Basketball (boys): Chatfield Gophers 58, Richand Center 41

Basketball (girls): Chatfield Gophers 59, Arcadia Raiders 57

LACROSSE, Wis. — The county prosecutors in LaCrosse have done their homework finally and refiled murder charges against a Genoa man. This time the prosecutors assured the judge that they had reviewed reports from the fire marshal and the coroner.Earlier in the week Judge Scott Horne scolded the prosecutors and threatened to dismiss their filings. This time prosecutors were able to tell the judge definitively that Alexa Picket, age 27, was already deceased before the fire. That contradicted the claim of Matthew Sierra, age 38, of Genoa, that she was alive when he left her place. Sierra, meanwhile, remains jailed in lieu of $1 million bail on charges now recognized by Judge Horne as first-degree intentional homicide, arson, and animal mistreatment. Not only did Pickett die but so too an unborn child and her dog.

Earlier: Murder? Arson? Judge insists on documents

FRANKLIN, Wis. — Franklin Mayor John Nelson acknowledged that pretty much everybody in this far south Milwaukee suburb knew what was going on the On the Border gentlemen’s club although not about the sex trafficking and abuses that have been alleged this past week. Mayor Nelson added, however: “Is this the type of business that we want in Franklin? No, we don’t.” Nelson said that Franklin, population 39,000, “has grown and matured and prospered to where this type of business isn’t needed anymore.” There have been four arrests on charges of human trafficking women for sex, horrendous physical abuse, and victim intimidation. These followed a multi-year investigation by the FBI and Milwaukee County authorities. Mayor Nelson said the club’s owners have been cooperative over the years. Among those charged his past week is the general manager, Brian Hopkins, 50. He was charged with seeping a place of prostitution. Prosecutors were soecific: “Neither Hopkins nor OTB prevented or stopped the commercial sex acts from occurring within the business.” The complaint said that three of the men accused in the compilaint were “pimps and management at OTB knew this.” Meanwhile, an unsigned statement was issued by the club

Meanwhile, the doors at On the Border remain open 11:30 a.m.to 2 a.m. except Sundays, which are 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Huge prostitution case

Wen attorneys asked that the detainees be freed on bail pend=ing further court proceedings, the judge said no and   called them flight risks:

Earlier: Interstate sex ring busted; abuses alleged

ROCHESTER, Minn. — The Winona-Rochester Catholic bishop has been impersonated in unseemly ways online according t to recent reports on the three television stations serving Rochester. These reports, on KAAL, KIMT and KTTC, appeared to be rehashes from September. Those reports were themselves vague on detail. The bishop, Robert Barron, maintains an elaborate and immensely profitable online presence with his “Word on Fire” program. He has flirted politically with the American right-wing. He attended Trump’s joint address to Congress in 2005 and has engaged with policy issues like immigration. He invited right-wing orator Charlie Kirk to rally in Minnesota just before Kirk was assassinated in Utah. In these activities the bishop has maintained nuanced if not complex stances, both supporting and criticizing aspects of Trump’s actions while emphasizing Catholic teaching. 

Earlier: Bishop had invited Charlie Kirk on-air

Earlier: Deepfake posts defame, irk Catholic bishop

Earlier: Bishop backs Trump attack on transgender funding

Earlier: “Word on Fire” priest installed as bishop

Earlier: Pope chooses new Winona-Rochester bishop

Commission profile

President Trump, although not a religious person, created the Religious Liberty Commission in June 2005, ostensibly to identify threats to religious liberty in public life. There were only Christian members — no Islamists, who, at 4.5 million, comprise a growing 1.3% of the U.S. population. On subordinate advisory unit was is Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, a classical Islamic scholar. The commission has met four times, sometimes with Trump as a welcoming speaker but not otherwise participating. Key members include Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bodi; Trump’s secretary of housing, Scott Tuner; Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patick; televangelist Franklin Graham; and Carrie Prejean Boller, a former Miss America.

LACROSSE, Wis. — The first positive case of chronic wasting disease in deer this year in La Crosse County has been reported. The state Natural Resources Department said the adult buck was harvested in a southeast part of the county. As a result, the agency is extending its baiting and feeding ban three years in LaCrosse County and adjoining Monroe and Vernon counties.

Earlier: Special CWD-targeted deer season opens

WINONA, Minn. — An Iowa woman died apparently of a drug overdose after police were called to an address on Garvin Heights Road about 2:30 a.m. The woman was unresponsive, police said. She died at the hospital.  Police didn’t release details pending an autopsy but said the woman was 46 years old and from Gilman 200 miles away in southeast Iowa.

