allowed by Trempealeau County Judge Rian Radtke to keep her biological children in the house. Meanwhile, she was freed on $2,500 bail. Valley faces these charges:

> Child neglect: 15 years and $50,000 fine possible.

> Harmful negligence: 12-1/2 years and  $25,000 fine possible.

Earlier: Toddler badly burned at off-the-books daycare

STOCKTON, Minn. – A Houston truck driver was airlifted 34 miles to a LaCrosse hospital after his Peterbilt and a semi-trailer went of control on the west-bound lane heading down Stockton Hill. Jordan Patrick Kleist, 23, was trapped in the cab. First-responders had to cut him out. He was conscious throughout, Winona County deputies said. An ambulance took Kleist to the Stockton Hill summit where the med-evac helicopter landed. In LaCrosse, Kliest was reported in stable condition with non-life threatening injuries. The accident was about 9 a.m. Kleist’s truck and trailer were on their sides on the east lane on the steep edge off U.S. Highway 14. Although a busy road, no other vehicle was struck. NOTE: This corrects some details in an earlier account

Earlier: Tanker overturns near Stockton; driver hurt

WINONA, Minn. –  After performing $167 in beauty services, a Winona beautician reported being stiffed. She told police that a client said she had forgotten her wallet at home but would come right back to make good on the bill. Five days later, she said, the woman hadn’t come back. This had been at Ambitions Salon, 310 West Belleview just off Huff Street near Winona State University. Police tracked down Debra Ann Burke. 67, and issued a misdemeanor theft citation.

DECORAH, Iowa – The owner of the Ford dealership in Decorah was charged with planting a camera in a teen-age girl’s bedroom. Arrested was Kelly Jon Bachelder, 47. In June 2022, according to the criminal complaint, the girl and her boyfriend noticed blinking lights and found cameras in electrical outlets. When confronted, Bachelder said he had purchased the cameras to catch an employee who was stealing., the complaint alleged.

Bachelder. If guilty, could face five years in prison and $10,000 fine.

PRESTON, Minn. –Fillmore County Airport’s new $950,000 terminal can be a rest stop beacon for general aviation, manager Pam Schroeder said at a grand opening ceremony. With new services, including transportation into Preston four miles away, the airport is an alternative to other fields within 30 miles, Schroeder said. She called the terminal a revenue-generator. Travelers with kids can drive to town to keep them entertained bowling. In bad weather, there’s a hotel with a pool, she noted.

Preston airport. New terminal funded partly by the 2021 Biden national infrastructure bill.

WINONA, Minn. — The Winona Post reviewed hundreds of Winona County drunken-driving cases from 2023 to determine whether the county’s chief prosecutor, Karin Sonneman, goes lightly on local Big Shots. Reporter Gabriel Hathaway, who conducted the exhaustive study, found no evidence of favoritism. Hathaway’s investigative journalism was prompted by the arrest of City Council member George Borzyskowski in November. Sonneman dropped two DWI charges against Borzskowski. Then in February the city’s community development director, Lucy McMartin, was arrested for drunken driving. Sonneman dropped that charge too. Both Borzyskowski and McMartin tested for blood alcohol in the range of 0.08% to 0.09% — barely into the state-defined level of inebriation. Hathaway found 12 similar barely drunk cases, these all involving ordinary blokes and gals. Those charges were also dropped, which suggests an evenness – not favoritism – in Sonneman’s judgment calls. The only exceptions, Hathaway noted, had aggravating complications, like test refusal, property damage, or drug possession. Hathaway noted in footnote-like detail that two other somewhat similar cases were still in process with hearings and trials. In three other cases, Hathaway said, there were convictions on one DWI charge while a second DWI charge was dropped. Generally when a DWI charge was dropped, as with Borzyskowski ad McMartin, it was in exchange for a guilty plea to a lesser charge like reckless driving.

