WINONA, Minn. — During a traffic stop, the cops were sure that Nathan Brett Styles, 27, had been drinking. He smelled like it. Too, he admitted to being at a bar a half hour earlier. His blood-alcohol content on the spot showed impairment at 0.9%. In the car with Styles was David Frederick Dantzler, also 27, and he had a cold beer open — an open container in a vehicle is a  legal violation in Minnesota. Both men were charged. Styles is from Mundelein, Illinois, and Dantzler from Homestead, Florida. The stop was about 12:05 a.m. at Third and Sioux streets on the West Side.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The same driver was stopped for drunkenness at the wheel two times in three days in Winona County, the State Patrol reported in a wrap-up its Labor Day weekend crackdown. In all there were 267 law enforcement agencies participating in the Patrol’s safe-deriving promotional campaign. Not everybody got the message. Total DWI arrests statewide: 1,140. The Patrol reported these blood-alcohol concentrations as the highest of the weekend:

> Nobles County: 0.44%.

> St. Paul: 0.43%.

> Faribault: 0.41%.

> Anoka: 0.39%.

> Crosby: 0.037%.

These concentrations all exceed the medical threshhold for alcohol poisoning. Above 0.40% is potentially fatal. In Minnesota the allowable max for driving is is 0.08%.

Penalties

Under Minnesota law:

> First offense: A revoked driver license as long as one year, thousands of dollars in higher insurance premiums, court expenses and other costs, and possible jail time.

> First offense at 0.16%: In addition: An ignition interlock on vehicle. Also possible: At least one yearrevocation of driver license.​

> Repeat offense: In addition: At least one year without a driver license.​

> Third offense: In addition: An interlock on vehicle for three to six years.

WINONA Minn. — A dog jumped out of a moving vehicle on Wabasha Street and was struck by a following car. He ran off limping badly. The driver who hit the dog stopped and ran after him. He caught the dog. Police responded and took the animal to a veterinarian. The damaged front leg will mend. He’ll be OK. This was about 10:50 a.m. in the 150 block of Wabasha Street.

ELBA, Minn. — The crash woke the neighbors. A driver coming down the hill from Altura and across the Whitewater River into Elba went straight through the intersection and into the concrete steps up to the St. Aloysius Church sanctuary. This was about 1:50 a.m. The church was vacant. In fact, it’s been closed since 2017. When deputies arrived, Jared Blake Hernandez, 27, of Rochester, said he swerved to avoid a deer and lost control. An alternate explanation, deputies said, was a blood-alcohol level of 0.19%, 1-1/2 times the allowable limit.  Damage to the church was minimal.  The church was also stuck by a car in June from the same direction, also late at night.

Earlier: Elba church spared in one-car rollover

Hernandez. Missed corner at State Highway 74 and County Road 26.

An awing engineering accomplishment. The Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Area Flood Risk Management Project has been selected to receive the National Academy of Construction’sSpecial Achievement Award. Image: Shannon Bauer

$3 billion Army Corps wins engineering citation

FARGO, N.D. — A huge project to prevent periodic floods that have caused catastrophic destruction on the Minnesota-North Dakota border for years has won a special achievement award from the National Academy of Construction. The $3 billion project can divert the Red River before populated areas on the border are inundated The project includes a 30-mile diversion channel with upstream staging and flood water storage as well as 21 highway and railroad bridges, two  \aqueduct structures, 40 miles of levees and floodwalls, three  large, gated control structures, 22 miles of dam embankment, and four miles of elevation of Interstate 29, and environmental and cultural adjustment along the stand-by flood routes. This project will provide flood risk management for 260,000 people and 70 square miles around Fargo-Moorhead and head off flooding 80 miles north to Grand Forks and beyond into Canada. The National Academy of Construction cited creativity, innovation and vision — and accomplishments in engineering, design and construction in a resource-constrained environment. The project was headed the Army Corps of Engineers. The Academy called it “truly a generational project.” The award will be presented to the Army Corps on October 12 at the Academy’s annual meeting in Boston.

Problematic river. Because the Red River flows north, downriver ice backs up the flow every spring from thawing southern regions. The river, the squiggly lines on the map through Fargo-Moorhead, which periodically floods, as so downstream northern cities like Grand Forks, 80 miles away, and points father nrth. On the map the diversion project, the bolder line, is designed to sweep flood waters around the metropolitan area through dans that open into a series of aqueduct  and rural drains and basics. How massive was the project. Think Grand Coulee and other dams in the Pacific Northwest in the 1930s.

WINONA, Minn. — Winona’s first poet laureate, James Armstrong, has published anther book of poetry, “Empire,” and has a pubic reading Friday at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. Time: 5 p.m. Armstrong retired from the English faculty at Winona State University this spring. He was named the city’s poet laurate in 2007. The book, 110 pages, was published by Shipwreckt Books of Winona. Appropriatel the reading is in the context of the museum’s current marine art collection. His earlier works were Armstrong is the author of two previous poetry collections, “Monument in a Summer Hat,” from New Issues Press of Kalamazoo, Michigan, and “Blue Lash,” from Milkweed Editions of Minneapolis. Poems from his term as poet laureate are included in the anthology “Crossings: An Anthology of the Poets Laureate of Winona,” also published by Shipwreckt.

