January 28, 2003 - Six retail chains, including Minnesota-based Best Buy, plan to provide consumers with a way to download digital tunes. In response to the popularity of CD burners and online music services, the stores formed a joint venture called Echo. Specifics of the plan aren't available, but a Best Buy spokesperson says the store will probably offer digital downloading at in-store Internet kiosks. Matt Kleinschmit is a director at the Minneapolis office of the market research firm Ipsos-Reid. He says this new approach to digital music could help the music industry.
January 28, 2003 - With the recent cold temperatures, it makes you wonder how Minnesota residents ever got through the winter hundreds or even thousands of years ago. For Minnesota's native peoples, the trouble with the long winter months was not only fighting the cold, but fighting boredom. For the cold, they had leather tipis, warm fires and rabbit-fur mittens. And when it came to staving off boredom, Minnesota winters were perfect for tossing snow snakes. Mainstreet Radio's Jeff Horwich explains:
January 22, 2003 - Minnesota film maker Patrick Coyle says his film "Detective Fiction" is getting a good response at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was shot entirely in Minneapolis and tells the story of a technical writer struggling with sobriety and writing a 1940's style detective novel. "Detective Fiction" had it's Sundance premiere this past Monday. Coyle says there's a lot of great energy in Park City, Utah.
January 22, 2003 - Minnesota film maker Patrick Coyle says his film "Detective Fiction" is getting a good response at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was shot entirely in Minneapolis and tells the story of a technical writer struggling with sobriety and writing a 1940's style detective novel. "Detective Fiction" had it's Sundance premiere this past Monday. Coyle says there's a lot of great energy in Park City, Utah.
January 20, 2003 - MPR’s Annie Feidt reports on new technology that is helping resorts produce even better snow…and removing humans from the equation. Trollhaugen ski area is testing out an automated snow gun for the first time this year in efforts in working towards full automation.
January 10, 2003 - Pheasants Forever is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a meeting this weekend in the Twin Cities. Star Tribune outdoors writer Dennis Anderson launched the organization with a column he wrote in March, 1982 on the decline of the state's upland bird population. At the time, he was writing for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The organization now has over one hundred thousand members in 28 states and Canada. Anderson says it's difficult to assess the impact Pheasants Forever has had over the last two decades:
January 6, 2003 - Republican Tim Pawlenty took over as Minnesota's governor today at a noontime swearing-in ceremony in downtown St. Paul. He is the 38th person to hold the office. Pawlenty must find a way to eliminate a four and a half billion dollar budget shortfall over the next two and a half years while adhering to a campaign promise not to raise taxes. And he didn't shy away from the issue in his speech:
January 3, 2003 - American Indian activist Russell Means is beginning the new year free of an old burden. Means was pardoned by South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow earlier this week. The pardon wipes away a felony conviction, stemming from a 1974 courthouse riot Means was involved in. He spent a little more than a year in prision for the offense. Governor Janklow called Means into his office Monday to discuss the pardon. Means and Janklow were friends in the late 1960's, when they worked together on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. And Means says that in this case, an old friend turned out to be a good friend.
January 1, 2003 - Advice columnist Dan Savage gave himself an enviable assignment for his new book- he decided to tour across America, taking an in depth look at the seven deadly sins. He traveled from Texas to Iowa, from California to New York and made at least one stop in Las Vegas, Nevada. He learned to shoot, gamble, swing... he ate with abandon, envied the rich, lazed around and joined a pride parade. The result was "Skipping Towards Gomorrah", a parody of Robert Bork's 1996 book "Slouching Towards Gomorrah." Savage says he wanted to write the book to counter conservatives like Bork who accuse Americans of living lives full of sin:
January 1, 2003 - A new Minnesota law that takes effect today requires people selling a home to disclose problems with the property to potential buyers. Some cities already have similar laws, but this is believed to be the first statewide regulation. The law won't apply if the buyer and seller agree to a professional home inspection. Republican state representative Mary Liz Holberg sponsored the bill. She says she supported the bill because she had a family member who bought a house with major hidden problems: