College scores
Hockey (women): Saint Mary’s and Lawrence, postponed
Minnesota prep
Hockey (boys): Winona Winhawks 4, St. Paul Academy Spartans 0
Hockey (girls): Rochester Mayo Spartans 4, Winona Winhawks 3
Wisconsin prep
Basketball (boys): Arcadia Raiders 67, Cochrane-Fountain City Pirates 51
Basketball (boys): Eleva-Strum Cardinals 62, Independence Indees 43
Basketball (boys): Galesville-Ettrick-Trempealeau Red Hawks 83, Holmen Vikings 62
Basketball (girls): Melrose-Mindoro Mustangs 55, Eau Claire Immanuel Lancers 30
Basketball (girls): Arcadia Raiders 48, Eleva-Strum Cardinals 44
Houston County: Transition to new flag too costly
CALEDONIA Minn. – The Houston County Board unanimously opposed the recently redesigned Minnesota state flag and seal. Sheriff Brian Swedburg had estimated it would cost $32,000 for new shirts, coats, hats, badges, vehicle decals and business cards.
Earlier: Winona paddle sports state’s new symbol
Earlier: New flag for Minnesota? Legislators to decide
Winona DFL chair: Pelowski decision unexpected
WINONA, Minn. – The Democratic Party chair for Winona County, Jim Worthley, was surprised that veteranDFL legislator Gene Pelowski, has decided not to seek a 20th term. “I think his decision came quickly,” he said. Worthley declined to speculateon who might carry Winona’s DFL banner into the November election. “I do know that we have excellent, qualified Democrats who could do well representing 26-A,” he said. “We’ll just need to wait a bit to learn how things will shake out.” The filing period for candidacy opens May 21. Worthley said he has no intention of runnning himself.
Earlier: Pelowski on why not running: Seems to be: “It’s time”
Pregnant woman survives rollover into creek
INDEPENDENCE, Wis. – A woman seven pregnant was trapped in her overtured car, which landed in a creek wasand filling with water. First-responders managed to open a rear door and extract the woman, She was taken nine miles the Whitehall hospital, where she was reported in good condition. Trempealeau County Sheriff Brett Semingson declined to release the woman’s name. The accident was about 2:30 p.m. west of Independence on County Road X along Traverse Valley Creek. The car went down a steep embankment and landed on its roof in the creek. The woman was alone in the car except for a pet cat. The at was rescued too.
Mangled sedan. A tow truck leaves Traverse Valley after a crew used a winch to pull the car from the creek.
Police capture man holed up in house after stabbing
ALBERT LEA, Minn. – After a three-hour stand-off at an Albert Lea house, police barged in and arrested a man who had refused to come out on his own. Arrested was Efren Estrada, 34. Meanwhile, the Hawthorne Elementary School, a block away, was on lockdown. The incident began with a 911 call about 10:30 a.m. The caller said his brother had been stabbed by an uncle at the house, in the 1000 block of Garfield Avenue. Police found the victim outside. He was taken to the Albert Lea hospital, his wounds described as non-life threatening. Police couldn’t get a response from inside the house so established a perimeter and called in a regional backup tea. Although there still was silence from the house, officers tracked someone wearing a court-ordered ankle bracelet moving around inside. About 1:30 p.m., still having heard nothing, officers broke into the front door. Estrada was arrested without resistance He had no firearm, police said. Estrada was taken to the Freeborn County jail.
Estrada. Booking charge: Felony degree assault.
Body of missing woman recovered at dam
BLACK RIVER FALLS, Wis. – The body of a woman missing since Thanksgiving was found washed against the Black River dam. There had been an exhaustive search for Stacy Lyn Shramek, 53, after her kayak was found on a river bank near her home. A worker at the dam, operated by Black River Falls Municipal Utilities, discovered the body.
$100,000 bail for flare attack on cop car
LACROSSE, Wis. – A man accused of lobbing a flare.at a moving police car over the weekend was ordered held on $100,000 bail. The prosecutor had asked for the unusually high bail. Judge Mark Huesmann concurred. Shawn Keller, 30, of LaCrosse, is believed responsible for several attacks on police cars over the past six months. In one incident the projectile was a hefty chunk of ice.
Gorgeous from inside: Not so on the roads
Three inches so. In most of Winona County, including this rural window near Lewiston. More fell to the south. Northern Iowa had as much as seven inches. The afternoon forecast: North winds as much as 40 miles an hour with blowing and drifting. Temperatures in the low 30s with wind chills in the teens. Image: Steve Lunde
Earlier: Most schools close because of storm
Too young to know marijuana odor carries?