Earlier: Prosecutor goes easy on drunk City Councilman

Earlier: City Councilman Borzyskowski drunk at the wheel

STOCKON, Minn. – A trucker, age 27, was pinned inside his cab when the truck and semi-trailer rolled over on Stockton Hill. A med-evac helicopter was called from LaCrosse 34 miles away while first-responders cut the driver from the wreckage. The accident was about 9 a.m. The tanker reportedly was hauling liquid animal feed. Highway 14 between Stockton and Winna, a busy cmmuter route, was closed  two hours. Traffic was detoured on County Road 23 to  Minnesoita City.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A Minnesota State Patrol crackdown on distracted driving yielded 5,400 citations for hands-free cell phone calling. The crackdown, in April, involved 278 policing agencies statewide. The project director, Mike Hanson, expressed alarm that the citations totaled 2,000 more than a year earlier. A couple side notes: In St. Paul, Hanson noted, two drivers were cited twice the same day. Another driver was ticketed two times within three days.

Baseball: St. Olaf 11, Saint Mary’s 1

Baseball: UW-Stevens Point 3, UW-LaCrosse 0

Softball: UW-LaCrosse 5, UW-Stout 0

Softball: UW-Stevens Point 9, UW-LaCrosse 3

Baseball: Elk Mound Mounders 9, Mondovi Buffaloes 0

Baseball: Hlolk\men Vikings 5, LaCrosse Logan Rangers 4

Soccer (girls): LaCrosse Aquinas Blugolds 7, Sparta Spartans 0

Soccer (girls): Onalaska Hilltoppers 3, Holmen Vikings 0

STOCKTON, Minn. – Deputies said a Stockton man, Daniel Vincent Merchlewitz, 57, was too intoxicated to be mowing. He was charged with drunken driving. The deputy had been called to the 8200 block of Main Street about a man on a mower who had run over no-trespass signs into a neighbor’s yard. The deputy asked Merchlewitz to breathe into a blood-alcohol detection device. The reading: 0.11%. Anything north of 0.08% means it’s illegal to drive – even a lawn mower.

WINONA, Minn. –Two weeks after a Winona nan parked his vehicle behind a friend’s house, outside a back-alley garage, he came back and found $2,700 in cordless power tools and audio equipment missing. The theft was in the 100 block High Forest Street on the East End. Police received the theft report about 6:30 p.m. and began a neighborhood search for anyone with surveillance a camera.

SPENCER, Iowa — A former Minnesota man, now a high school coach in Spencer, turned hero for rescuing two boys stranded on the flooded Little Sioux River. Evan Scheck, who grew up in Houston,  heard the boys yelling for help after they were swept away by the current. The boys had been trying to ford their bikes across a flooded trail. Scheck got the boys safely out of the river. The Little Sioux flows out of southwest Minnesota into Iowa and the Missouri River.

ZUMBRO FALLS, Minn.  – Fire destroyed a rural house northeast of Zumbro Falls even before firefighters from Zumbro and Mazeppa could arrive. No one was home. The fire was out on Wabasha County Road 31. The fire was reported about 3 p.m.  The fire took three hours to extinguish. The cause was not determined immediately.

Gingerbread remnants. A water cannon cools what’s left. Victorian touches still show in porch trim. Image: Mazeppa Fire Department

COON VALLEY, Wis.  – Two drivers were injured when a van rear-ended a truck northwest of Coon Valley. Deputies described injuries to Sarah Leisso, 41, of Coon Valley, and  Samuel Hansen, 64, of Stoddard, as minor. The accident was about 12 noon U.S. Highway 14 and Brinkman Ridge Road. Deputies said Leisso was driving a van west on U.S. 14 and collided with the rear of Hansen’s truck. Hansen was stopped, waiting for eastbound traffic to clear to make a left turn onto Brinkman Ridge Road, deputies said. A child in Leisso’s vehicle had minor injuries that were treated on scene.

.

WHITEHALL, Wis.  – An Arcadia man reached a plea agreement to admit to lewd and lascivious behavior with two children if sexual assault charges would be dropped. Edgar Dominguez Valladares had denied the assault charges since he was arrested in 2022. The children were 8 and 7.  Originally Valladares was held for $2,000 bail.

Valladares. Conviction on original charge could have meant 80 years in prison.