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BOB POTTER: Now the time is 11:30. This is Midday for Tuesday the 29th of October. I'm Bob Potter. Briefly in the news today, a big victory parade for the world champion Minnesota Twins is in full swing in downtown Saint Paul right now. The US economy resumed growing in the third quarter, but analysts wonder how long it will last. And Presidents Bush and Gorbachev say they won't try to dictate peace terms in the Middle East. We'll have more about these and other items in our first half hour.

Also in this half hour, a profile of a politically and economically diverse section of Minneapolis called Ward six. And then at noon, a baseball extravaganza. Will follow the progress of the Saint Paul parade, Check the start of the Minneapolis parade at around 12:30, and also visit at the dome, where Gary Eichten and Howard Sinker are standing by. And we'll open the phone lines for your questions and comments about baseball as well.

A rather nasty day for a parade. As a matter of fact, temperatures are falling around the entire region this morning. At Sioux Falls, it's down to 23 degrees with flurries and a wind chill of minus 8. At Houghton, it's cloudy and 50 degrees. Fargo-Moorhead, light snow and 24. Rochester, 38. International Falls, 37. Duluth Superior, 48. Saint Cloud, 30. And Minneapolis, Saint Paul, 36 degrees now with a southwesterly wind at 21 miles per hour.

The National Weather Service has put out a winter weather advisory for the extreme Northwestern part of Minnesota this afternoon. The temperatures will fall in the East and hold steady in the West. Patchy freezing drizzle will turn to light snow or flurries in the West this afternoon. Scattered showers or thundershowers are possible in the Middle East. Lows tonight will range from the teens in the Northwest to near 30 in the Southwest. Need I say, temperatures will be dropping throughout the day.

And then for tomorrow, it'll be cold across Minnesota with a chance of light snow or flurries, highs from the 20s to the 30s. In the Twin Cities, cloudy, chilly, some drizzle or brief freezing drizzle possible this afternoon. Snow flurries possible later today too. Temperatures continuing to drop into the 20s today. Winds will switch out of the Northwest and increase to 15 to 25 miles per hour. Tonight, cloudy and much colder with a 30% chance of light snow or flurries. The low will be in the 30s. Tomorrow, cloudy, cold, flurries possible. Expect a high tomorrow of around 30 in Minneapolis Saint Paul.

Thousands of Minnesota Twins fans lined the parade route that began in Saint Paul about an hour ago. Its destination is the State Capital. The parade then resumes in Minneapolis and ends up at the Metrodome, where organizers plan a celebration for the players and fans beginning at around 2:00 this afternoon. The parade is moving by Minnesota Public Radio's Kate Moos vantage point right at this moment. And Kate, let's check in and see how things are going.

KATE MOOS: Hello, Bob Potter. In fact, the front of the parade is moving past the corner of 7th and Wabasha here in downtown Saint Paul. In fact, we've set eyes on Tom Kelley with the pohlads early up in the parade. Gene Larkin just went by. Greg Gainey looking quite dapper, Potter, with a big, white, bath towel wrapped around his head. The crowd is very happy to see their heroes. And in fact, let me check with Robin Gehl, who's at my side here, and see what she can see from our perch on the side of the World Trade Center. Robin, who's out there now?

ROBIN GEHL: Well, there's a little bit of a lull now. We just had Gene Larkin, a big hero of the World Series. Big Cheers went up for Brian Harper, Rick Aguilera, little lull. We've yet to see Kirby Puckett and Tonia. They should be on their way. A nice idea, this truck thing, really nice and visible for a lot easier to see them than it was in '87.

BOB POTTER: How many.

ROBIN GEHL: Nicely organized, parade fans having a good time?

BOB POTTER: Good. Any idea, Kate, how many people are out there? As much a crowd as it was in '87 Or is it hard to tell?

KATE MOOS: This was exactly where I was perched also in '87, Bob. And it sure looks to me to be at least the crowd of '87. People do seem perhaps a little more demure, not quite so feverishly excited as they were then. But I tell you, there's a great deal of fun being had here. People of all ages, kids from school, businessmen shivering in their suits. And here comes someone else, Potter. You can hear the cries rising behind me. Let me stand on tiptoe once again and see who's coming up.

ROBIN GEHL: Scott Erickson. Scott Erickson, Chili Davis, two of the big heroes of the season. Now we're coming along here. David West and his wife, Rebecca, are going by. A lot of Cheers from fans. We've yet to see Kent Hrbek. He's probably on their way here. Likewise Kirby.