WINONA, Minn. – A 17-year-old student was caught puffing marijuana in a boys bathroom at Winona High School. Police were called about 11:15 a.m. They issued a citation for underage possession. The youth had been caught by a staff member.
Most schools close because of storm
WINONA, Minn. – School superintendents shut down operations after the first major storm of winter rendered highways and back roads perilous for buses. Closing for the whole day in southeast Minnesota, except in a few cases for daycare and activities, were:
> Caledonia.
> Chatfield.
> Dover-Eyota.
> Harmony Fillmore Central.
> Forest City.
> Hokah St. Peter.
> Houston.
> LaCrescent-Hokah.
> Lanesboro.
b Lewiston-Altura.
> Mabel-Canton.
> Nodine St. John’s.
> Rushford-Peterson.
> Spring Grove.
> Spring Grove Kingsland.
> St. Charles.
> St. Charles SEMCAC.
> Wyoff St. John’s.
Opening late
> Ridgeway.
> Riverway.
> Rollingstone.
> Winona.
> Winona Cotter.
> Winona Hiawatha Valley.
> Winona Hope Lutheran.
> Winona St. Martin’s.
In Wisconsin
> Onalaska Lutheran.
Earlier: Snow on the ground at dawn
Snow on the ground at dawn
WINONA, Minn. – Depths after first major snow of the season:
Minneapolis: Less than 1 inch
Preston: 2 to 4 inches
Red Wing: 1 to 2
Rochester: 2 to 3
LaCrosse 3 to 6
Winona: 3 to 5
Northern Iowa: 2 to 7
Charge: Knife raised in domestic attack
WINONA, Minn. – A Winona woman told police she feared for her life during a domestic dispute when another woman gabbed her arm, then a kitchen knife and raised the knife threateningly over her head. In that moment, she told police, she got away and called 911. Police arrested Kristalynn Tiffany Aarnio, 43. She was booked on a variety of assault charges. The incident was in an upstairs apartment the 250 block of East Third Street about 11 p.m. Officers reported finding a knife on the kitchen floor. The other woman had red bruising on an arm, officers said.
Aarnio. Booked for assault with a dangerous weapon, terrorism, and threatening violence.
Minnesota prep
Basketball (boys): Byron Bears 64, Winona Winhawks 46
Basketball (girls): Byron Bears 61, Winona Winhawks 47
Basketball (boys): Wells United South Central Rebels 59, St. Charles Saints 56
Wisconsin prep
Basketball (boys): Onalaska Luther Knights 82, Cochrane-Fountain City Pirates 67
Basketball (boys): Chippewa Falls McDonell Macks 65, Whitehall Norse 45
Basketball (boys): Neillsville Warriors 71, Independence Indees 33
Basketball (girls): Cadott Hornets 58, Whitehall Norse 46
Basketball (girls): Arcadia Raiders 59, Black River Falls Tigers 34
Basketball (girls): Holmen Vikings 59, Eau Claire North Huskies 51
Plows laying pre-snow brine, sand on roads
WINONA, Minn. – Snow plow crews were placed on alert for a storm starting Monday in the state Transportation Department’s 11-county southeast Minnesota district. One-hundred plows were sent out in the afternoon on pre-emptive missions to spray a brine treatment and a rock-salt mixture before the first snow.
Watchdog group displeased with finding on archbishop
ST. PAUL, Minn. – An organization that pressed sexual misconduct charges against a former archbishop, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (“SNAP,” for short), faulted a Vatican investigation that more or less excused the former archbishop. The investigation left more questions than answers, SNAP said. The group called restrictions placed earlier on John Nienstedt — including exile from the St. Paul Archdiocese — as evidence that the church is reluctant to adequately address misconduct allegations. These restrictions had been imposed years earlier as interim measures. SNAP had accused Nienstedt of misconduct in new Ulm and also of inattentiveness to moral lapses among priests inclined to pedophilia.
Verbatim
SNAP: “Ignoring Nienstedt’s behavior only serves to condone it and encourages a culture of corruption within the church, where clergy and staff members may turn a blind eye, knowing that the consequences will be minimal if they are caught.”