Publisher. Issued by Winona pulisher Shipwreckt Books in March. Price: $19.

Armstrong. Retired after a career teaching poetry and creative writing.

Among reviews

Kimberly Blaeser, Wisconsin poet laureate: “‘Empire’ lays bare truths of our oldest plagues — human greed and settler colonialism. In an America where ‘television is our forever’ and ‘this night is as dark as it is going to get,’ and ‘sorrow is a door that keeps opening.’”

Albert Goldbarth, two-time National Book Critics Circle winner: “Armstrong’s poems demonstrate the ability to be photographically exact and wildly imaginative at once with an ability to compact large-scale ideas in deft phrases. These are tomorrow’s adages in the making.”

Soccer (women): Winona State 1, Concordia of St. Paul 1

Tennis (women): UW-Whitewater 9, UW-LaCrosse 0

Volleyball (women): Loras 3, Saint Mary’s 1

Volleyball (women): Coe 3, Saint Mary’s 0

Volleyball (women): UW-LaCrosse 3, Simpson 2

Volleyball (women): UW-LaCrosse 3, Macalester 1

WINONA, Minn. — A Winona man said something didn’t seem quite right about a call — that there was a federal warrant out for his arrest. The caller, who identified himself as from the U.S. Immigration Service, then e-mailed a valid-looking copy of the  warrant. Then Winona man did as instructed by the caller, He went to several stores and bought gift cards totaling $2,950. After the money was gone, the man, who lives in 150 block Waterford Circle, rethought the whole deal and called police. Yes, police said, it was a scam.

WINONA, Minn. — In the mail any day now, a Winona man will be receiving a shop-lifting citation. House detectives at Walmart accused the man of sticker-switching and taking merchandise through a self-checkout aisle. Stickers from three $1 toys had been affixed on two tires and a 12-pack of Mountain Dew, the video showed. The value: $258. Police identified Christopher Wayne James Swinger, 48, from store surveillance video and mailed him a shop-lifting citation. The theft was September 4, but the store didn’t figure it out right away.

Swinger. Whatta deal: Two tires for $3, not to mention a Mountain Dew 12-pack

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Drug trafficking charges were leveled against a Rochester man in whose car police found 844 M30 pills that were laced with fentanyl. Charged was Jacob Donavan Danielson, 28. While Danielson was being booked, a jailer found a small blue container with a controlled substance in his BVDs. The arrest was over Labor Day weekend, but the most serious charges were delayed until confiscated items were lab-tested. The charges: Felony first-degree, second-degree and third-degree drug sales and felony first-degree and second-degree drug possession. Court records show a previous possession conviction in Rochester.

The take-down

Police responding to a report of a man slumped over in a vehicle outside a a hotel found Danielson waking up. This is their report: When an officer knocked on the widow, Danielson got out, looked at him and turned and scooted off. Another officer intercepted him. This about 11:30 p.m. on September 5. When a K-9 unit. arrived, the canine officer Mack confirmed drugs were in the vehicle. Officers already had seen a “tooter,” a straw used to inhale drugs, in the front seat. They also had seen two see-through zip-lock bags with white powdery substance showing through. Confiscated besides the 844 M30 pills s were an Adderall stimulant pill and a bottle of the addictive relaxant Hydroxyzine.

WINONA, Minn. — Somebody stole a hammock and backpack from a parked car on the West Side — and left a cell phone behind. Police found the phone in the car and identified the owner. A visit from an investigator was pending. The theft was reported about 4:45 a.m. in the 400 residential block of West Fourth Street.

WINONA, Minn. — A female with a youngish voice called police to report that minors were being served at a downtown bar. She hung up before leaving her name. This was about 12:15 a.m. Officers went to the bar, in the 100 block of West Third Street, and found no under-age customers. The bartender said, however, that he had refused to serve girl whose ID showed she was 20 — too young to drink legally. He said she huffed out, saying she would get even.

Flamboyant livery. Winona State University, host for the Recharge Winona EV event, has begun its own e-fleet.

Future peek: How we’ll soon all be getting around

WINONA, Minn. — The future of motoring will be in display Saturday in a fitting location — under the new solar-panel parking roofs at Winona State University. It’s an event valled Recharge Winona EV. Electric vehicles — cars, bikes and scooters — will be on display and some even available fro test drives. Time: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free. Test drive pre-registration.  Nathan Engstrom, campus sustainability director, said the line-up  includes:

Test Drive

> Hyundai Ioniq 5

> VW ID4 x)

> Tesla Model 3

> Toyota BZ4X

> Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe

> Jeep Wrangler 4xe

Showcase

> Tesla Model Y

> Kia Niro EV

> Chevy Bolt x3

> VW ID4

> Ford Mustang Mach E

> BMW i3

Ride along

> Nissan Ariya

> Ford CMax

E-bikes 

> Adventure Cycle and Ski

> Bird scooters