KATE MOOS: OK. More people, Potter, coming along in the parade. You can hear that wind blowing against the microphone.

BOB POTTER: Oh, yes.

KATE MOOS: It's picking up.

BOB POTTER: That might account for the enthusiasm being just a tad less wild than it was in '87, because as I recall, it wasn't quite as cold during the parade at that time.

KATE MOOS: That could be.

BOB POTTER: All right. Kate Moos, down there at approximately in the vicinity of the World Trade Center as the parade goes by. Its destination is the State Capital, and Minnesota Public Radio's News director, Loren Omoto is up there. Loren, what kind of a crowd do you see at the capitol?

LOREN OMOTO: A cold crowd, Bob.

BOB POTTER: A cold one, eh?

LOREN OMOTO: No offense, but I don't think they needed you to tell them that the temperature is dropping. A lot of these people have been out here for the better part of two or three hours now. And a few of them brought umbrellas, which is a good thing because just now at the State Capitol, some light rain or sleet or something starting to fall. And from this vantage point, I'm up here standing next to a guy who certainly doesn't mind the cold weather. John Albert Johnson, three time governor of Minnesota who has now being immortalized in bronze--

BOB POTTER: Yes.

LOREN OMOTO: --out here in front of the building. And I'm Mr. Johnson, certainly doesn't seem to mind the cold weather. But from where I stand and where he stands, we can just now see the first of the trucks coming across the Wabasha Bridge. From there, they're going to take a right turn onto 12th Street, I believe it is. And then they're going to come up Cedar Avenue past-- well, turning at the Minnesota Historical Society building.

Then they're going to come past the Capitol on Commonwealth Avenue, taking the full semicircle in front of the building. Then they're going to take a left turn onto John Ireland Boulevard and head off toward the Saint Paul Cathedral. People lined up about four or five deep, both sides of that route, all the way up through the Capitol mall area.

BOB POTTER: Doesn't look like there's going to be any speechmaking up there today, Loren?

LOREN OMOTO: Boy, no sign of that. No podiums have been set up, and there certainly don't seem to be any of the speechmaking dignitaries around. I think a few people were probably hoping for that, and that's why they came up here to the Capitol rather than going downtown. But as you know, the official plans call for most of the speeches to be made over at the Metrodome.

BOB POTTER: All right, Loren. Thanks a million. We'll check back with you as warranted as the parade continues. And, of course, our wall to wall baseball hour begins at noon today, so be sure to stay with us. Howard Sinker and Gary Eichten are over at the dome, and you'll have a chance to visit with them by telephone as well. Let's move on and check some of the other major news items of the day, both in our country and around the world.

First of all, some economic developments. The Commerce Department reports today that the US economy grew at an annual rate of 2.4% in the third quarter of this year, that figure roughly in line with economists' forecasts. Worry is mounting, however, at the White House and among business leaders that the recovery is already stalling. Financial markets are speculating that policymakers must soon cut interest rates again to try to spur consumer spending and keep modest growth alive.

President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev say they will not try to dictate peace terms to the Arabs and Israelis. The two leaders made that pledge in Madrid, Spain where tomorrow they open the Middle East peace conference. They held a news conference today after having a meeting on a variety of issues. David McNeill reports.

DAVID MCNEIL: As expected, the talks were wide ranging, but they produced no major developments on the two main issues arms control and economic aid for the Soviet Union. The two presidents said officials from both sides would be having more talks. At the news conference, Mr. Bush was asked about his relationship with Mr. Gorbachev, who has lost almost all of his power since the attempted coup. I'm very happy to see my friend again, Mr. Bush said.

I sense no difference in the frankness with which we exchange views. As for whether the United States was placing more emphasis on dealing with the republics now that the influence of the center had been greatly diminished, Mr. Bush would say only that he would deal with what was there. Mr. Gorbachev curtly brushed aside a mischievous question about who was doing his job while he was out of Moscow. He told reporters, I'm still the president. Nobody's going to take me out of the action.

Both presidents refused to say what course they would like to see the Arabs and Israelis follow when the Middle East peace conference gets underway here tomorrow. Mr. Bush said the parties had been brought together, something many people thought would never happen. And he wasn't about to give anyone the chance to walk away or make additional demands because of something he said. Mr. Gorbachev, too, would not discuss the talks in any detail. Everybody who is here has real concerns, he said. So let's just open the conference.

