BECKER, Minn. – A turkey crashed into a State Patrol vehicle responding to a traffic accident. The trooper, Matthew Egeberg, 28, of Elk River, was taken to Monticello Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.  The turkey didn’t survive. The incident was about 5:45 p.m. on Highway 10 and Gardner Street in Becker.

ROCHESTER, Minn. – A 14-year-old Zumbrota boy was responsible for a hoax bomb threat at the regional Apache mall, polies qaid. The call was at 1 p.m. Police and emergency personnel, including a bomb-sniffing K-9, swept the mall but didn’t find a bomb. During the search, police tracked the threat to Zumbrota boy. A charge of a terroristic threat can be expected, police said. The boy was not arrested but turned over to his mother. Shopping return to normal at the 114-store mall by 4 p.m.

ZUMBRO FALLS, Minn. – A 17-year-old Hammond girl was injured when her 2011 Nissan Juke left U.S. Highway 60 three miles east of Zumbro Falls. Kara Ann Lombard was taken 29 miles to a Rochester hospital. Her injuries appeared to be non-life threatening. She was alone on the car, heading west toward Zumbro Falls. This was about 1:55 p.m.

WINONA, Minn. – An outside prosecutor has been brought into the disappearance of Matti Kingsbury, a Winona woman missing now seven weeks. Her sister Megan told television station KTTC that Phillip Prokopowicz, a retired Dakota County prosecutor, has been put in charge as special prosecutor. Megan Kingsbury said she didn’t understand the details.   Prokopowicz, age 65, lives in Inver Grove Heights, a St. Paul southern suburb in Dakota County.

Earlier: Kingsbury custody issue: Blacked-out documents

ROCHESTER, Minn. – A 70-year-old Rochester man, whom witnesses said had his head down, walked into a Canadian Pacific freight train downtown at a crossing with flashing lights. The man died on the spot. Police didn’t release the man’s name immediately. They have no explanation for why them man, a pedestrian, walked into directly the moving train. This was about 1 p.m. at Broadway and Civic Center Drive. Witnesses said the train had blown its warning horn. The train was a through freight hauling ethanal on the trans-Minnesota route line to Winona.

WINONA, Minn. – A police officer spotted a car oddly blocking Broadway Street at Carimona on the East End and stopped to check what was going on. One occupant ran. The other stayed put. A block away the officer caught the runner: Brady Thomas Fort, 19, of Winona. Why did he run? The officer quoted him as not wanting to get in trouble. He was ticketed for under-age boozing. His blood-alcohol tested at.09% just above the threshold for drunkenness. The other guy, also 19, got off with a warning.

WINONA, Minn. – A Wisconsin driver, Franklin Caden Craig Clayes, 20, of Mosinee, had an object hanging from his rearview mirror, a seemingly modest offense. But then the traffic stop got serious. Clayes’ blood-alcohol level tested at 0.10%. Also his eyes were bloodshot and runny. He smelled of alcohol. He admitted to a few beers.  He failed the usual sobriety tests right there at Sanborn and Franklin streets on the East Side. This was about 2:10 p.m.

WINONA, Minn. – A northern Minnesota woman, Grace Richardson, 22, of Mahtowa, was charged with drunken driving after a police officer said she was driving over the center line repeatedly. She almost struck one parked car, the officer said. Her blood-alcohol level tested at 0.14%. Anything above 0.08% comprises legal impairment. The arrest was about 1:14 p.m. on Whitten Street just off Fifth Street on the Far West End.

WINONA, Minn. – A Washington state woman, zipping her way at 100 mph from the West Coast, ended her odyssey asleep on a lawn chair on Mankato Avenue in Winona. It had been quite a journey for the woman, who one point – in a police stop between Nodine and Dakota on Interstate 90 — had given her name as Danielle Mefhel Poirier, 36, and her address as Federal Way, a Tacoma suburb. Police, however, aren’t sure she gave them the right information.  She first had hit police radar in South Dakota at 112 mph. A state trooper gave up the chase when she crossed into Minnesota. A little later a Minnesota trooper spotted her at a fueling stop. The trooper said she wasn’t cooperative but not doing anything criminal. Two-hundred miles later, on the Four-Mile Grade down from Nodine, she was clocked at 102 mph. Again she was non-cooperative, but this time the officer took her in, to the station house in Winona. A drug evaluation expert had trouble checking for an illegal substance in her system, which it was thought explain her physical symptoms, but her lack of cooperation made the test difficult, police said. She was released, In the meantime, a Winona relative came forward and expressed surprise that she was in town and wasn’t being expected. Then police found found her asleep on that lawn chair on Mankato. She was taken to the Winona hospital for evaluation for substance issues and her mental state. Among pending charges were speeding.

