Firefighters deep in smoke. Can you see them? They are among 950 personnel sent into the wilderness following lightning-ignted fires  in the wilderness.

Greatest losses on Minnesota side of Canada border

ELY, Minn. — Fifteen fires remained volatile in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, including the stubborn Little Knife Fire within 10 miles of the west end of the Gunflint Trail.  Foresters hoped to have every fire under control Friday. Meanwhile, adventurers are bding parts allowed again into parts of the 1.1 million-acre backcountry along the Canada border. The burned acrege exceeded 63,000 acres on the Minnesota side of ghe  border. Canada lost 8,400 acres\.  The public was still asked to refrain from flying drones, which endanger firefighting aircraft. The public also was asked to keep to keep boats off the water in areas where water-gathering aircraft were scooping water for aerial drops.

Earlier: Up North wildfires thickening our air

Earlier: National Guard to Boundary Waters for wildfires

MINNEAPOLIS — Federal prosecutors urged Judge John Tunheim to sentence political assassin Vance Boelter to two life prison terms. Boelter earlier pleadedguilty to killing state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband and shooting a state senator and his wife in June 2024. It’s been called most serious political crime in Minnesota history. In a 31-page sentencing recommendation, federal prosecutors said Boelter should “never be free again.” Judge Tunheim will announce his sentencing decision in September.

Boelter. In 1989 yearbook from at Christ for the Nations Institute in Texas. Earlier, in 1997, he and his wife Jenn were married in Winona. Moved numerously. Holds 1996 degree from St. Cloud State University in international relations.

WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 52 emergency medical calls plus 20 fire calls in recent days:

> Tuesday, July 21: 6 medical calls plus 2 fire call.

> Monday, July 20: 4 medical calls plus 1 fire call.

> Sunday, July 19: 7 medical calls plus 1 fire call.

> Saturday, July 18: 5 medical calls plus 3 fire call.

> Friday, July 17: 9 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.

> Thursday, July 16: 8 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.

> Wednesday, July 15: 4 medical calls plus 4 fire calls.

> Tuesday, July 14: 7 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.

> Monday, July 13: 4 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.

Earlier: Emergency, fire crews make 36 calls

WINONA, Minn. — Police located jtwo uveniles who scaled a wall at the vacant Pizza Hut on the West End and were running around the place’s signature red roof. The 13-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl were scolded and turned over to their parents for more scolding. This was about 5:40 p.m.

BLUFF SIDING, Wis. — A Winona man was charged with beating his girlfriend’s dog to death at the Winona municipally owned Aghaming wildlife preserve on Latsch Island. Quintin James Ehlo, age 21, was charged in Wisconsin’s Buffalo County, which has legal jurisdiction. The girlfriend told sheriff’s deputies that Ehlo called her July 10 thar the dog, a German shepherd named Tru, was “not doing well.” Come right away to Aghaming Park, he said. At the park she found Tru dead It was heat stroke, she said Ehlo told her. An autopsy revealed. however, that the dog died of blunt-force trauma, —not the heat. She and Ehlo had shared a Winona apartment a few months after moving from Arizona.  She said Ehlo took Tru without permission while she was napping. He had commented frequently how hated the dog, she said. Tru, who was 7 or 8 years old, was a service animal registered to the girlfriend.Echlo was charged with mistreatment of an animal causing death, criminal damage to property, and disorderly conduct.

Aghaming Park profile

The 1,900-acre park is a strip of wild bottomland across the Mississippi River from Winona. Lumber baron John Katsch bequeathed the land to the city in 1934. The park is one of the best-preserved floodplain forests in the country. It’s on the Mississippi flyway, a major migratory route, and a a bird-watching paradise. The park is managed jointly by the City of Winona   with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Legal jurisdiction is murky because the park, being east of the Mississippi main channel, is in Wisconsin’s Buffalo County.

WINONA, Minn. – A woman collapsed and died at a community pickleball court on the flatlands a couple miles  beyond the Garvin Heights bluffs. Sally Ann Moran was 63.  This was about 10:35 a.m. in the 23000 block of Garvin Heights Road. An autopsy was ordered

WINONA, Minn. — Police knew to be looking for Jorge Laguardia Dermas. On surveillance video they earlier had seen him pedal a bike up to an address on West Mark Street, dismount, drop the bike to the ground, pick up another bike that already was on the property, and ride off. The video showed the swap at 11:15 p.m. Next morning: Officers located Dermas downtown on a bench at Levee Park with the Schwinn Ranger mountain bike at his feet. “Why’d you swap bikes?” His answer: Mine was old and in poor condition. Schwin Rangers areworh about  about $300. He was cited with misdemeanor theft. Dermas, age 20, has been  staying at the Winona homeless shelter. Earlier he lived in  Richland Center, Wisconsin.

WINONA, Minn. — Commuters iver Stockton Hill in and out of Winona will find U.S. Highway 14 reduced to a single lane starting Monday. The road is being resurfaced. Flaggers and a pilot car will guide traffic. The project is expected to take to the end of September.

WINONA, Minn. — Police arrested a Winona man on a motorbike after another man, on foot, reported being harassed at Levee Park. The complainant said two men on motorbikes kept circling him. Police arrived and saw one biker leaving. They followed him slowly with flashing red lights. After a block or so, the biker stopped but refused to dismount or identify himself or to comply with other instructions.  Later he was identified as Antonio Dewayne Mitchell, age 32, of Winona, who had been warned twice before that state law forbids motorbikes on sidewalks. This was about 9:40 o.m. Back at the Levee the original reporting party, age 29, said that a court order had been issued  against one of the motorbikers to stay away from him.  It turned out that the restraining order had noty et been served. Officers did so on the spot.

LEWISTIN, Minn. — A Lewiston woman called deputies that she had been slapped in the face during an argument with a man whom she knew. The man was gone when deputies arrived. This on First Street South about 5:10 p.m. Deputies issued a bulletin for the man to be picked up. Deputies logged the call as domestic abuse.

WINONA, Minn. — A Wisconsin driver, apparently impaired by alcohol, failed to make a complete stop at a red light.She was leaving downtown onto Huff Street. A deputy pulled her over. Her blood-alcohol level tested on the spot at 0.15%, almost double what’s allowed.  The deputy took Katie Lynne Curtis, age 35, of Sparta, to jail. This was about 1:10 a.m. The stop was where Huff takes a right-angle turn into Riverview Drive.

WINONA, Minn. — A Lewiston man wasn’t supposed to be driving was stopped driving and arrested. Jason Thomas Peshon, age 52, was stopped on the far side of the Interstate Bridge to Wisconsin. Police said Peshon acknowledged not having a license. Further: He was driving without an iignitn lock that had been ordered by a judge because of a drunken driving record. The arrest was about 6:45 p.m. on State Highway 43 near Latsch Island Road.

Peshon. The judge won’t like hearing any of this.

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — A man’s body was recovered from the Chippewa River after he refused police calls to wade to shore but refused and kept going deeper. Police had been responding to a fight on Galloway Street about 2:30 a.m. The man had been involved in the fight nut fled, police said. The body aws found just below the Haymarket Landing. The man’s name was not released immediately.