ST.PAUL, Minn. – The State Capitol went into lockdown after an email bomb threat. The Minnesota State Patrol ‘s capitol security team launched an immediate search for any evidence ip a bomb. The team issued an “all clear” statement about 10:15 a.m. “As a precaution, Capitol Security will have an increased presence in the building for the remainder of the day,” the State Patrol said. The threat matched email messages against state capitols in several states. Capitols in Georgia, Michigan, Kentucky and Mississippi were briefly evacuated. All the threats were determined tiobe hoaxes. This is the timeline of what happened in St. Paul:

> 9 a.m.: Email received.

> 9:15 a.m.: Lockdown in place.

>10:15 a.m.: Security:  “No suspicious or threatening items were found.”

Architectural showcase of civic pride. Centerpiece:  The second-largest self-supported marble dome in the world. The exterior is marble. Decorative art, murals and paintings have been restored to their original 1905 patterns and colors. Free 45-minute guided tours available on the hour.

WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 35 emergency medical calls plus 16 fire calls in recent days:

> Tuesday, January 2: 9 medical calls plus 1 fire call

> Monday, January 1: 9 medical calls plus 1 fire call.

> Sunday, December 31: 2: medical calls plus no fire calls.

> Saturday, December 30: 6 medical calls plus1 fire calls.

> Friday, December 29: 6 medical calls plus 4 calls.

> Thursday, December 28: 1 medical call plus 4 fire calls.

> Wednesday, December 27: 2 medical calls plus 5 fire calls.

Earlier: Emergency, fire crews 47 calls

Basketball (men): Winona State 90, Crown 69

Basketball (boys): Wabasha-Kellogg Falcons 69, Faribault Bethlehem Cardinals 50

Basketball (boys): Byron Bears 71, Zumbrota-Mazeppa Cougars 56

Basketball (boys): Goodhue Wildcats 80, Harmony Fillmore Central Falcons 78

Basketball (boys): Rushford-Peterson Trojans 77, LeRoy-Ostrander Cardinals 32

Basketball (girls): Houston Hurricanes 68, Westby Norsemen 31

Basketball (girls): Byron Bears 74, Zumbrota-Mazeppa Cougars 40

Basketball (girls): Faribault Bethlehem Cardinals 72, Wabasha-Kellogg Falcons 21

Basketball (girls): Rushford-Peterson Trojans 77, LeRoy-Ostrander Cardinals 32

WINONA, Minn. – A woman went out to her SUV, which had been parked on the street three days. She opened the driver door. The tailgate window shattered, apparently from the slight jarring of the driver door being opened. In the frame of the shattered tailgate window frame was a bullet casing from a 9-millieter handgun. She called police. How the casing got there, obviously with considerable velocity, was a mystery. Soo too was where it came from. This was in the 650 block of East Lake Boulevard against the bluffs.

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WINONA, Minn. – A diamond ring valued at $6,200 was reported missing from a home on Sioux Street. The owner reported last seeing the ring in June. Only now, she said, did she realize it was missing. She told police that many guests have been in and out of the house. Sometimes the house, in the 500 block, has been left unlocked, she said. She had idea who may have have taken the ring.

A backwater statement. The latest hand-painted product form Sanborn Canoe of Winona gets a road test – err, a backwater test – off Latsch Island.  Sanborn’s chief executive Todd Randall, is the oarsman. The paddle, made of locally sourced hardwood, sells for $270. Image: Peter  Peter Boysen

Earlier: New flag for Minnesota? Legislators to decide

EAGLE LAKE, Minn. – A Eagle Lake man, Andrew David Douglas, 30, was arraigned for the shooting of his father, who was critically wounded, at the Country Manor trailer court. The charge: First-degree assault. The shooting was Monday at the home shared by the father, Jeffrey Douglas, 59, and his son. The shooting occurred about 4:20 p.m. The son was booked at the Mankato jail within two hours. Meanwhile, the father was in critical although stable condition overnight at a Mayo hospital in Rochester. A woman in the house was unhurt, police said.

Earlier: Gun victim, his arm wounded, airlifted from Mankato

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A backed-up supply of petroleum likely will keep prices at the recent lower levels at least another month, maybe longer, says a University of St Thomas economist. Dave Vang said that U.S. refiners began building inventories in the fall in anticipation of political instability in the oil-rich Middle East. “It was kind of nice that the drop in prices happened before the Thanksgiving holiday,” Vang, told a KSTP interviewer. Will lower prices last? Consumer demand has grown in recent weeks, which is draining inventories and may drive prices up, Vang said. And, he added, who knows what’s next in the Middle East.

Vang. Finance professor at University of St. Thomas.

Image: American Automobile Association

Per gallon

Red counties: $2.91 to $3.14

Pink: $2.88 to $2.91

White: $2.83 to $2.88

Pale blue: $2.78 to $2.83

Dark blue: $2.65 to $2.78

Around Winona

Cenex (St. Charles): $2.58

Kwik Trip (St. Charles): $2.58

Love’s (St. Charles): $2.59

Kwik Trip (Lewiston): $2.69

Sinclair (St. Charles): $2.69

Kwik Trip (Fountain City): $2.73

Cenex (Centervlle): $2.73

Kwik Trips (Winona): $2.78

Minnoco (Winona): $2.78

Sinclair (Winona at Mankato Avenue): $2.78

Sinclair (Winona at West Service Drive:0 $2.84

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The State Patrol reported 523 traffic crashes across the state over the weekend. Two were fatalities – relatively few for a New Year’s weekend, the Patrol said. Other state weekend data:

> 59 accidents with injuries.

> 145 vehicles spun off the road.

> 329 drunken-driving arrests.

EAGLE LAKE, Minn. – A state trooper responding to a 911 call found a 59-year-old man critically wounded by a firearm. The man was taken six miles to the Mankato hospital, then airlifted 80 miles to a Level 1 trauma unit in Rochester. Reportedly the wound was to an arm. Blue Earth County Sheriff Jeff Wersal declined to release the victim’s name or details of what happened. It was believed, however, that the 911 call, about 4:20 p.m., came from the victim’s son and that the son said he had shot his father. The son was detained. Initial reports varied on whether the son was a juvenile.

WINONA, Minn. – Henry James Will was in a hurry. The baby, the first of 2024 at Winona Health, arrived at 7:25 a.m. – 19 days early. He was six pounds and three ounces and 18-1/2 inches. The new parents, Brodie and Kylie, had planned on a home birth, but after two days of labor they decided that that the Family Birth Center at the Winona hospital was the place to be. Physician Troy Shelton and nurses Mollie Hernandez and Lisa Henderson were on hand to help Henry into the world via C-section.

With mom and dad. Who are all smiles. As for Henry, he’s not quite sure what it’s all about yet. He is the couple’s first.

WINONA, Minn. – Police arrested a Winona man on a complaint that he pulled a gun on a woman  in a car outside a Far West End convenience store. The woman told police that the man, whom she knew, aimed the gun at her after she got in a car and through the window said something about karma, then: “I’m going to make your life a living hell.” He walked off, the woman said. This was about 11:20 p.m. on December 22 at the Kwik Trip at 872 West Broadway. Shaken but unhurt, the woman called police. They couldn’t find the man, but they had a name: Roy Charles Glissendorf, 34. Fast forward 10 days: On Monday about 10:35 a.m. at the Fleet Farm retail store in Winona, a security detail followed a man to the parking lot for a $55 box of BBs for an air gun under his coat. He hadn’t paid. The man gave up the BB supply and drove off. The store detectives called police, as is routine with shoplifting. They had a name: Roy Glissendorf. Police stopped Glissendorf a couple blocks away on Mankato Avenue. Forget any shoplifting misdemeanor. He was booked for second-degree assault and a terroristic threat.

Glissendorf. In and out of jail over the years: Multiple assaults, burglary, drunken driving, drug paraphernalia, shoplifting.

August cheers. A University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse crowd cheers for Joe Gow and his wife when he announnced plans to retire this spring. Surprise: The UW Board fired him three months later for explicit videos promoting “healthy sexuality.”

Regents accused of igoring free speech values

LACROSSE, Wis. – University regents who fired Joe Gow as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse are hypocrites who talk a good line about free expression but don’t walk the talk, Gow said. “I thought at least the board, given their staunch support of free speech, would be a little more understanding,” Gow told a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter. “Clearly that’s not the case.” Gow was fired for producing sexually explicit videos with his wife on enjoying post-prime sex. He’s 63, she 56.  In recent years, Gow noted, the Regents have championed freedom of expression in producing annual reports, conducted a student survey and held free speech events across the state.  “I thought at least the Board, given their staunch support of free speech, would be a little more understanding. But clearly that’s not the case.”

Until now: A closet sexuality advocate

Gow and his wife wrote about their sex lives in books in 2017 and 2018 under pen names and calling themselves “the sexy happy couple.” Although advocating a robust “sex-positive” life, the books weren’t salacious. Then they decided to make the same statement about sexuality in explicit videos for online audiences, again not using their names. They described themselves “in executive positions at two well-known organizations in the U.S.” They explained they had come together in mid-life following divorces from “spouses who didn’t share their need to continue growing sexually.” There was no mention of LaCrosse or of Wisconsin. not even a hint. The scenes were shot professionally at far-away places — like exotic vacation spots. In at least one video they were in the La Vegas home of a well-known porn performer. Indeed, over eight years of shooting there were polygymous scenes with porn stars. In cooking episodes, which were frequent, they had porn-star guests helping prepare vegetarian meals.

Suited for campus. Chancellor for17 years. Kept sex books and videos apart from campus duties.

Gow: “I had assumed better of regents”

In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel interview, Gow said he misjudged the 18-member Board of Regrnts. The regents had been on record supporting free expression, and Gow decided the time was right to come out. “I felt a little bit more open about ‘let’s raise these free speech issues and see how the Board responds,’ and now we know,” he said. In one sense, thee risk seemed low. Gow had only a few months left in his chancellorship and was planning g to return to the  relative obscurity of professorship.”I felt very confident that these videos and books could be in the world and people would not take issue with it,” he said. That was a misjudgment, he conceded: “I did not expect that we’d end up where we are now.”

Citizen rights

“I would say that anything that I do or my wife and I do, we do as citizens in the United States, who have the freedom of First Amendment to the Constitution, to create and publish books and videos that explore consensual adult sexuality,” he said. U.S. courts have confirmed that nudity as well as sexual expression are protected as artistic expression, albeit for allowable shields for children. Gow said he didn’t know how the regents became aware of the videos. The videos had been posted on commercial web platforms about two months, including the YouTube channel Healthy Sexual Cooking. No one at UW system higher-levels or on the Board of Regents had asked him about the videos, Gow said. Through the grapevine he learned that the regents, tipped to the videos, were convening an emergency meeting December 27 about them but didn’t invite him.

Earlier: UW-L chancellor booted for sex movies, books

Wreckage in brambles. Deputies reached scene too late, about 5 a.m. Image: Buffalo County sheriff

Crash near Maxville in Chippewa River valley

DURAND, Wis. – A Durand man died when he was ejected from an overturing car near Maxville before dawn. The man’s name was not released immediately  by Buffalo County Sheriff Michael Osmond, who said only that the man was 31 years old. He was dead when deputies arrived about 5:10 a.m. He had been alone in the vehicle. The accident was six mies south of Durand on a slight curve on State Highway 25 near Thibodeau Road. The car had crossed the centerline, dived into the opposite ditch, and struck a driveway embankment, then rolled. Speed and alcohol were factors, deputies said. Highway 25, which Durand and Nelson, was closed four hours.

BLAIR, Wis. – A man who reportedly bashed in the kitchen door of a Blair home was shot and critically wounded, police said.  The man was taken eight miles to the Whitehall hospital, then transferred 50 miles for acute trauma care in LaCrosse. Police Chief Kent Johnson said that officers were to called to the house, on residential Taft Street, about 1 a.m. The caller, a woman, said tyat an intruder had broken in and that her husband confronted and shot him. The wounded man was found in the garage. Chief Johnson said there also had been another home break nearby earlier in the night but no one was home. Johnson declined to release the names of the parties.

ROCHESTER, Minn. – Free downtown parking will shrink again to one hour on Tuesday.  The City Council had expanded the limit to two hours for November and December to promote shopping. But no more. Parking at downtown city ramps and meters, however, remains free on weekends.

Image: Steve Lunde

May we join  your family and friends  with hopes for peace and prosperity in the new year.

From your friends at the Winona Journal

Basketball (men): Winona State 59, UW-Parkside 45

By snowshoes and skis a year ago. But not enough snow at Whitewater this year. Bring hiking boots.

Feeling house-bound for the holiday? No need

ELBA, Minn. – Hikers can start the year on a one-mile riverside trail at Whitewater State Park – one of 400 hikes sponsored by America’s State Parks organization nationwide to mark Near Year’s Day. Time: 2 p.m. In Minnesota 13 parks are participating, some with themes like bird-counting. One, at Forestville Mystery Cave State Park near Spring Valley in Fillmore County, is by candlelight at 5:30 p.m.

Luminarias show the way. At Forestville Mystery Cave State Park.

WINONA, Minn. – Winona County was spared the drizzle that hit the Rochester area overnight and worsened driving conditions. Snow then fell and froze on untreated surfaces and back roads. Olmsted County and Rochester police took calls for 71 accidents, none with injuries. The Minnesota State Patrol reported 339 crashes statewide — 36 with injuries but none serious or fatal. There were also 122 vehicles that spun off the road statewide and five jackknifed semis, the Patrol said.