Man arrested after 911 call for beating, rape
WINONA, Minn. — Police found and arrested a Winona man 7-1/2 hours after his girlfriend reported he strangled her until almost blacking out and then raped her. Charged with domestic assault causing fear and harm and first-degree sexual assault was James Miles Kohnen, age 45. The arrest was about 10:15 a.m. in the 1100 block of. East Sanborn Street. Kohnen didn’t resist being taken int custody, officers said. The woman, age 46, told police there had been an argument that turned violent. She said that Kohnen hoked her twice, threw her to the floor, and forced himself on her sexually. She said she managed to free herself and fed. The 911 call was about 2:45 a.m. from the 300 block of Mankato Avenue.
Quacking contentedly on our receding ice
A mess of mallards. Some drakes and hens take in the sun and open water near Shives Road on the outlet from Lake Winna. Possibly they “got wind” of the warm weather forecast next few days. Image: Kevin O’Reilly
College scores
Basketball (men): Southwest Minnesota State 79, Winona State 71
Basketball (women): Southwest Minnesota State 81, Winona State 66
Minnesota prep
Basketball (boys): St. Charles Saints 76, Albert Lea Tigers 69
Basketball (boys): Houston Hurricanes 62, West Salem Coulee Eagles 34
Basketball (girls): Lanesboro Burros 63, St. Charles Saints 46
Basketball (girls): Lewiston-Altura Cardinals 60, Spring Valley Kingsland Knights 41
Hockey (boys): Rochester Mayo Spartans 5, Winona Winhawks 1
Wisconsin prep
Basketball (boys): Trempealeau Red Hawks 63, Arcadia Raiders 56
Basketball (boys): Alma Center Lincoln Hornets 67, Whitehall Norse 47
Basketball (girls): Melrose-Mindoro Mustangs 64, Whitehall Norse 49
Basketball (girls): Independence Indees 68, Cochrane-Fountain City Pirates 45
How they voted: On ICE funding /4
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate voted 52-47 to deny President Trump a $10 billion budget infusion for the federal agency that ran a gestapo-like occupation of Minnesota for 2-1/2 months. The Senate vote came the same day that Trump concluded his military occupation of Minnesota was politically untenable and began a retreat. How Minnesota and Wisconsin senators voted:
To deny new ICE funding
> Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin
> Amy Klobchar, D-Minnesota
> Tina Smith, D-Minnesota
Against
> Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin
Trump wanted the $10 billion budget supplement because Homeland Security way overspent no Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota and earlier brutal occupations in Los Angeles, Washington and Chicago and other cities. The original Homeland budget was $29 billion. Homeland’s overspending has implications for other subagencies whose budgets have been drained. Among sub-agencies now entering a temporary shutdown are the Coast Guard and airport security. Their employees are working without salaries until Trump finds a remedy.
Why ICE funding failed
The vote probably would have gone the other way if Trump had agreed to limits on Homeland Security Department operations for immigration and the agency’s related policing activities. These limits were rejected by Trump:
> Targeted enforcement: No entering of private property without a judicial warrant. No indiscriminate arrests. No detention of U.S. citizens.
> Masks: No more face coverings for policing
> Identification: Agents must display their agency, last name, and their agency.
> Off limits: Medical facilities, schools, childcare facilities, churches, polling places, and courts.
> Racial Profiling: No stops, questioning and searches based on an individual’s presence at certain locations, their job, their spoken language and accent or their race and ethnicity.
> Decent policing: No unreasonable use of force. Expanded training of agents. Prompt removed of agents from the field after officer-involved issues pending investigation.
> Local Oversight: Allow jurisdictions to investigate and prosecute excessive force.
> Access to detainees: Allow family and attorney visits to detention facilities. Access to detainees
> Body cameras: Require agents to wear body cameras and to storage footage and allow access.
> Free expression: Prohibit tracking and databases of individuals participating in First Amendment activities.
> No paramilitary: Standardize uniforms and equipment in line with civil law enforcement.
