MPR News Features are news segments created for various long-form programming, including Morning Edition and All Things Considered, amongst others. Features run the gambit of interviews, reports, profiles, and coverage.
December 7, 1996 - This time of year makes many people think about family - their own family and the relationships within that define it. Commentator Gary Eustice thinks there are ways generations both weaken and stregthen us.
December 7, 1996 - The historic Purcell-Cutts House in Minneapolis will be decorated for the holidays for the first time since it's restoration. The home remains one of the the most significant examples of Prairie School architecture in the country. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is offering hoilday tours of the Purcell-Cutts home. Visitors will have the opportunity to see how the home might have looked as the Purcell's celebrated Christmas in 1917.
December 9, 1996 -
December 11, 1996 - Twin Cities playwright Kevin Kling takes to the stage of the Jungle Theatre in Uptown Minneapolis tomorrow night for the annual seasonal run of sacred and possibly heretical Christmas stories. It was a Freudian slip, I swear, when I asked Kevin to explain the show, and I referred to it as Fear and LOATHING in Minneapolis.
December 11, 1996 - The first part of this story is directed at kids ... Kids, if your mom or dad is talking about buying a computer for Christmas, make sure you get them to promise to take care of it. You should make it clear that owning a computer is a big responsibility, and you know they're going to be asking you to show them how to work it. Now, for the adults in our audiences ... I asked Jon Gordon, host of Minnesota Public Radio's Future Tense, the best way to go about buying computer stuff during the holidays.
December 11, 1996 - Telemedicine...using special video-phone or satellite connections to link up doctors with colleagues in other cities ... has been around for years. It's mostly been used for medical conferences and consultations with specialists. But as Minnesota Public Radio's Lorna Benson reports, some rural Minnesota physicians are experimenting with telemedicine in their emergency rooms to see if they can hand over some of their late-night and weekend emergencies to doctors in bigger hospitals.
December 11, 1996 - The city of Minneapolis is once again setting its sights on a section of Nicollet Mall for redevelopment, and as in the past, not everybody is happy with the plan. It's already been announced that Target stores Inc. plans to build a new headquarters on the mall. Now the city, along with a local contractor, want to raze a block along the south end of the mall to make way for a new Target store and office tower. But some tenants on the block don't want to leave and charge the city with bulldozing the plan through.
December 11, 1996 - This afternoon the St. Paul city council will discuss a proposal to tie business development aid to jobs that pay $8-twenty-five-an-hour or better. The proposal comes from a task force assembled by the city councils of both Minneapolis and St. Paul to look at how the cities can cultivate so-called "living wage" jobs. Business groups have lobbied successfully against such legislation at the state level...and helped defeat a similar proposal in St. Paul last year. This time around...business has been largely silent in the debate...although that's likely to change with this afternoon's council hearing.
December 12, 1996 - MPR’s Elizabeth Stawicki reports on Minnesota Supreme Court decision that State can commit convicted sex offender Dennis Linehan to a state hospital. The Court had to decide whether the government can lock up a person based on what the person may commit in the future. The ruling upholds Minnesota's Sexually Dangerous Person's law, a law that incarcerates sexual predators who've served their prison terms but who the court considers too dangerous to set free.
December 12, 1996 -