FARMINGTON, Utah — A 42-minute video by independent journalist Nick Shirley went live with his claim of having unearthed $110 million in fraud in government aid to Minnesota childcare providers. The video went viral, first on the platform X, then on YouTube. Shirley recorded visits to 10 childcare businesses at Minneapolis and found no children — not one: Just sparse rented space mostly in shabby industrial zones. He banged on locked doors, rang door bells, and tried peeking through blacked-out windows. These places had signs purporting to be state-licensed daycare centers but, as Shirley repeatedly notes in the video, there were no children around — even any playground equipment. At a few places Shirley found lone persons appearing to be clerks. He used a ruse that he was looking for a place to enroll his son Little Joey. To his persistent question “Where are the kids,” he got no answer.

Michael Moore redux

While the video is convincing in the jagged authentic style of Mihael Moore’s 1989 “Roger and Me” documentary, it raises collateral questions. For sourcing, Shirley relies solely on a self-styled citizen researcher identified only as “Dave,” who claims to have scoured state licensing documents on childcare facilities and on state payments on reimbursement claims. Who is “Dave”? Shirley never says.

Unaddressed, unsettling omissions

>  Is “Dave” a Republican dupe set up to embarrass the Democratic administration of Governor Walz, a Democrat? It’s a question neither asked not addressed.

> Shirley conflates fraudsters with governmental policy-makers. While he makes a plausible case that fraud has occurred, he goes too far with indictments like: “It’s time to hold these corrupt politicians and fraudsters accountable.” But he falls way short of demonstrating bribery or favortism suggested by his word  word “corruption.”

> How legitimate are that documents that “Dave” and Shirley repeatedly wave at his camera? Convincing authentication is missing. “Dave” says a friend in state government assisted hs research. A whistle-blower? A disgrunted state employee? If so, the why djdn’t “Dave” take  sitat least  two years on the information? He could have gone to investigative agencies. He could have gone to the highly competitive and scoop-hungry Mjnneapolis news media? The Star Tribune craves scandals. So too the Pioneer Press, WCCO and KARE and the Minnesota Reformer, the Minnesota Post and MPR? Something seems too calculated in waiting until December 26  — a famously slow news day just after Christmas — to drop the documentary online and thus maximizing chances of its  being noticed.

.> How did “Dave” find Shirley for his revelations? Shirley was an a relatively obscure blogger in Utah. Although 23 and blogging since high school, his work wan’t known widely Also: He lives in Utah, 1,200 miles from Minneapolis. How did “Dave” and Shirley hook up?

> Did Minnesota Republicans have a role in the documentary  in their search fto generate  a 2026 campaign theme against Walz? Was there a tie to underscore President Trimp’s hatred for Walz in  more broadly and alsoMinnesita as a Democrat-governed state?

> Was Shirley paid to produce the video? If so, by whom?

Endangered inquiry?

“Dave” says in the video he has been threatened twice while pursuing childcare information, once with a knife and once being jumped by three men he described as Somalis. The video’s release coincides with Trump’s project to deport all 70,000 Somali immigrants in Minnesota. “Dav” makes repeated reference in the video to Somalis as a secretive and closed community and inclined to violence. Although not visible in the edited video, there are private security agents with “Dave” and Shirley  as they visit childcare sites and encounter Somali women in distinctive head scarves ad long dresses. The most tense moment in the video is when Minneapolis escort “Dave” and Shirley out of a building based on an overstated complaint that they were intrusive and harassing and instilling fear for asking “Where are the kids?” In the video Shirley asked viewers to donate to help him hm pay for his security adetail provided by Los Angeles-based BlackLine Guardian Security Operations.

Earlier: Trump yanks small-business aid for Minnesota

Earlier: Trump rehashes old news on CoVid-era fraud

Earlier: An unhinged Trump in angry Minnesota attack

Earlier: Walz sees U.S. attorney as Trump publicity hound

Earlier: True? Minnesota frauds pegged at $18 billion

Earlier: Governor names ex-judge to fight fraud

About our naughty Christmas elves

To our readers: For reasons we haven’t quite figured out, the site went dark the afternoon or evening of December 24. We believe it was the work of mischievous elves. Now that our service provider has us up and running again, we have begun reposting news that was delayed in the interruption. This may take a couple days. /jv

WINONA, Minn. — The conductor on the St. Paul-bund Empire Builder called ahead that he wanted to throw an unruly passenger off the train. Winona police were waiting. The conductor said the passenger had been harassing fellow passengers. As the train pulled out, police proceeded with the arrest but couldn’t get a straight answer from the woman about her name. Five hours later officers deduced that she was Leah Elvera Deziel, age 43, of  St. Michael, Minnesota.  She was charged with refusing to identify herself and possessing illegal drugs.