Earlier: Trump ends Minnesota siege, recalls troops
Earlier: How they voted: On JCE funding /3
Three-way race or Winona sheriff: More coming?
WINONA, Minn. — Now there are three. It’s a pattern going back decades in elections for a new Winona County sheriff: Multiple internal candidates. Charles Rolbiecki and John Hazelton have met a deadline to join Ben Klinger, which makes for a three-way contest to run the 23-oficer department. All three men have campaign web sites. More candidates are possible: The filing deadline is June 2. Sheriffs in Minnesota are elected to four-year terms.
Hazelton. 25 years community service. In sheriff’s office. Duties have included tactical and operational leadership, firearms instruction and command of the emergency response team. Sees sheriff’s role as building safety collaboratively with the community.
Rolbiecki. 18 years with the sheriff’s office. Duties have included detention deputy, deputy sheriff, water patrol supervisor, and civil processing leader. In total has 26 years in law enforcement. His principles, he said, include truthfulness, transparency, communicate and integrity.
Trump ends Minnesota siege, recalls troops
MINNEAPOLIS — President Trump has quit his Operation Metro Surge that has angered Minnesotans for 2-1/2 months and tanked him in national poll ratings for indiscriminate arrests, brutality and the fatal shootings of two citizens. The withdrawal was announced by Tom Homan, a former border control chief and Trump ally. Trump’s instructions in dispatching Homan to Minnesota two weeks ago: To find as graceful and face-saving an exit as possible. One of Homan’s first steps was to withdraw 700 deportation agents, leaving 2,000 in place. Now, he said, only a security team will remain to assure “a safe drawdown.” Trump’s occupying force had been mostly from the Immigration Control and Enforcement agency ostensibly to round up ultra-violent immigrants and deport them. There also were heavy shades of dark ulterior Trump motives: To harass Democratic political rivals. These included Governor Tim Walz, who had challenged Trump in the 2024 presidential election as running mate to Kamala Harris. In his news conference Homan said he came to Minnesota “to identify issues and implement solutions.”
Homan. Claims Metro Surge a success.Lauds Trump vision. Praises Minnesota occupation personnel as “patriots.” Promises to depart Minnesota soon. himself .
Goat prairies they’re called in these parts
Our barren topography. Goats will chew anything to the ground and not leave muc, hence the name that Driftless region pioneers applied to barren patches, always facing sun-warmed southwest slopes. This unusually large goat prairie is opposite Winona’s Bridges Golf Course. With lots of sun, the freezing and melting inhibit tree growth. Typically the ground below the topsoil is bedrock, which also impedes tree growth. Right now this goat prairie is rising to a brilliant blue sky, taking in the sun in anticipation of spring. Image: Kevin O’Reilly
College scores
Softball: Winona State10, Grand View 2
Softball: Winona State 8, Grand View 1 (doubleheader)
Minnesota prep
Basketball (boys): Apple Valley Eagles 71, Rochester Mayo Spartans 70
Need prescription filled in Galesville? Good luck
Vacancy on Main Street. The latest loss in the depopulation of Upper Midwest small towns will be Friday when the only pharmacy in Galesville closes for good. The store not only filled prescriptions for generations but also once was the most fashionable giftshop in the community of 1,600 persons. The decision to close was by Hometown Pharmacy Network, a 40-store group based in Rio, Wisconsin. The Galesville store was plagued by industry-wide benefit-management formulas that cut reimbursements. Image: Steve Lunde
Rx alternatives
> Arcadia (population 3,700), 15 miles away.
> Blair (1,300), 18 miles.
> Holmen (10,600) 11 miles.
> Whitehall (1,600), 18 miles.
> Winona (26,000), 48 miles,
> Mail-order like Amazon Pill Pack.
