December 5, 2001 - Three decades after the Swedish pop group ABBA first started toping charts, the group's songs became the basis of a musical "Mama Mia". MPR’s Lorna Benson talks with songwriter Björn Ulvaeus, who says he told musical producer Judy Cramer she could do whatever she wanted. He said he gave the project his blessing on one condition…don’t change the lyrics.
December 5, 2001 - Southern Minnesota started the day with a December heat wave. The Twin Cities shattered the old record high of 54 degrees, when it hit 63 during the midmorning hours. Tony Zaleski, forecaster with the National Weather Service in Chanhassen, says a lot of things came together to produce today's record high temperature.
December 3, 2001 - Former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive Sara Jane Olson was in a California courtroom today, asking a judge to allow her to withdraw her guilty plea. Olson pleaded guilty to attempted murder in October but then told reporters she was innocent. She pleaded guilty again a week later but on November 13th she filed papers asking that she be allowed to take her plea back. Frank Stoltz, a reporter for our sister station, KPCC, in Los Angeles was in the courtroom and joins MPR News with an update.
December 3, 2001 - Minnesota's first recorded healthy quintuplets are in stable condition today. The babies were born Friday afternoon at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis to a Moorhead woman who wants her name kept private. All five were delivered by C-section in less than three minutes. Quintuplets occur once in every 3.4 million births. The hospital isn't saying whether fertility drugs contributed to the pregnancy. Dr. Judith Nye delivered the quintuplets. She says the babies were born 25 weeks into the pregnancy; she was hoping they would make it to 28.
December 3, 2001 - A judge refused today to allow Symbionese Liberation Army radical Sara Jane Olson to withdraw her guilty plea. Olson pled guilty in October to attempting to blow up police cars and then promptly told reporters she was innocent. She re-stated her plea again in November but later asked to withdraw it.
November 30, 2001 - All Thing’s Considered’s Lorna Benson interviews Minnesota Twins third baseman Corey Koskie about the the effect of the unknown has on him and his family's financial security. The idea that Major League Baseball could contract the team weighs heavy on players.
November 29, 2001 - The United Nations is appointing former U.S. Senator George McGovern as the U.N.'s first global ambassador for hunger. McGovern will organize relief efforts in Third World countries and help people there improve food production techniques. He just finished serving as ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agricultural program in Rome. McGovern grew up during the Great Depression. He says he never personally knew real hunger, but his family provided food to young men in need:
November 28, 2001 - Minnesotans are amoung the most prolific inventors in the country. A review of filings with the U-S Patent and Trademark office from 1990 to 1999 ranked Rochester 3rd and the Twin Cities 10th in number of patents for every 100-thousand residents. Minnesota was the only state to place two metro areas in the top ten. The review was conducted by an online newsletter called Demographics Daily. Mike Moore is the director of health technologies at the University of Minnesota. He says both the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota have large research budgets that drive innovation:
November 27, 2001 - Because of Northwest Airlines having a hub in Minnesota, Sun Country had a hard time from the beginning.
November 26, 2001 - A major winter storm could dump record amounts of snow over much of the state. It has already forced many schools in southern and central Minnesota to close early. And Twin Cities Airport officials have had to cancel more than 70 incoming and outbound flights. Seth Binau (BEE-now) is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chanhassen. He says the storm is concentrated on the central third of the state: