Worse north. Heaviest snow with the orange bands. Not much expected in gray bands. Images: National Weather Service.

Winona smack dab in middle for early spring storm

WINONA, Minn. – Rain on Friday can be expected to turn to wet, heavy snow overnight, The National Weather Service sees a 54% chance of four inches on the ground in Winona and a 21% of eight inches.

NERSTRAND, Minn. – In a perverse way, it might be said that Victor Wang is a back-to-nature kind of guy. According to evidence in a criminal complaint, Wang harvested bark and boiled it in slow-cookers into a thick reddish stew. But here’s the rub: The stuff was dimethyltryptamine, known among druggies as DMT – an LSD-like hallucinogenic.  Wang, 36, was arrested on multiple controlled substance counts related felonies. He also was charged with having firearms in violation of a probation restrictions as a convicted felon. The arrest came as Wang was walking out  of his house. He had 28 grams of meth in a pocket, gents said. Found in Wang’s basement and elsewhere in the house were:

> Tree bark and roots in trash bins.

> “Precursor chemicals” with rags used as filters.

> Two slow cookers in the basement with 100 grams of DMT sludge.

> 100 gams of substances in advanced stages of DMT production.

> Two grams of psilocybin mushrooms, also called magic mushrooms.

> A small amount of marijuana.

> A glass pipette.

> Packaging materials and scales.

> Two shotguns and a rifle.

Wang. Claimed he was using the red sludge to tie-dye T-shirts.

CANNON FALLS, Minn. – The man who died in a police stand-off shot himself in the head, police said. He was identified as Dean Anderson, 25, of Cannon Falls. His body was found inside the house where he had holed up after a woman was shot and wounded at the place. Anderson was known to be hostile to law enforcement. He had firearms in the house, police said. During the stand-off, officers learned that Anderson had made prior statements that he would not go to jail. Police declined to release the name of the woman who was shot but said she had been treated and released from a Rochester hospital. She was a victim of domestic abuse, police said.

Earlier: Police charge house after stand-off: Shooter dead

RAYMOND Minn. – A mixed freight train derailed, setting cars loaded with flammable ethanol ablaze and forcing the evacuation of everyone within half a mile. No injuries were reported. Exposure to ethanol fumes can render a person unconscious. Other symptoms: Coughing, dizziness, burning eyes, and drowsiness. The derailment was about 1 a.m. near Raymond, a hamlet of 470 people on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe line between Willmar and Granite Falls. Besides ethanol, the 40-car train also was carrying corn syrup, which can sizzle but isn’t explosive. Fourteen cars carried ethanol. Fire crews streamed water on the inferno through the night.  Kandiyohi County deputies halted automobile traffic in and out of Raymond, which is near crossroads of State Highways 7, 13 and 23. The Unity Church eight miles away in Prinsburg became an emergency shelter for displaced people.

Burst tankers ablaze. Ten miles southwest of Willmar.

At dawn. Mangled wreckage, scorched earth.

CANNON FALLS, Minn. – After 5-1/2 hour stand-off and repeated police bullhorn calls to come out, officers entered the house guns drawn. Inside they found the body of a man. Apparently he had shot and wounded a woman at the house in the late morning and then holed up inside and at some point killed himself. Police didn’t release the man’s name immediately but said he was 26 years old. Police were called to house, on the East Side, about 11:30 and found a 26-year-old woman outside. She had been shot and wounded. Police established a perimeter and locked down the neighborhood and also two schools a few blocks way. Students were released beginning at 3:30 after police were confident there was no community-wide danger. The last student was picked up about 4:10 p.m.

Earlier: Daycare kids evacuated as SWAT team closes in

Earlier: Woman shot in Cannon Falls; stand-off follows

MONITCELLO, Minn. – The City of Monticello has hired an independent contractor to monitor groundwater for radioactive contamination its five municipal wells. The city earlier relied on assurances from Xcel, operator of a nuclear plant on the edge of town, for information onsafety issues. But the town’s confidence in Exel faded after a tritium leak was either unreported or underplayed for four months by Xcel. A city spokesperson, Haley Foster, explained the new monitoring this way: “While city officials are confident in the agencies and the science showing the tritiated water has not left the Xcel Energy site, we want to ensure the public feels the same confidence.” When news about the November leak broke this month, Xcel said there had been no leakage in groundwater or the adjacent Mississippi River. Then this week Xcel said radioactivity said it had just discovered radiation in groundwater at the plant, although not the river. It was then that the city decided to keep track of its wells independently. Also monitoring wells are the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the state Health Department. Both those agencies, it cannot go unnoted, were complicit in Xcel’s four-month news blackout on the initial November 2022 leak.

Earlier: New leak found, fixed at Monticello nuclear station

Earlier: Fish kill blamed on water temps at nuclear plant

Earlier: Nuclear waste at Monticello enters groundwater

Earlier: Regulators: Let’s not cry over spilt milk — err, tritium

A wary city. Xcel’s 50-year-old nuclear power station at Monticello, population 14,500, is midway between St. Cloud and Minneapolis on the Mississippi River.

CANNON FALLS, Minn. – As a SWAT team was being assembled at a police stand-off, Cannon Falls police police and firefighters and a medic extracted nine children and one adult from a daycare a few houses away. The kids were ushered outside the perimeter and released safely to family. The stand-off began about 11:30 a.m. at a house on the East Side. A man in the house apparently and shot and wounded a woman, who was retrieved outside the house and taken to a hospital. Traffic on nearby Highway 19 was detoured around the location. Schools implemented a no-one-in -or-out protocol.