Ellison retort to GOP attack: “Nice performance”
WASHINGTON — The Republican senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, never very good at his homework, mounted a blistering attack on Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison at a Senate hearing. With bluster Johnson blamed Ellison for killing Renee Wood and Alex Pretti during street protests in Minneapolis. Ellison listened at first politely but then found himself unable to resist a growing and incredulous smirk. Finally out of steam, Johnson paused. Ellison finally spoke: “Nice theatrical performance, Senator, but that never happened.” Johnson couldn’t find words to respond, then told Ellison to wipe the smirk off his face. Ellison sat attentive and silent. Johnson became more flustered by the second, his fellow senators stunned by Ellison’s putdown. Finally Johnson snarled lowly at Ellison: “You disgust me.” Outmaneuvered effortlessly by one of the nation’s most prominent state attorneys general, Johnson spoke no more. Other Republicans on the Senate committee also tried to transfer responsibility for murder and mayhem in Minnesota away from Trump and his military intrusions of the state. It didn’t wash.
Senate hearing
Ellison had been summoned to testify before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Also testifying were Harry Niska, the Republican floor leader in the Minnesota House, and Paul Schnell, state prisons commissioner. The committee was investigating confilcts between federal immigration officials and local Minnesota authorities during the Trump military occupation of Minnesota.
A moment of buffoonery. Intimidatingly high on an elevated podium, Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, wildly berates Minnesota General Keith Ellison at a witness table below. Didn’t work.
Ellison’s smirk. A national leader against Trump ‘s constitutional overreach.
ICE car chase in St. Paul termed reckless
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A high-speed chase by Trump deportation agents through a densely populated neighborhood ended n a multi-vehicle crash with injuries. In the end, ICE agents arrested the man they were pursuing — believed tiobe a Honduran man whose name was not released. He was thought to be in his 20s. There were injuries. Witnesses called the chase a reckless endangerment to public safety by ICE agents. This was about 9:20 a.m. in a 25-mph zone a few blocks off interstate 94 in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood . Witnesses said the pursued driver had run red lights and struck at least one other car. His own car disabled, the man shimmied out of the wreck and ran. Pursuing ICE agents were quoted: “I’m going to tase you. I’m going to tase you.” One witness reported yelling out his window to the man, who had leaped a fence, to go around the front the building and come inside for safety. “He never made it,” the witness said. The Honduran man was taken away a sheet over his head. A St. Paul firefighter said he understood the man’s injuries were not life-threatening. A woman whose car airbag deployed was also taken to a hospital. The extent of her injuries was not known immediately.
The pursued vehicle. The red Toyota Prius from which the ICE-pursued man fled, only to be be tased and hauled off. Image: Alyssa Chen
Verbatim
Kaohly Her, St. Paul mayor: “The incident today at Selby and Western underscores the fact that ICE is still present, causing chaos, and putting residents at risk.”
Verbatim
Chants from gathering crowd. In front of Nina’s Cuffee Shop on Selby Avenue: “Fuck ICE. Fuck ICE.”
Emergency, fire crews make 50 calls
WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 40 emergency medical calls plus 10 fire calls in recent days:
> Tuesday, February 10: 6 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.
> Monday, February 7: 7 medical calls plus no fire call.
> Sunday, February 8: 8 medical calls plus 2 fire call.
> Saturday, February 7: 8 medical calls plus 1 fire call.
> Friday, February 6: 2: 2 medical calls plus no fire calls.
> Thursday, February 5: 8 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.
> Wednesday, February 4: 1 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.
Earlier: Emergency, fire crews make 58 calls
News summary at mid-week: February 11, 2026
GOVERNANCE: State enhances Medicaid fraud safeguards
GOVERNANCE: Standoff on weaponizing school aid: Trump blinks
SCHOOLS: Rushford school improvement plan fails
SPORTS: Winhawk football coach leaving after 21 seasons
POLITICS: Jensen ends campaign for Minnesota governor
CRIME: Arrest outside St. Charles for “road soda”
Micro-managing Minnesota dam affects ice-fishing
WHEATON, Minn. — The Army Corps warned that ice-fishing is not a not good idea below its White Rock Dam that drains into the Bois de Sioux River. The Corps said that minor adjustments in discharges may disturb ice thickness. The dam backs up 41-mile Lake Traverse, the southernmost body of water in the huge watershed of the mid-continent Hudson Bay.
