WINONA, Minn. – Fire fighters hoisted a ladder to rescue a woman shouting for help from a second-floor window of an apartment building, but she was gone when they got up the ladder. Meanwhile, the building, on Huff Street, kept filling with smoke. Firefighters scoured the house for the woman and found her locked in a room inside Apartment 108. They forced the door using a set of irons. They wrapped the woman in a blanket and escorted her out of the building. This was about 2:30 a.m. in the 200 block of Huff Street. The fire was traced to a chair just inside the building’s front entryway. The flames were extinguished by a sprinkler system but still emitted lots of smoke.

TROY, Minn. — A woman told deputies that she was hit in the face and choked by a man who claimed her boyfriend owed him money. Deputies arrested Darren Henry Smith, 58, of Chatfield. The boyfriend was not present, the woman said. This was just out of Troy in the 12000 block of Cocker Drive. The woman showed signs of bruising on her face and neck, deputies said. Smith, another man and the woman were outside the house when the Winona County deputies arrived. The second man was not arrested.

RUSHFORD, Minn.  – A Winona moforcyclist was jured when he struck a deer. Ian James Bottorff, 33, was taken 24 miles to the Winona hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Deputies said that Bottorff was not wearing a helmet. The accident was about 6:25 p.m. on State Highway 43 at County Road 27. Bottorff was heading north out of Rushford toward Winona on a 2011 Kawasaki.

SPRING VALLEY, Minn. – This farm town, population 2,400, in the heart of southern Minnesota’s Amish country, has rallied to support a family that lost two grade-school children in a road accident involving a horse-dawn buggy. A caterer, Some Like It Hot, organized a food drive for the wake for the youngest children, two sisters, of the Menno Miller family. More than 700 sandwiches arrived, along with pots of coffee, fruit and water bottles. Meanwhile, two other Miller children remained hospitalized in Rochester.  The children were heading to school when their buggy was struck by a car. A family friend, meanwhile, has organized an online fund drive. Within a day 986 persons made donations ranging from $10 to $1,000. The total was $64,200 and growing.

 Earlier:  Victims’ names released in fatal buggy-car crash

Earlier: Two killed when car strikes Amish buggy

WINONA, Minn. – A Winona woman was cited as driving drunk after she was seen weaving over the center line at Broadway and Franklin streets on the Near East Side. Police quoted Sylanda Jean Davis-Starks, 23, admitted to “a few shots” two hours earlier. The stop was about 12:25 a.m. Officers sad she had bloodshot eyes and smelled of alcohol. At the jail her blood tested as 0.08% alcohol — right at the threshold for impairment.

Floating sauna. The Grand Marais sauna company Sisu + Löyly has opened a sauna that can cruise out on Lake Superior, although not far. The idea isn’t new. Floating saunas have been in Nordic fjords and urban harbors for years. Some have been been floated in the United Sates but never before in Minnesota. This one accommodates parties of six. Charge: $172 for 50 minutes.

Tennis (women):  UW-Eau Claire 7, UW-LaCrosse 2

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

TREMPEALEAU, Wis. – The quick-shop drive-in retail chain Dollar General has acquired property for a store in Trempealeau. Ground-breaking can be expected in October, said Isaac Pooler, village administrator. The site is at State Highway 35 near the Emmons Street subdivision. The Dollar General chain, headquartered in Tennessee, already has 18,000 stores. The stores nearest Trempealeau are in Galesville, eight miles away; Arcadia, 20 miles; and Cochrane, 29 miles. In all, the chain has 21 sites in Wisconsin.

WINONA, Minn. – A Winona woman, intercepted outside Walmart with a cart full of unpaid merchandise, told officers  she “wasn’t thinking,” police said. Ranee Helen Corey, 41, was booked for shoplifting. This was about 7:50 p.m. In the cart were items the store valued at $990. These included electronics, health and beauty products, clothing, household products, and groceries.

Corey. Stopped in parking lot.

WINONA, Minn. – A crook passed 23 counterfeit $20 bills at Walmart, the store told police. Police assigned an investigator to the case.

