December 13, 2000 - If you turned on your television at 9 o'clock last night, you caught sight of an unusual spectacle. Reporters on every major network were already commenting on a complicated Supreme Court ruling they hadn't yet had a chance to read. Many got the story wrong, and only slowly came to realize what the decision really meant. Matthew Felling is Media Director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington D-C. I asked him what he thought of last night's coverage:
December 6, 2000 - University of Minnesota doctors are hoping a drug that has shown promise treating alcoholism and gambling adiction can also help patients overcome kleptomania. The rare disorder gives people an irresistable impluse to steal. The drug, called Naltrexone, works by blocking the pleasurable high Kleptomanics feel when they shop-lift. Dr. Jon Grant, a Pyschiatric Resident at the U of M, is conducting the study. He says Kleptomania is one of the most disabling disorder's he's come across:
December 5, 2000 - The Minnesota National Guard will send members of its 34th infantry division to Bosnia in April of 2002. The Pentagon choose the Minnesota division, along with divisions from five other states to be on rotating six-month assignments until 2005. Lieutenant Colonel Denny Shields is the Director of Public Affairs for the Minnesota National Guard. He says the army is relying more on part time soldiers to staff its peacekeeping missions around the world:
December 5, 2000 - The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system this afternoon named James McCormick as its new Chancellor. McCormick has been head of the State System of Higher Education in Pennsylvania for the past 17 years. McCormick says initially, he wasn't interested in the job, but that he warmed to the idea when he learned more about the 35-school system:
December 5, 2000 - A Lutheran church in St. Paul voted this week to ordain a lesbian pastoral minister who has been with the congregation since 1983. The decision by St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church defies a rule by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that prohibits the ordination of gay or lesbian pastors living in committed relationships. Pastor Paul Tiedaman says the congregation took the action after many years of waiting for the ELCA to change its position. But he says ELCA officials finally ruled last month that they would not approve Anita Hill's ordination.
December 4, 2000 - How the Northwest Airline mechanics strike is affecting travel and business. The union is now in court.
November 30, 2000 - A new study says Twin Cities residents spend more on transportation than on any other necessity, including housing. The Surface Transportation Policy Project-- a national smart-growth advocacy group based in Washington D-C-- ranked the Twin Cities 6th of 28 metro areas in out of pocket expenses for transportation. The typical Twin Cities' household spent 8,600 dollars per year on transportation. And 98 percent of that money went into owning and operating automobiles. The findings are based on data from the federal goverment's Consumer Expenditure Survey. Barbara McCann Co-authored the study. She says the findings weren't very suprising:
November 29, 2000 - Minnesota's recent warm winters have left ski-enthusiasts pining for the days of predictably snowy trails. Well, if Ahvo TY-pah-le has his way, good snow cover will never be far away. Ty-pah-le -- who owns Finn-Seesu Ski Shop in St. Paul -- wants to build the continent's first underground cross-country skiing facility. He doesn't have a site picked out for the so-called "ski-tunnel" but he estimates it will cost about 14-million dollars to build. Ty-pah-le says he visited the world's first ski-tunnel, in Finland, and thought the Twin Cities could use one too:
November 29, 2000 - An old Minnesota controversy has a breath of new life thanks to a semi-retired chemist in Wisconsin. Barry Hanson has gathered a team of experts to study whether the Kensington Runestone might actually have been carved by wandering Vikings in 1362. Most experts agree the stone is a hoax, carved in 1898 by a Swedish farmer and stone mason. But Hanson says he began to doubt those claims when he first visited the museum ten years ago:
November 29, 2000 - Northwest Airlines and its mechanics union squared off in federal court in Minneapolis this afternoon. The airline was asking judge David Doty to find the Airline Mechanics Fraternal Association in contempt for violating his order last week NOT to engage in an illegal slowdown. Minnesota PUblic Radio's Mark Zdechlik has been at the courthouse following events.....