BLUFF SIDING, Wis. – A slugfest involving 15 people or so broke out in the parking lot at George’s Bar five miles from Winona across the Wisconsin border. The Buffalo City sheriff’s dispatcher called Winona sheriff’s and police officers to intervene. By the time they arrived, the melee was over. Things were still copasetic when Buffalo County deputies arrived from 24 miles away in Alma, the county seat.

George’s bar. The nearest and busiest bar outside Winona County. On Highway 35.

Basketball (men): UW-Platteville 91, Saint Mary’s 71

Basketball (men): UW-Superior 76, UW-LaCrosse 68

Basketball (men): Winona State 62, Arkansas-Monticello 46

Basketball (women): Missouri Western State 90, Winona State 63

Basketball (women): UW-LaCrosse 82, St. Catherine 71

Hockey (men): UW-Stevens Point 5, Saint Mary’s 2

Hockey (women): Saint Mary’s 4, Hamline 2

Football: Springfield Tigers 22, Harmony Fillmore Central Falcons 12

Volleyball (girls): Pequot Lakes Patriots 3, Caledonia Warriors 2

Volleyball (girls): Mayer Lutheran Crusaders 3, Mabel-Canton Cougars 1

Football: LaCrosse Aquinas Blugolds 58, Horicon Marshmen 14

LEWISTON, Minn. – A 15-year-old girl reported that a stranger, a man probably in his 60s, tried to coax her into his car. The man said he needed directions, she said. She didn’t get in. This was about 9:45 p.m. outside the Rec Bar at Main and Fremont streets downtown. The girl told deputies that the man was in a newer white or tan vehicle. The man was wearing a gray or brown jacket and black pants, she said.

LACROSSE, Wis. – A Winona woman accused of murder in the death of her husband in 2019,  when they lived in suburban Holmen, is free. A jury found Lori Ann Phillips not guilty after a five-day trial.  The jury deliberated only 4-1/2 hours. As the court clerk read the verdict, Phillips dropped her head and sat motionless with relief.  Judge Elliott Levine pronounced Phillips, age 50, free to go. She was charged in June 2020. The trial was on whether she was guilty of second-degree murder for running her husband over with a pickup truck during an argument.

Phillips. Leaving courtroom after acquittal. With attorney Chris Zachar. She went home legally unburdened to Winona, where she has relocated.

Earlier: Phillips on husband: Verbally, physically abusive

LEWISTON, Minn. – A Lewiston man was charged with drunken driving after he nicked a residential garage where he was an upstairs renter. Jay Aaron Stensgard, 36, failed a sobriety test with a blood-alcohol reading of 0.26%, deputies said. The alcohol level was triple allowable limits.  This was about 7:50 p.m. in the 10 block of Williams Street. Damage to the garage was minimal.

LACROSSE, Wis. – The jury recessed to consider the fate of Lori Ann Phillips after she concluded a second day of gripping and painful testimony about the February 2019 night her husband died. Phillips, now 50, described her husband as “amazing when he was sober” but horribly abusive when drunk. She called his behavior paranoid. When drunk, he acted out jealousy in the imagined belief that she was seeing other men, she said. He always apologized once he was sober. Mark Phillips, 48, was found dead in a snowbank on the couple’s driveway, having been run down by Lori Ann at the wheel of her pickup truck. She said he was trying to get away and didn’t know she had struck him.

Phillips. On witness stand four hours over two days.

Earlier: Murder trial defense: Husband as a mean drunk

LEWISTON, Minn. – Two golf carts were reported stolen from the Heartland County Club just outside of town. The theft was thought to have occurred as early  as October 30. The carts, each worth $6,500, were gas-powered red 2023 Yahamas with black canopies.

NODINE, Minn. – A family in a rental vehicle with Florida plates drove off from the Interstate 90 Kwik Trip near Nodine without paying for $50 in fuel. While the driver was fueling, two children went into the store and walked out with $40 to $80 of goodies, also without paying. This was about 3:25 p.m.

WASHNGTON –  A Minnesota soldier was among  five soldiers killed in a helicopter crash over the eastern Mediterranean, the Pentagon reported. Sergeant Cade M. Wolfe, 24, of Mankato ,was part of a training mission on an MH-60 Blackhawk. Although U.S. forces are in a build-up in the region in response to the Israel-Hamas war, the crash was due an in-flight emergency, not enemy or hostile action, the Pentagon said.

FOUNTAIN, Minn. – A Canton couple were hurt when their pickup rear-ended a farm tractor on U.S. Highway 52 between Fountain and Preston in Fillmore County. Gregory James Nash and Kathy Ann Nash, both 65, were taken 34 miles to a Rochester hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The tractor driver, Brian Edward Buenger, 53, of Preston, was unhurt. The accident occurred about 6:25 a.m. near the County Road 11 intersection. The Nashes were in a 2017 Ford F-150. Their airbags deployed. Buenger was on a John Deer tractor. Both vehicles were southbound toward Preston.

Wrestling: UW-LaCrosse 59, UW-Oshkosh 0

Football: Jackson County Central Huskies 41, Caledonia Warriors 0

Football: Spring Valley Kingsland Knights 26, Hills-Beaver Creek Patriots 14

Hockey (girls): Oakdale North-Tartan TNT 7, Rochester Century Panthers 2

Volleyball (girls): Mabel-Canton Cougars 3, Bangor Badger-Greenbush-Middle River Gators 0

Volleyball (girls): Caledonia Warriors 3, Roseville Concordia Beacons 0

Looking from southwest. Most problematic is the southbound US. 52 lanes, in white, coming from under the I-90 overpass. Winona-bound drivers need to slow, sometimes stop, to enter the I-90 entrance ramp to Winona. This means crossing traffic that’s heading north from Chatfield to Rochester. A trailing vehicle, heading from Rochester to Chatfield, at 55 mph or faster, then rear-ends the Winona-bound vehicle. What then? Call 911 for an ambulance.

A danger for Winonans heading home from Rochester

ROCHESTER, Minn. – The state Transportation Department has earmarked $38 million to improve the accident-heavy Interstate 90 interchange with U.S. 52 southeast of Rochester. Construction should begin this summer, said agency spokesperson Mike Dougherty. The interchange handles a lot of the traffic between Winona County and Rochester. Accidents average 20 a year. Most of the accidents are rear-enders involving motorists on U.S. 52 out of Rochester and turning left across traffic to the  I-90 on-ramp.

WINONA, Minn. — Police arrested a Winona woman who was suspected of lighting a fire in a trash barrel outside the public library on Fifth Street and walking off. Alicia Breann Thornton, 21, was arrested without resistance about 6:15 p.m. This was roughly 24 hours after the fire. The arrest was in the 50 block of Gould Street on the West Side, half a mile from the library. The fire was limited to the trash barrel, valued at $78. The library was undamaged. Thornton was arrested on probable cause and booked for arson.

Earlier: Arsonist sets fire outside historic Winona library

Thornton.  Charge: Third-degree damage to property in the form of arson.

LACROSSE, Wis. – Two witnesses testified that Lori Ann and Mark Phillips had argued during a night of bar-hopping that preceded his death.  A bartender at The Dive, a diny bar near Grandad Bluff, testified that Mark was acting badly. A close friend of Lori Ann’s, also at the bar, told the same story on the witness stand. The friend said the couple’s arguing continued in the parking lot as they left. These were defense witnesses. It is Lori Ann’s story that Mark was mean when drunk. On the night he died she was fleeing their Holmen home after returning from The Dive , she said. Prosecutors claim she intentionally ran him down with her pickup truck in their driveway and kept on going. Her defense is that she didn’t realize that she had driven him down.

Earlier: On tape: Defendant denies any intended hit-and-run

Lori Ann testimony

On the witness stand, Lori Ann recited a timeline of her relationship with Mark from dating, breaking up, engaging again, and marrying. She talked about heavy drinking and domestic abuse. “He would call me names – ‘slut, whore’ — things like that,” Phillips said. “I mean, this only happened when he was drunk.”  She was specific about incidents. In one incident, she said, Mark had begun drinking at 7:30 a.m. and continued all day. At night when he came home, she said, she locked the door but he broke through:  “I called the police because my husband was drunk and running for a gun, and he was upset.”

Happier moment. Lori Ann and Mark began dating in 2016, married in 2018. He died in February 2019. When he died, Mark was 48, she 46.