Deziel. Trackside arrest without physical resistance.

NODINE, Minn. — A Wisconsin driver was injured when her vehicle left the Interstate 90 roadway, struck a guardrail and rolled. Janet Sue Moen, age 62, of Sauk City, suffered sustainable injuries. She was taken 22 miles to a LaCrosse hospital. Winona County deputies said Moen was wearing a seat belt. Also: Her airbag deployed. The accident was between the Houston and Nodine exits about 12:25 p.m. Moen was westbound toward Rochester in a 2015 Chevrolet Equinox.

Warm holiday greetings from the Winona Journal

From a back porch deck on the south end of East Burns Valley, where Christmas dawned still white in the shade of the bluffs. Image: Andy Frank

WASHINGTON — President Trump escalated his manic revenge on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz by cancelling all Small Business Administration support for the state. Th announcement came from SBA administrator Kelly Loeffler. It was Trump’s latest noose-tightening on Minnesota in his bitter attacks on Walz for challenging him as the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 2024 and for Walz’s follow-up tours to rally Democrats against Trump policies.  The U.S. Small Business Administration had been on course to deliver $5.5 million this for loans and mentoring to Minnesota companies. Loeffler announced the cuts dripping with Trump boogeyman rhetoric – racist slurs, dog-whistle references to socialiam, and whipping boy allusions to “fraud, waste and abuse.”  She explained SBA cuts as “the result of a fundamental breakdown in the public trust.” Addressing Walz specifically, Loeffler said:

WINONA, Minn. – Firefighters were called to Immanuel United Methodist Church on the West Side for a gas odor. The church was locked and nobody was present, but low levels of carbon dioxide were detected. Eventually a church member happened by and, after unlocking a door, was advised to contact a heating and cooling contractor. This was about 3:35 p.m.

PARADISE, Mich.  — Relics from the ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald raised $150,000 in an auction coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the loss of the ship and 29 mariners. The auction was at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum on the Michigan Upper Peninsula. The highest bid was for an orange life saver doughnut with “SS Edmund Fitzgerald” stenciled in white. A wooden plank from one of the ship’s lifeboats also drew high bids, said the auction report. The ship is 550 feet deep in Canadian waters and legally off limits to divers. Most of the auctioned items were found washed up on shore.

Earlier: Remember when: The loss of a lake carrier

Video: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfmIdmvKzhA

Backyard performance. Clawed topsy-turvy from a sturdy  branch she’s feeding and also keeping herself sabotaged. Look carefully. You’ll see her reddish feathers on your right. Red-headed woodpeckers are uncommon due habitat loss, especially oak savannas and dead snags. Seeing them is a rare treat. Image: Kevin O’Reilly

WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 23 emergency medical calls plus 12 fire calls in recent days:

> Monday, December 22: 6 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.

> Sunday, December 21: 7 medical calls plus 2 fire call.

> Saturday, December 20: 1 medical calls plus 1 fire call.

> Friday, December 19: 2 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.

> Thursday, December 18: 2 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.

> Wednesday, December 17: 5 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.

Earlier: Emergency, fire crews make 53 calls

WINONA, Minn. — A Winona man was arrested after his girlfriend reported he grabbed her phonne during a 911 call at a West End apartment and fled. Arrested nearby was Mika Anthony Blaskowski, age 27. The woman, age 23, said there had been an argument about money that was in her car. She told police she locked herself in the apartment bathroom with her coat, in which she had her car keys. Blaskwski, she said, broke through the door as she was making a 911 call and took her phone. At the police station a dispatcher received the call, which suddenly went dead. The dispatcher traced the call to 55 Links Lane and sent a squad. Blaskowski was nearby. Frisked, 0.2 grams of a white powdery substance was found.

Blaskowski. Charges: domestic assault, drugs possession, interference with a police call.

WINONA, Minn.— A Winona woman had a hard time navigating her car out of the of the Winona Athletic Club parking lot on the Far East End and bumped another car. This, said police, was because she was drunk. A test found the blood of Debra Ann Burke, age 69, was running 0.10% alcohol — one-fifth more than the legal max, officers said. Burke admitted consuming, exhibited poor balance, and was unable to follow instructions, police said. After failing standard exercise for balance and dexterity, she was taken to jail.