WINONA Minn. – The first frost of the season coated the ground in deeper coulees in Winona County just before dawn. It was a mere skiff. \that burned off quickly after dawn. Most of southeast Minnesota was spared for one more day with lows dancimg just above the freezing mark. If your tomatoes were spared, better cover them now. And bring in the houseplants. Lows were predicted for 32 and 33 degrees in most places Monday night. Skies were forecast to be sunny with afternoon highs the mid-40s.

Under North Side overpass. Lack of sanitary accommodations brought site to crisis point, authorities say.

Contractor bundles, destroys left-behind gear

ROCHESTER, Minn. – Police and other agencies rounded up cruft, debris and abandoned property at an encampment that homeless people had occupied for many months under a freeway bridge on Cascade Creek. Social workers earlier had tried to help the camp residents relocate. The site, under a Highway 52 off-ramp to Civic Center Drive, had become unsuitable or safe for human occupancy, said state Transportation Department spokesperson Mike Dougherty. A contractor was hired to remove abandoned property from the site. “We worked with organizations that assist people who are experiencing homelessness to offer connections to services with local organizations that offer support and safer alternatives for housing,” Dougherty said. As many as 170 people, all chronically homeless, had occupied the camp. It’s estimated that Rochester has 400 homeless people. The Cascade Creek site was Rochester’s  largest congregation of unsheltered people.

Piled flotsam. Ready for crushing and binding into bales and hoisting on trucks for disposal.

Soccer (men):  Saint Mary’s 1, Grinnell 0

Soccer (women):  Winona Sate 9, MSU-Mankato 0

Tennis (women): UW-LaCrosse 8, UW-Stevens Point 1

RED WING, Minn. – A Red Wing driver, Kavonna La Ray Moore, 18, escaped serious injury in a rollover but was taken to a hospital anyway to be sure it wasn’t worse. Moore was heading west out of Red Wing on U.S. Highway 61 when she lost control and rolled into the ditch. This was about 3:50 p.m. at Cannon Dale Road.  She was driving a 2009 Mitsubishi Lancer. Police said the airbag deployed. She was alone.

WINONA, Minn. – A Winona man threatened to fire a hand-triggered propane torch at a pursuing officer: “I will light you up, bitch,” he growled , according to the officer’s report. Told repeatedly to drop the torch and threatened with being tased, the man finally dropped it. Brett John Dennis, 36. was cuffed and arrested. This was about 7:40 p.m. at Sarnia and Mankato on the Far East End. This, according to the officer, is how it all began: The officer spotted Dennis on a bicycle and knew he was wanted on an arrest warrant. The officer, in a squad car, turned on his lights. Dennis pedaled faster. The officer followed. Dennis crashed the bicycle near the Mugby Junction coffee stand and ran. The officer pursued on foot. Dennis stopped and turned and pointed the propane torch at the officer and threatened “to light you up.” At jail Dennis was booked for a terroristic threat and fleeing an officer – in addition to theft on the earlier warrant for theft.

Dennis. Armed with a torch with a 14.1-ounces propane torch. Retails about $40.

MABEL, Minn.  – An Iowa driver was injured when her vehicle overturned after missing one of the notorious 90-degree crooks on Highway 43 north of Mabel. Ava Maleah Waddilove, 18, of Iowa City, was taken 30 miles to the Winneshiek hospital in Iowa. Her injuries were non-life threatening, said Fillmore County deputies. The accident was about 8:50 a.m. at Arrowhead Road. She was alone in her 2023 Kia Telluride traveling south toward Mabel and the Iowa border. She was alone. The airbag deployed.

$10 million deal.  Kwik Trip, with 800-plus shops and growing, is relocaing  some white-collar functions.

Remodeling ahead for leafy site, fountain included

LACROSSE, Wis. – The Kwik Trip convenience store chain has bought the fashionable United Healthcare  building and its park-like Onalaska grounds. John McHugh, a Kwik Trip spokesperson, said that several activities will be relocated from Kwik Trip’s  site in a north LaCrosse  industrial park. The first floor will be remodeled into management training classrooms. Some support staff also will have offices in the building, he said. The sale price: $10 million. The three-story structure, at 2700 Midwest Drive in Onalaska, was built in 1995 by Midwest Security Insurance. After Midwest was acquired in 2002 by United Healthcare, 350 employees were shifted to United’s office on Riverside Park LaCrosse.

WINONA, Minn. – Police stopped a Sparta driver for running a red light and then saw an open carton of Mike’a hard lemonade open in the back seat. Julie Renee Hanson, 18, of  Sparta, got a raft of tickets: Failing to stop for a semaphore, being underage and consuming alcohll, driving and drinking, and having an open alcohol in the car. Hanson’s bad news was all about 1:35 a.m. at Huff and Howard streets.

WINONA, Minn. – A Winona man, Lance Wayne Thorn, 22,  was booked for driving drunk after a traffic stop at the Highway 61 and Huff Street gateway into Winona. Police said Thorn showed usual signs of excessive imbibing – bloodshot and watery eyes, slurred speech, and a give-away alcohol body odor. Also he failed field tests for dexterity and balance. His blood tested as 0.10% alcohol, one-fifth higher than legally allowed. The stop, about 12:55 a.m., was for an inoperable license plate light.