Hudson Bay. This inland sea of the Arctic Ocean drains west-central Minnesota and parts of the Dakotas.
Rushford school improvement plan fails
RUSHFORD, Minn. — Voters turned down $24 million prposal for school upgrades for Rushford-Peterson schools. The margin was wide: 744 to 444. Proposed had been new daycare quarters and gymnasium improvements. The district has 630 students in three schools.
College scores
Hockey (women): UW-River Falls 8, Saint Mary’s 1
Minnesota prep
Basketball (boys): Northfield Raiders 70, Winona Winhawks 60
Basketball (boys): Lewiston-Altura Cardinals 92, Plainview-Elgin-Millville Bulldogs 84
Basketball (girls): Northfield Raiders 76, Winona Winhawks 19
Basketball (girls): Randolph Rockets 69, Lewiston-Altura Cardinals 53
Hockey (boys): Winona Winhawks 5, LaCrescent-Hokah Lancers 4 (overtime)
Wisconsin prep
Basketball (boys): Altoona Railroaders 72, Galesville Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau Red Hawks 66
Basketball (girls): LaCrosse Aquinas Blugolds 78, Winona Cotter Ramblers 45
Basketball (girls): Independence Indees 59, Alma-Pepin Eagles 37
Basketball (girls): Arcadia Raiders 66, West Salem Panthers 59
Basketball (girls): Viroqua Blackhawks 53, Galesville Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau Red Hawks 38
Basketball (girls): Cochrane-Fountain City Pirates 67, Melrose-Mindoro Mustangs 52
Standoff on weaponizing school aid: Trump blinks
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Under legal pressure, President Trump has backed off his threat to withhold federal school funding to Minnesota, Attorney General Keith Ellison announced. Trump had been bullying Minnesota and 18 other states to abolish their gender-free accessibility policies on school sports. Such gender barriers in high school sports, said Ellison, were unfair and discriminatory. Specifically at stake for Minnesota was $530 million for K-12 schools. Ellison and fellow attorneys general negotiated Trump’s retreat. Their argument: It was wrong to hold the state’s 876,000 school kids as political hostages. Still unresolved are similar Trump bully tactics to demand states to conform with his priorities on other issues. In total Minnesota receives about 35% of the state budget. Included is funding for healthcare and highways.
Ellison. Minnesota’s chef state legal officer ince 2019. A Democrat,
Verbatim
Ellison expressed “deep disappointment” that Trump would try to dismantle programs that support students from different backgrounds: “As Minnesotans, we believe that every child, no matter their race, gender, the wealth of their family, or zip code deserves the best education possible.”
Arrest outside St. Charles for “road soda”
ST. CHARLES, Minn. — A Lewiston man was arrested with a near-empty bottle of Phillips peppermint schnapps and an open carton of Coors Light at a business parking lot east of St. Charles. Deputies said Jon Paul Trzesniak, age, 61, admitted to “road soda,” slang for booze in a car, deputies said. A breath test found his blood at 0.12% alcohol, half again as much as legally allowed. Deputies had been called about a man acting peculiarly in a car outside the business. Deputies said Trzesniak, was slurring his words and incoherent. This was about 1:10 p.m. The man was taken 20 miles cyo the ounty jail in Winona. His blood was drawn and sent to a state lab for contaminant testing. The immediate booking charge was suspected drunkenness at the wheel. At the Wednesday morning news media briefing the arrest was reported as on County 37, but briefer Mark Dungy declined to be more specific to protect the business as an innocent party.
College scores
Basketball (men): Minnesota West Community 68, Rochester Community 65
Minnesota prep
Basketball (boys): Zumbrota-Mazeppa Cougars 63, Lewiston-Altura Cardinals 48
Basketball (boys): St. Charles Saints 78, Wabasha-Kellogg Falcons 74
Basketball (girls): Lake City Tigers 89, St. Charles Saints 30
Hockey (boys): Austin Packers 5, Winona Winhawks 0
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