ROCHESTER, Minn. – A 15-year-old boy who pulled a knife during a schoolyard fight was arrested, charged with multiple felonies, and dispatched to a far-away juvenile detention center. The boy’s name was not released by the school, the police or the court. Among those threatened inn the brawl at Century High School was a teacher who intervened to break up the fight, wtnesses said. Although Principal Monde Schwartz initially said no one was injured, it later was learned that one student suffered a minor wound. Unclear was whether the wound was due to the knife or to blows in the broader brawl. The charges against the arrested youth:

> Second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, a felony.

> Threats of violence, a felony.

> Possession of a dangerous weapon at school, a felony.

> Fifth-degree assault, a misdemeanor.

> Disorderly conduct (brawling), a misdemeanor.

The youth was sent to the Anoka County Juvenile Detention Center, a 36-bed maximum-security facility for males and females, 10 to 18, in Lino Lakes.

Earlier: Rochester teen pulls knife in school fight

BLACK RIVER FALLS, Wis. – A Taylor woman and man were charged with aiding and abetting a man accused in a stabbing in Hixton. Pamela Lien, 64, and James Syverson, 43, were arrested at a Taylor house, eight miles from Hixton. It was at the Taylor house that deputies earlier found Anthony Sylvester IV, who was wanted for a home jntrusion in Hixton. A person was stabbed in the intrusion. Sylvester also was accused of having a gun.

Earlier: Bail at $750,000 in Hixton break-in, stabbing

Earlier:Arrest warrant goes out for Hixton stabbing

Earlier: Stabbing suspect arrested without resistance

Earlier: Hixton stabbing suspect spotted but fled

Earlier: Stabbing reported in Hixton home invasion

Lien. Bail at $2,000 in Jackson County Court in Black River Falls.

Syverson. Bail at $1,000.

WINONA, Minn. – A Lewiston woman crossing Broadway Street on foot at Lafayette Streert was struck by a car and suffered minor injuries. This was about 11 a.m. The woman, age 21,  was taken the Winona hospital complaining of a hurt pelvis. Police said the woman didn’t lose consciousness and didn’t appear to have head injuries. The impact took off the driver’s side mirror. The driver, Katie Joe Maier, 35 of Cochrane, told police she didn’t see pedestrian until it was too late. She was cited for failure to yield in a crosswalk.

WASHINGTON – Drinking water is so contaminated  with farm chemicals in parts of southeast Minnesota that state agencies must take action, the federal government ordered. The state has 30 days to develop a plan. Excessive contamination in well water had been reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration in Winona County and seven other largely agricultural counties.  The EPA estimated that 9,000 people in these counties are at risk of consuming water exceeding what’s considered safe — 10 milligrams of nitrates per liter. These counties all have porous underground limestone formations that suck up nitrates from factory-scale farming:

Nitrate sources

High levels of nitrate in agricultural areas result from runoff or leakage from animal feedlots and commercially fertilized soil.

Nitrate remedies

Technology is available to remove nitrates in drinking water. These are complicated:

>Ion exchange.

> Reverse osmosis.

> electrodialysis.

Ion exchange resins are like tiny magnets that attract and hold the nitrate from passing through a water treatment system. Boiling is not a remedy. In fact, boiling increases nitrate levels by evaporate water but no nitrates. Filters such as those in a Brita brand water pitchers don’t remove nitrates. Other remedies go to the source:

> Tighter restrictions n feedlots that produce massive concentration of nitrate in manure.

> Limits on artificial crop fertilizers that are heavy with nitrates that leach into ground water.

Local water systems

The Winona municipal water system wells are deep into an aquifer not affected by high nitrate levels.  However, rural wells at higher elevations in Winona County are vulnerable. Heavily contaminated are city wells in Lewiston and Utica. In a state study, 7% of participating private wells in Winona County exceeded the federal health standard for nitrate. In Fremont Township south of St. Charles, 43% of wells tested exceeded the limit. Elevation as a kay:

> Winona: 689 feet above sea level.

> Lewiston: 745 feet.

> Utica: 1,171 feet.

> Fremont township: 1,188 feet.

WINONA, Minn. –  A man who jumped into Lake Winna, apparently in a suicide attempt, was pulled out by a Fire Department rescue team. He was alive and breathing. This was about 10 a.m. near the Huff Street tourist shop. The man was taken to the hospital for evaluation.