Earlier: Earlier: Woman shot in Cannon Falls; stand-off follows

CANNON FALLS, Minn. – Police recovered a 26-year-old woman bleeding from a gunshot wound at a house in a leafy neighborhood after a 911 call. They carried her to safety. She then was taken 45 miles to a Level One trauma center in Rochester. This was about 11:30 a.m. Meanwhile, police set up a perimeter around the house and called in a SWAT team. Inside, they said, was a 25-year-old man. This was near First and Hoffman Streets on the East Side. Called to the stand-off were officers from Hastings and Red Wing and the Minnesota State Patrol.

FOUNTIAN CITY, Wis.  – A pre-dawn fire severely damaged a two-story house on bluff-clinging South Hill Street. Everyone escaped, firefighters said. When crews arrived around 5:40 a.m., flames were coming out of second-floor windows. The fire was contained to the second floor. Crews from four departments were called.

Not much left.  Fire crews stream water at second floor. Image: Buffalo County sheriff

LACROSSE, Wis. – An overdose rescue brought a LaCrosse man back to life – he hadn’t been breathing. But Simon J. Kleinertz, 19, isn’t out of the woods, at least not legally. First-responders found a vast array of drugs in his house. Now he aces multiple drug charges. In plain veiw, said the first-responders, were all kinds of drugs. A search warrant later revealed marijuana, cocaine, mushrooms, heroin or fentanyl, LSD, nitrous oxide cannisters for huffing, prescription drugs, scales, a vacuum sealer and baggies, a loaded shotgun, a handgun, and $15,000 cash. Kleinertz was charged as soon as he was out of the hospital. Police said the items suggested drug-dealing. A second man at the address, 1212 Ferry Street — Hunter Melby, 19 — was also revived with the overdose antidote Narcan.

Kleinertz. Released on $5,000 bail.

WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 42 emergency medical calls plus 14 fire calls in recent days:

> Tuesday, March 28: 6 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.

> Monday, March 27: 5 medical calls plus 2 fire call.

> Sunday, March 26:  6 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.

> Saturday, March 25: 7 medical calls plus 1 fire call.

> Friday, March 24: 8 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.

> Thursday, March 23: 3 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.

> Wednesday, March 22: 7 medical calls plus no fire calls.

Earlier: Emergency, fire crews 49 calls

KELLOGG, Minn.— A 14-year-old boy sank in a sand hole near Kellogg and was covered in sand.  Wabasha County deputies said the boy was pulled out but in serious condition. After resuscitation attempts the boy was airlifted 35 miles to Rochester hospital. This was about 5:40 a.m.

ST.PAUL, Minn. –At a Bible study gathering of an extended family, Robert Castillo was on a couch next to his wife. He held her hand, kissed her, and whispered something to her. Quietly she nodded no. Then he pulled out a hunting knife and began stabbing her. When police arrived, relatives had tackled Castillo and were holding him down. His wife, Corinna Woodhull, 41, died of wounds to her torso, chest and arms. This account is drawn from the family witnesses in a criminal complaint for murder against Castillo, 40. The Bible session was about 9 p.m. in the Castillo home in St. Paul.

Castillo. Criminal history includes attacking a woman with a hammer and stabbing a roommate..

Baseball: Winona State 8, Minot State 4

Baseball: Minot State 9, Winona State 8

Baseball: UW-LaCrosse 9, Saint Mary’s 4

Softball: Winona State 17, Upper Iowa 7 (6 innings)

Softball: Winona State 6, Upper Iowa 2

Softball: UW-LaCrosse 15, Wartburg 11

Softball: UW-LaCrosse 13, Wartburg 11

Baseball: Galesville-Ettrick-Trempealeau Red Hawks 12. Sparta Spartans 3

MONTICELLO, Minn. – An estimated 250 fish have died in the Mississippi River at the disabled Monticello nuclear station. The plant’s operator, Xcel Energy, said a safety shutdown at the plant this week suddenly cooled discharging water. The temperature sudden drop, from 43 to 30 degrees, was more of a shock than the fish could survive, the company said. Xcel emphasized that none of the radioactive tritium that has been leaking from the plant since November reached the river. Xcel’s point: The fish were not nuked. The sudden cooling of discharges occurred when the plant was closed temporarily this week for repairs of a 400,000-gallon leak of tritium-tainted waste water that began in November. Earlier this week Exel announced that tritium had entered ground water for the first time but not the river. Through the whole crisis at the plant, Xcel had insisted that the levels of tritium int he lealk were minuscule and no danger to human well-being.

Earlier: Nuclear waste at Monticello enters groundwater

Earlier: Regulators: Let’s not cry over spilt milk — err, tritium

Pulled from Mississippi. Xcel says it is working with the state wildlife experts and the state Pollution Control Agency on handling the fish kill.

WINONA, Minn. – A sophomore at Winona High School apparently had been drinking his lunch. Police were called. This was about 1:20 p.m.  The boy’s eyes were bloodshot and watery, his speech slurred, and he smelled like a drunk. School officials had confiscated two mini-bottles of hard stuff. A portable drunkometer showed the boy’s blood was 0.06% alcohol. His parents were called. They took him home to sober up.