BOB POTTER: That's David McNeil, reporting from Madrid for the BBC. In the past four decades, there have been at least a dozen major Middle East peace initiatives, most of them ending in complete failure. But for one reason or another, the parties occasionally have decided to talk, at least. Anne Garrels reports on the factors that made people willing to negotiate in the past and what that suggests for the prospects of the current round of talks.

ANNE GARRELS: Beginning with the armistice agreements of 1949, war seems to have been a fundamental ingredient to any successful diplomacy. Stephen Cohen is President of the Center for Middle East peace, based in Montreal.

STEPHEN COHEN: The negotiations in 1949 came after a terrible bloodletting in the war of Israeli independence, the war that produced the state of Israel. The negotiations that followed the 1973 war, the disengagement agreement with Egypt, the two with Egypt, the one with Syria, followed a very dramatic and shocking event, both for Israel and for the Arabs.

ANNE GARRELS: President Bush has sought to exploit the opening created by the war with Iraq, one week after the ceasefire and one day after President Bush told Congress the war is over. Secretary of State Baker began his shuttle diplomacy. He succeeded in getting the parties to the table. But is the Iraq war enough of a trauma to bring about a settlement? Stephen Cohen suggests that because the parties were only marginally affected by the war, Iraq was only a near trauma, not the necessary push wars have been in the past. Another lesson is that for successful negotiations, the parties have to believe the existing situation is intolerable. William Quandt of the Brookings Institution believes that may now be true for only one of the parties.

WILLIAM QUANDT: The Palestinians, more than perhaps any other party, feel that the situation is bad, may be intolerable, and likely to get worse unless something comes out of the negotiations.

ANNE GARRELS: Israel's leaders, on the other hand, may believe they could be worse off as a result of these negotiations. Richard Murphy, a former State Department official in charge of Middle East issues, is now with the Council on Foreign Relations.

RICHARD MURPHY: I see in Princeton's Mr. Shamir a man who is extremely pessimistic about moving forward, because I at least I believe he senses that the status quo, messy, unsatisfactory as it is, probably better than what's to come. That he will be put in the peace conference and peace negotiations under great pressures to make concessions, concessions that will lead to a less secure situation for Israel. And it's based on, I think, a very pessimistic view of Arab-Israeli relations that there's been hostility, there is hostility, and there always will be hostility. I don't agree with that. But that, I think, is his view.

ANNE GARRELS: Following the '67 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors, there were no negotiations. Shortly after the '73 war, the US and the Soviet Union hosted an international peace conference in Geneva. It met for a day and a half but never reconvened and failed to bring the parties together for a comprehensive solution to the conflicts.

It did set the stage for Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy, which produced a series of disengagement agreements, but peace between the parties remained elusive. Until a dramatic gesture by Egypt's President Anwar Sadat. In 1977, Sadat made a historic trip to Jerusalem and offered full security guarantees in return for Egyptian lands. No one is approaching these talks in Madrid with the philosophy that inspired Sadat. Quandt says any hint of goodwill is missing this time.

WILLIAM QUANDT: So that's unfortunate. And it is different from some other phases in the negotiations, particularly Camp David. By then, there was enough prior history that each side may have distrusted each other. They certainly did. But they were pretty realistic about what needed to be done. There aren't great statesmen towering over this process. There are rather frightened politicians more frequently who are as worried about keeping their jobs as about anything else. That's not an encouraging part of the process.

ANNE GARRELS: Another ingredient missing from past negotiations is extensive preparation. By the time Sadat and Begin met at Camp David in 1978, Quandt says enough work had been done that the two men knew within 5% to 10% what they could get out of the summit.

WILLIAM QUANDT: The basic trade off of the so-called land for peace trade off had been basically worked out pretty well in advance. Nothing comparable exists today, nothing.

ANNE GARRELS: Richard Murphy says the accumulated history will have its impact on the Madrid talks.

RICHARD MURPHY: There is fatigue. People are tired of the conflict.

ANNE GARRELS: But positions have also become more entrenched over the years.

RICHARD MURPHY: And when you look at the creation of facts on the ground in terms of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and the Golan Heights, you see the results of efforts ever since 1968, I guess, was when the first settlements started to ensure that not all of the lands occupied in the six-day war would ever be returned. And so time is an enemy of a solution.

ANNE GARRELS: While there are elements of past successes missing at the Madrid talks, Stephen Cohen says one key weakness of the past has been overcome.

STEPHEN COHEN: Whoever was negotiating, there was someone who was left out. And that's someone who was left out felt particularly vulnerable as a result of the negotiation that was taking place without them, and therefore reacted with particular anger and violence as a result. This time, the achievement of Baker is that he's really been able to get most of the key parties around the table.