Football: Winona State 17, Mary 7

Football: UW-LaCrosse 37, UW-Whitewater 34

Soccer (men): Bethel 1, Saint Mary’s 0

Soccer (women): Saint Mary’s 2. Bethel 0

Soccer (women): UW-LaCrosse 3, UW-Whitewater 0

Tennis (women): UW-LaCrosse 9, UW-River Falls 0

Volleyball (women): Winona State 3, Mary 1

Football: Spring Valley Kingsland Knights 54, LeRoy-Ostrander 21

ELBA, Minn. — A Plainview man, Jacob Lawrence Donovan, 21, was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving north of Elba. This was about 7:35 p.m. Donovan had run off Highway 74 into a ditch along the Whitewater River swamps at the Beaver crossroads. Deputies said that Donovan’s eyes were watery and bloodshot, that he was unsteady in his balance, and that he slurred his words. He failed sobriety performance tests. His breath showed his blood at 0.09% alcohol — above the threshold for impairment under state law.

WINONA, Minn. – A 13-year-old Winona boy pulled a gun, albeit a look-alike BB pistol, and robbed another boy of his bicycle and pedaled off. This was near the Lake Park bandshell about 4:20 p.m. Police found the bike 10 blocks away at an open-air basketball court with the baclpack on the ground with a black Gamo 430 Co2 dual-ammo .177 caliber BB/pellet air pistol. Police yanked the 13-year-old boy from the basketball game. Police said he admitted pointing the gun at the other boy, a 12-year-old, but denied aiming at his chest. “No, only to the shoulder,” police quoted the boy as saying. This was in the 700 block of East Belleview Street. The boy was arrested.  He was charged with aggravated robbery and pointing a dangerous weapon at another person, and turned over to his parents. Officers picked up the bike, a $160 BMX Mongoose, and returned the bike to the robbery victim. It was he who had reported the robbery to a nearby adult at Lake Park. The adult called police.  The victim said that he knew the other boy slightly and they were talking at the bandshell when the other boy took the gun from a backpack. An officer in a squad car then saw the robber pedaling east on Sarnia Street but wasn’t yet aware of any robbery. Once alerted, the officer began looking for the bicyclist and the rider and ended up on East Bellview Street and the pick-up basketball game.

Gamo 430. About $80 retail, $50 on eBay. Looks mean. Can cause mean damage.

WINONA, Minn. – Deputies stopped a speeder on Highway 61 only to discover, they said, that he was driving drunk. Tyler Marcus Behrens, 31, of Winona, failed sobriety tests, which were administered at the stop because he looked and smelled drunk and had issues standing and walking straight, deputies said. Charges were pending the results of a blood sample taken at the Winona County jail. This was about 5:30 p.m.

ROCHESTER, Minn.—A Century Hi gh School student was killed, apparently instantly, in a three-vehicle northeast of the city. First-responders pulled Davin Tukua, 16, from the wreckage, but there no response to resuscitation attempts. The wo other drivers suffered minor injuries. The accident was about 2:30 p.m. at North Broadway and Woodridge Lane. Olmsted County deputies said that Tukua was driving south on Broadway when he went over the center line and collided with an oncoming vehicle. The third vehicle crashed into the wreckage. Word about what happened soared quickly among Century students in the middle of homecoming weekend and preparing for a post-football game dance. With homecoming plans were so far advanced, Schools Superintendent Kent Pekel decided to let the events proceed as planned. Too much was in place involving so many students that canceling events was not possible, he said. The school, on Rochster’s east side, has 1,600 students.

LAMOILLE, Minn. – A scammer got away with almost $41,000 from a Cedar Valley man who was told by phone that his bank account had been compromised and to transfer all the assets into bitcoin and send it to a fresh account. The scammer arranged the new account – but it wasn’t at any bank and not in the victim’s name. Over a two-week period the victim, age 68, made 14 transfers ranging from $200 to $7,900. Sheriff’s investigators said the scammer had identified himself falsely as from Wells Fargo bank, where the man had savings and checking accounts. Why did the man comply with repeated instructions to switch his money into bitcoin and make the transfers? Said Deputy Sheriff Jeff Mueller: “They had their hooks into him.”

WINIONA Minn. – The internal security team at Walmart was bothered by series of snack and soda purchases escaping the check-out scanners over several weeks. Finally they detected a pattern and confronted an employee. He owned up to not scanning 11 times. It added up: $135. Bye.

NODINE, Minn. – A Rushford woman was injured when her pickup truck hit a deer on Interstate 90. Leann Marie Salwey, 55, was taken 16 miles to a LaCrosse hospital. First-responders from Dakota described her injuries as non-life threatening. The accident was about 6:50 a.m. She was in a 2022 Ford Maverick in the east-bound lanes heading toward LaCrosse.

MINNEAPOLIS – Customs agents reported belatedly that they intercepted giraffe turds in the luggage of an Iowa woman returning on an 8,200-mle flight from  Kenya. The woman explained she planned to make a necklace, as she had done with moose turds from earlier travels. Agents destroyed the giraffe jewels with steam sterilization. The droppings were potential carriers of swine fever, Newcastle disease, foot and mouth disease, and swine vesicular disease the agents said. The incident was September 19 at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.

Around your neck? The turds were resting on a towel in a sealed metal meal box.

LAMOILLE, Minn. – A Twin Bluffs man was arrested and charged with drunken driving after deputies found his car in a ditch off Highway 61. Deputies said that Gene Allan Schueler, 68, wasn’t hurt but reeked of alcohol, stumbled and mumbled and had bloodshot eyes and failed several field sobriety tests. At the Winona County jail his blood tested as 0.10% alcohol, exceeding the allowable max by 20%.  The accident was found about 1:20 p.m. at Miner Valley Road at Twin Bluffs.