SOUTH ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Minnesota murder suspect, who was mistakenly released from an Indiana jail on September 13, made his way 580 miles back to South St. Paul and has been arrested. The U.S. Marshals Service announced the arrest of Kevin Mason, 28. He was taken tinto custody without resistance about 1 p.m. at a residence in the 900 block of Summit Avenue. Mason is charged with a fatal shooting outside Shiloh Temple in Minneapolis in 2021.

Earlier: $10,000 reward for Minneapolis murder suspect

Earlier: Jail mistake frees Minneapolis murder suspect

WINONA, Minn. – A man who had spent three hours out on the river fishing returned to the East End boat harbor about 11:30 a.m. and found gear missing from his pickup truck. Police said someone had bent a handle on the truck bed and a popped off a lock. Missing were three fishing poles, two tackle boxes and a fishing bow. The items were valued at $1,500.

MINNEAPOLIS – The Target retail chain , based in Minneapolis, is scaling back in four major markets where the company said organized retail crime and theft became unsurmountable problems. Nine stores are closing effective October 21. Being closed

> New York City: One  store in Harlem. Remaining open: 96.

> Seattle:  One store in Seattle and one in Ballard. Remaining open: 22.

> San Francisco/Oakland: One store in San Francisco, one in Oakland, and one in Pittsburg. Remaining open: 32.

> Portland: Three stores.  Remaining open:15.

Employees have an option to transfer to other locations.

Verbatim

Target, in a corporate statemnt: “We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance. We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all.”

WINONA, Minn. – With all 12 subscribing school boards now on board, the Hiawatha Valley Education District is nearly ready to close the deal and buy the Winona Mall. To be sure, said Hiawatha’s director, Deb Marcotte, there are details to iron out. But, she said, the end is in sight to consolidate Hiawatha’s far-flung special-ed programs in outlying areas into a single site. Converting the 138,000-square foot mall to learning and activity spaces will go relatively quickly, she said. There are advantages to centralizing, she said. No longer will teachers and special-ed experts need to be on the road to remote sites in Caledonia, Hokah, Wabasha and elsewhere. Also the district’s headquarters can move from cramped space on Bundy Boulevard to the sprawling mall. And students now bused from distant areas, including Lewiston, Mabel and Rushford, will go to the mall instead instead of Bundy Boulevard. It has taken months for Marcotte and her team to negotiate approval to buy the mall, a $4.2 milion deal, with all the client school boards. The last two boards signed on last week. These all are school districts that state law requires to offer programs for special-ed student but for which they don’t have resources to hire  appropriately trained staff. This is a sampling of Hiawatha client school districts:

Past its prime. The mall opened in 1983 and flourished but no longer. Gomne are anchors like a grocery supermarket or a super pharmacy or a full-serve hardware. Once te mll was also home to dress shops, jewelry stores, fashion salons, a home electronics store, a haberdashery, a book store and even an aquarium and pet store. Image: Steve Lunde

Open floor plan. Bremer Bank hAremodeled its St. Charles office at 748 Whitewater Avenue to accommodate current technology in an open floor plan. Bremer has been in St. Charles since its 2015 acquisiton of the Eastwod bank chain. The St. Charles branch has 11 employees.

Apartment project. Crews have begun excavating for a new five-story apartment overlooking the Mississippi River. The 63-unit building will be squeezed between a Union Pacific industrial railroad spur, the Burggraf Ace hardware sore, and a multi-tenant structure that houses the Winona Ambulance Service. The address will be West Second Street at the 90-degree crook of Huff Street and Riverview Drive. Image: Steve Lunde

Earlier: City waives height limit for Riverview Flats

WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 41 emergency medical calls plus 29 fire calls in recent days:

> Tuesday, September 26: 7 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.

> Monday, September 25: 4 medical calls plus 5 fire calls.

> Sunday, September 24: 9 medical calls plus 5 fire calls.

> Saturday, September 23: 5 medical calls plus 1 fire call.

> Friday, September 22: 5 medical calls plus 4 calls.

> Thursday, September 21: 5 medical calls plus 7 fire calls.

> Wednesday, September 20: 6 medical calls plus 4 fire call.

Earlier: Emergency, fire crews 47 calls