ANNE GARRELS: And Richard Murphy points to the change in the political backdrop, the improvement in US-Soviet relations.

RICHARD MURPHY: At least in eliminating that adversarial relationship with the Soviets, we've taken the outer layer of the onion off. It still makes you cry when you look at the size of the problems and the complexity that remained to be solved.

ANNE GARRELS: The Camp David process, the most successful negotiations to date, ultimately failed to resolve key questions. Who will control two of the most precious resources in the middle east, land and water? That has not changed. Every effort to have a comprehensive settlement is the basis of negotiations has failed. But starting with comprehensive talks has at least helped to push the process forward in the past. I'm Anne Garrels in Washington.

BOB POTTER: 14 minutes now before 12 o'clock. You're listening to Midday on Minnesota Public Radio. Our baseball extravaganza on the air at noon today. Hope you'll stay with us. We'll be visiting with Gary Eichten and Howard Sinker at the Metrodome and checking on the progress of the Twins Victory parades in Saint Paul and Minneapolis as well.

Minnesota House and Senate DFL negotiators say they have agreed on a congressional redistricting bill. The measure makes generally minor changes in the current 4 to 4 split of US House members between the Twin Cities and the rest of Minnesota. Next Tuesday, election day, voters in the Sixth Ward in Minneapolis are scheduled to choose a new council member to replace the late Brian Coyle.

Coyle was elected in 1983 and served 7 and 1/2 years before he died of AIDS earlier this fall. The Sixth Ward has had a history of political activism rooted in neighborhood organizations that is perhaps more intense than other parts of Minneapolis. Minnesota Public Radio reporter Karen Boros offers this profile of the area designated as Ward Six.

KAREN BOROS: Ward Six is a slip of sometimes ragged real estate between the sparkle of downtown and the plusher neighborhoods of South Minneapolis. On the West End, there is an area known as The Wedge, a triangle defined by Hennepin and Lyndale. This is a neighborhood where Elm trees still arch over the streets, a neighborhood of big old wooden houses built at the turn of the century by Scandinavian carpenters.

Many of the houses are divided into apartments. Some show peeling paint. But the trend here is renovation, and the rewards for those willing to work can be magnificent. These are houses with hardwood floors, stained glass, carved fireplace mantels. If Ward Six has a silk stocking neighborhood, it is The Wedge. But most of the Ward steps out in work boots.

The addition of The Wedge to Ward Six in the early '80s prompted some to think the time had come to send a Republican to City Hall. The Wedge had previously voted with shi-shi Kenwood and, together, the two neighborhoods had been sending a Republican downtown. Tom Clark got the nod. He also got the backing of a coalition of Republicans and DFLers hoping to take advantage of, what else is new, a split in the DFL. They raised money, campaigned vigorously, pounded lawn signs, and got beat by DFLer Brian Coyle, whose supporters figured out something Clark's army never mastered, how to gain access to the security apartment buildings that dominate the Ward.

LISA KUGLER: It is 89% rental. It has very high-income people who live in mansions around the Art Institute around Pillsbury Avenue. It has a substantial population of very low-income people.

KAREN BOROS: Lisa Kugler of the Whittier Alliance describes her neighborhood just east of The Wedge as one dominated by older housing. More than 90% of the dwellings are more than 50 years old. There is concern about crime in the neighborhood and concern that the area is unfairly portrayed as unsafe. Kugler finds a lot to recommend Whittier as a good place to live.

LISA KUGLER: It's close to downtown. It has excellent transportation. There are a lot of useful services. There's all the retail anybody would need.

KAREN BOROS: The heart of the West half of Ward Six is 26th and Nicollet, an intersection with a large drugstore on one corner, a coffee house across the street. It is a neighborhood of restaurants-- Greek, Vietnamese, Mexican, and German. The business lunch crowd is just leaving on this day at the Black Forest, a dark-walled restaurant where checkered claws cover the tables, and meals are likely to conclude with strudel. Owner Erich Christ has finished his lunch and looks ahead to the dinner hour.

ERICH CHRIST: In the early evening, families-- well, quite a few senior citizens families. And then after, about 9:30 in the evening, its young artists and people who drink a beer before they go to bed. The assignments today are meet Tom and Jim Eaton, corners Wayne and Mike--

KAREN BOROS: Not everyone in Ward six eats dinner in a restaurant. At Loaves and Fishes too, volunteers from the Colonial Church of Edina are preparing to serve a meal of ham, corn, coleslaw, bread, and cookies, free to anyone who is hungry and not using drugs or alcohol. In 1982, this program started as an emergency response to federal aid cuts.