FARGO, N.D. — A federal judge has signed off on an order taking a Minnesota man off Death Row. The order means that Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. instead will serve a life term for the 2007 kidnapping, rape and murder of a University of North Dakota student. The change in Rodriguez’ status is consistent with the abolition of federal capital punishment under President Biden. Rodriguez was convicted in 2003 for kidnapping 22-year-old Dru Kathrina Sjodin from a Grand Forks shopping mall, for sexually assaulting her, for cutting her throat, and for leaving her to die in a ravine near Crookston, in northwest Minnesota. Her body was found when the snow melted six months later.

Earlier: Judge: Death penalty possibly flawed for Rodriguez

Rodriguez. Now age 63. From Crookston. Will be moved out of the federal Terre Haute, Indiana, prison, where death penalty inmates are kept.

In your face. Somebody took the shirt off his back, plus a bunch of neon reflector triangles, for a makeshift hard -to-miss alert at a right-angle torn on County Road 18 south of the state highway shops. Yes, there’s  been a regulation stop sign as long as anyone can remember, but obviously it’s not enough. And the county has failed to install rumble strips. Image: Steve Lunde

Driver injured where County 18 becomes Sand Hill Road

UTICA, Minn. – An Indiana driver was hurt on County Road 18 east of Utica, the latest victim of one of Winona County’s worst corners – the double 90-degree turns to Sand Hill Road and Burt Road. Joseph Burkhammer, 69, of Fort Wayne, was taken to the Winona hospital with non-life threatening injures. This was about 1:20 p.m.

WINONA, Minn. – Copper thieves again targeted Schneider Heating & Air Conditioning on Harvester Street. The theft of copper coils overnight was discovered about 9:30 a.m. With commodity copper prices at a new high, scrap copper goes for $4 pound and more. Police began reviewing video videos for clues.

Earlier: Copper thieves rip off old air-conditioners

Unloading for reloading. An orange shovel transfers dredged muck to shore, and a tracked dozer builds a storage mound, eventually 30 to 40 feet high. Then the Army Corps looks for a customer who needs free fill for construction and trucks it out.

An eyesore for sure but temporary if all goes well  

HOMER, Minn. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which controls navigation on the Mississippi River, plans to dredge river-bottom sediment to its riverside Homer dump site south of Winona. Dredging begins next week and will continue to late June, the Corps said. Eventually the Corps hopes to truck the muck to construction sites as fill. The current plan is to dredge 27,000 cubic yards of muck from a three-quarter mile stretch of river for temporary storage at Homer. To make room, 45,000 cubic yards from prevvous dredging was removed over the winter for fill at the Winona Technology Park. Paul Machajewski,  the Corps’ material manager, called the Home riverside storage site a arrangement a win-win:  “Helping communities develop solutions for their construction fill needs, while building additional storage capacity and maintaining the navigation channel is the goal.”

Earlier: Army Corps hires trucks to move Homer muck

Earlier:  County to Army Corps: No river muck at quarry

Bald Mountain Wildfire.  In the Grande Prairie Forest in northern Alberta. Estimated at 60 square miles and growing. Image: Alberta Fire Service

Air quality dangerous in large swath of North America

GRAND PRAIRIE, Man. – Giant wildfires burned out of control across northern Alberta and Manitoba, sending scorched dust particles high air currents over south-central Canada and as far south in the United States as as Chicago and St. Louis. The Alberta Fire Service said the fire season was off to an unusually early start. So far 150 times more area in Alberta has burned than in the last five years combined by the same date. The situation was similar in the northern prairies of the adjoining province of Manitoba.

Earlier: Canada wildfire smoke pollutes Minnesota air

WINONA, Minn. –A Winona driver stopped by police for a bad brake light didn’t smell right. And, said officers, his eyes were bloodshot and watery. Officers asked Marcus Christopher Rayneil Webb, 33, to walk a straight line, to touch a finger to his nose, and other field sobriety checks. He failed. At the jailhouse he his blood tested at 0.13% alcohol. Too high. He admitted to two, maybe three alcoholic beverages earlier in the night. The stop was about 1:15 a.m. near Fifth and Zumbro streets on the East End.

WINONA, Minn. – A Winona driver’s blood-alcohol tested for 0.15%, almost twice the legal impairment level, so police arrested him for drunken driving. This was about 2:55 a.m. on the West Side at Fifth and Baker streets. Police quoted Caleb Jesse Stenberg, 23, as having had “a couple of beers” earlier in night.

STOCKTON, Minn.  — A brush fire got away from a homeowner on Quarry Hill Rood atop Stockton Hill and set the house afire. By the time that firefighters arrived from Lewiston and Winona, the homeowner had put out the flames with a garden hose. This was about 1:30 p.m.  The fire didn’t penetrate the interior.