Finally, for better or worse, big snow on way
WINONA, Minn. – Winter is on our doorstep as a storm spawned by warm and moist air from the Gulf of Mexico moves north into the Great Lakes region. On Monday snow was already blanketing Iowa, posing questions about the impact in the state’s Republican caucuses next week. The storm was expected to strengthen rapidly overnight and to deliver snow and potential blizzards in southern Minnesota and adjacent Wisconsin. The National Weather pegged the chance of one to three inches of snow at 90%. Predicted Tuesday were new winds, 10 to 20 mph, which could create travel problems in open spaces.
Menards gigged for denying pay to lactating workers
ST.PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Department of Labor ordered the giant retailer Menards to provide lactating women with paid break time to secrete milk. The Menards store in the St. Paul suburb of Fridley had docked female employees their pay for time spent collecting their milk. Nicole Blissenbach, state labor commissioner, said the agency intends to enforce a Minnesota law protecting workers’ rights to express milk at work without having their compensation reduced. The law, Blissenbach said, is consistent with state law supporting women in the workforce.
Judge: A law needed on Racine voting van
RACINE, Wis. – A Racine County judge ruled that mobile voting isn’t allowed by state law. A van was used in 2022 Racine municipal elections. The state elections commission had dismissed an objection to the voting van, but Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz now has overturned the dismissal. The judge noted that state law is silent on mobile voting. It’s up to the Legislature to decide the issue, the judge said. The van was the first ever put on the streets in Wisconsin. It was funded partly by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Republicans derided the project as “Zuckerbucks.”
Out and about. Backers saw mobile voting as a way to encourage citizen participation. Republicans saw it as a scheme to tilt elections against them.
Police car targeted, hit with flare; arrest made
LACROSSE, Wis. – A men seemingly with a fetish for heaving projectiles at police cars was arrested. This time, police said, he threw a flare that exploded against a squad car on patrol Saturday afternoon. Then he sped off. The officers inside were unhurt. Officers got the man’s auto plate number and on Monday arrested Shawn Keller, 30, of LaCrosse. Since July there have been three similar attacks. In the latest incident, a window and door on the police car were damaged.
Keller. Charge: Discharging projectile at police car.
Minnesota case against Big Oil nearer to trial
WASHIGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the State of Minnesota in its protracted legal battle with Big Oil, which the state says lied knowingly about the industry’s role in climate change. The Court ruled against the American Petroleum Institute, which had wanted the case moved out of state courts. The Institute felt federal courts would be gentler on the industry. The suit began in 2020 when Minnesota’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, formally accused the American Petroleum Institute, ExxonMobil and Koch Industries of a decades-long campaign to deceive the public about climate change. The state wanted the companies to pay for the effects of the climate crisis on Minnesotans. The case was brought under Minnesota’s consumer protection law. The charge specifically was that the fossil-fuel industry was fully aware of the dangers of burning coal, oil and gas — and ignored the warnings and covered them up. The new Supreme Court ruling puts the state an important step closer to putting the fossil fuel industry on trial.
Court ruling
The U.S. Supreme ruling was unsigned and carried no discussion, commentary or rationale. Court observers believed that Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with Big Oil. It was Kavanaugh who recommended to the Court to consider the industry’s case. It requires four of the nine justices to agree to hear a case.
Volunteer Services sets move-in timeline
Interior detailing. From the outside the new $4.8 million home for Volunteer Services looks almost ready go. And it almost is. The plan is to have the staff relocated in April. Image: Steve Lunde
Coralling now-scattered services under one roof
WINONA, Minn. – All the drywall and interior infrastructure will be ready for the Winona Volunteer Services staff to be in place in their new consolidated facility on East Second Street in April, said Sandra Burke, executive director. Full operations, including the clothing shop and food shelf, should be open in the new 22,000-square foot facility by June, she said, Burke said that the volunteer tax assistance office, now operated elsewhere by Catholic Charities, also will be under the same roof, albeit, she said, not in time for the current tax season.
Burke. Agency’s executive director.
Arson a possibility at plastics factory
CLARKS GROVE, Minn. – The cause of a major industrial fire north of Albert Lea over the weekend has not been established, but authorities have not ruled out arson as a possibility. A car was witnessed speeding away from a building at the Green Group Processing plant around 3:30 a.m., Sunday, said Sheriff’s Sergeant Tim Bennett. Then, just before 4 a.m. a neighbor reported loud bangs and seeing flames in the distance. Thr factory was a three-building complex that recycled old plastics into pellets for sale to manufacturers to craft into new products. The plant ran two shifts most days of he week. The company headquarters are in nearby Albert Lea.
Plastics recycling plant. A satellite view. A major employer near Clarks Grove. Jobs $18 to $20 an hour.
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