It is now a way of life, serving nearly 400,000 meals a year in six locations. This evening, the doors have opened to admit more than 200 diners with more expected. They sit quietly in the dining hall. About a third are adults with children. There are some who wear the badge of life on the streets, but most are cleanly dressed and come forward politely when dinner is served.

SPEAKER 1: Hi. How are you tonight?

SPEAKER 2: Fine.

SPEAKER 1: Good. Hi. How are you?

SPEAKER 3: Hi.

SPEAKER 1: Good. Hang on tight. He's ready for Christmas, is what's going on here now. He just got a huge shipment of baskets in.

KAREN BOROS: Not far away from the food lines, Brenda Saint-Germain stands in a warehouse room filled with African baskets. The air smells sweet of straw in the new Franklin Business Center run by the American Indian business Development Corporation. 10 years ago, this stretch of Franklin was dominated by boarded up businesses, cheap bars, and liquor stores with metal grates to protect the glass. In the '50s, Franklin Avenue was a thriving commercial strip. In the '60s, families started moving out to the suburbs. The city struck the final blow in the '70s.

SPEAKER 4: The city, in the '70s, built a freeway system that cut off Franklin on three sides, making us an island. So customers were denied easy access to this area, and we lost 67 businesses in a 20-year period. And along with that came the general neglect, deterioration, the rundown. The neighborhood was virtually ignored by the city.

KAREN BOROS: Saint Germain and others from the community worked a decade to put together loans, grants, and mortgages to build the business center and a shopping center just down the street. The business center, opened just two years, is headquarters for 25 companies employing 200 workers, a start.

SPEAKER 5: What kind of soups?

SPEAKER 6: This is Adzuki bean soup. And this is garbanzos delight. And this is the soup that goes with the seasonal, creamy, wild rice, but it's nondairy.

KAREN BOROS: If you head East on Franklin and swing North on Cedar, you will find the new Riverside cafe, where Sammy [? Hollinger ?] is serving up lunch in a restaurant that has been a gathering place for the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood for decades. The big windows along Riverside are filled with hanging plants. Some diners sit alone and study. Others linger in conversation over coffee. One of the ironies of political line drawing is that the cafe has been across the street from the Sixth Ward for the past 10 years. But a lot of what has happened in the Sixth Ward has been hatched at these tables.

JOAN CAMPBELL: The Sixth Ward is a very active ward with regard to the people that live there. They're a very active neighborhood groups. It's a very diverse community.

KAREN BOROS: For years, Joan Campbell presided over the Minneapolis DFL. She says the Ward's tradition of activism goes back to the antiwar movement of the '60s and was propelled by opposition to riverfront high rise plans in the '70s, a time when a lot of antiwar demonstrators gave up protest politics, but not in the Sixth Ward.

JOAN CAMPBELL: First of all, there's a history of neighborhood activism doing things about housing, rehabbing old buildings. The Whittier school, for example, was rehabbed into apartments. A lot of the '60s and '70s housing and low income advocates settled in the Sixth Ward and brought that activism down to the neighborhood level.

KAREN BOROS: At City Hall, they are working to redraw city political boundaries, which could cause major change. In the past, the Sixth Ward has claimed and lost downtown Minneapolis, claimed and lost the university's West Bank. 1992 will bring new Ward boundaries. But regardless of how the lines are drawn, it will be difficult to make Ward number six a ward easy to ignore. In Minneapolis, I'm Karen Boros.

BOB POTTER: Six minutes now before 12 o'clock. We're following the progress of the Minnesota Twins Victory Parade through St Paul. It's up near the state capital right now, I think, and Loren Omoto is up there. Hi, Loren.

LOREN OMOTO: Actually, just past the State Capitol, Bob. And the last units now are headed South on John Ireland Boulevard before making that turn onto Interstate 94. The crowd breaking up. It took about 12 to 15 minutes for the whole parade to pass by here in front of the State Capitol building. And with the gray overcast that's out here today, it just makes it look almost like a Christmas light display as all those police cars, fire cars, and flashing lights on the pickup trucks disappear down John Ireland Boulevard.

BOB POTTER: Loren, a very quick question for you. How about confetti? Have you seen a lot of confetti on the streets?

LOREN OMOTO: Not a whole lot, Bob. Mostly just stray pieces of newspaper from that commemorative edition that the Saint Paul paper was selling today.

BOB POTTER: All right, Loren. Thanks a lot.

LOREN OMOTO: Sure.

BOB POTTER: Loren Omoto at the Minnesota State Capitol. And the Twins Victory Parade now heading apparently down the freeway toward Minneapolis. We'll catch up with them when they get to Minneapolis during our next hour. You're listening to Midday on Minnesota Public Radio. The time now is five minutes before 12 o'clock.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir arrived in Madrid today for the peace conference. His arrival followed word that three Israeli soldiers died and seven were Wounded in separate attacks in South Lebanon. The Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah claims responsibility for at least one of the attacks in South Lebanon today. Not all of the participants in the Middle East are delighted with what's going on in Madrid. Iran, for example, has had some concern about it, and we have more on that in this story.

GERALD BUTT: Over the next few days, all the major states and regional power blocks in the Middle East will be represented in the Madrid meetings, with two exceptions. Iraq, which is still blockaded by United Nations sanctions, and Iran, the giant at the eastern edge of the region. President Rafsanjani and the group of pragmatic leaders clustered around him find themselves in an awkward position.

Since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent international military moves to drive out Saddam Hussein's army, Iran has said it must be included in any future plans for Middle East peace and security. In part, the Tehran government is anxious to encourage regional cooperation to remove any further pretext for Western armies to be deployed in the area. Iran also wants to be accepted back into the mainstream of the international community after many years in isolation.

In particular, the Iranians have a desperate need for Western financial help to rebuild their economy. To try to improve its standing in Western eyes, for example, Iran has been using its influence to free hostages in Lebanon, working closely with the special envoy of the United Nations Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar. At the same time though, President Rafsanjani remains opposed to any compromise being negotiated with Israel, and is particularly unhappy to see the Arab Gulf states agreeing to be represented in Madrid.

But the president doesn't want the peace process to spoil his attempts to improve relations with the West, and that's why he's thought to be uneasy with some of the recent remarks made by hardliners within his own country. Hardliners loyal to the tradition of former Ayatollah Khomeini still represent a potential threat to his government. With the holding of the Madrid talks, the Iranian leadership felt it had no choice but to allow the radicals to have their voice to let off steam.

The former hardline interior minister Ali Akbar Mohtashami, for example, called for suicide attacks to be carried out against Israeli interests to disrupt the peace process. Mohtashami described the Madrid peace conference as a grand treachery and a crime against the Palestinian people and the Islamic nation.

The real problem for Tehran is that it wishes the Madrid conference simply wasn't happening. Because apart from ideological considerations, it doesn't like the idea of being excluded from such a gathering. In the end though, Western diplomats in the gulf say President Rafsanjani is hoping that the radical protests will subside and that Iran will quietly go on improving relations with both the conservative Arab states in the gulf and with the West. For example, plans are going ahead for Iran and Saudi Arabia to exchange ambassadors. And according to diplomats, there is no suggestion that the Iranians are going to stop the hostage release process. For National Public Radio, this is Gerald Butt in Nicosia.

BOB POTTER: Forecast for Minnesota includes a winter weather advisory for the Northwest this afternoon. Patchy, freezing drizzle in the West will become light snow or flurries. Drizzle will continue in the East, with temperatures falling in the East and holding steady in the West. Tonight, there's a chance of light snow in the West, scattered snow showers or flurries in the East, and lows from the teens to around 30. In the Minneapolis Saint Paul area, we can expect temperatures to drop into the 30s as the afternoon continues, and there is a possibility of some light drizzle, possibly even becoming patchy freezing drizzle as the day wears on.

The markets next. Stock prices have turned higher now following the government report this morning that economic growth in the third quarter was in line with expectations. The Commerce Department reported before the start of trading that the gross national product was up 2.4% from July through September. Although that was the biggest advance in more than two years, analysts say many traders had anticipated it and decided to sell after the report's release.

But things have turned around on Wall Street now. And as of 11:30, the Dow Industrials stand at 3,064. That's up 18 and 1/3 points from yesterday's close. The transportations are showing a good gain too up 10 and 1/2 points, and the utilities are up about 3/4 of a point. Minnesota Public Radio's coverage of social issues is made possible in part by a major grant from the McKnight Foundation. This is a member-supported service. This is K-N-O-W, 91.1 FM. 13:30 AM, Minneapolis, Saint Paul. The Twin Cities news and information station of Minnesota Public Radio.