April 18, 1997 - MPR’s Bob Potter interviews Grand Forks police official Byron Sieber about flooding in the town and a mandatory evacuation order.
April 18, 1997 - John Rezmerski reads a selection from the book Green Earth compiled in The Frederick Manfred Reader, edited by John Rezmerski and published by Holy Cow! Press.
April 21, 1997 - MPR’s Dan Gunderson reports on the major impact Red River flooding has had on Grand Forks, North Dakota. The Red River will crest today in Grand Forks at 54 feet - more than double its normal depth. The flood has forced the evacuation of Grand Forks and the city across the river, East Grand Forks, Minnesota. Over the weekend, there was also a big fire in Grand Forks. Fire trucks couldn't get to it, so helicopters dumped buckets of floodwater on the fire.
April 23, 1997 - Author and columnist Molly Ivins is guest speaker for this Frank Premack Memorial Lecture at University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute. Ivins talks the meanness of contemporary politics.
April 25, 1997 - Mainstreet Radio’s Catherine Winter talks with northern Minnesota painter Liz Sivertson about her work and what forms her creative inspiration. They preview and exhibition of paintings by Sivertson: colorful, whimsical pictures she did for the children's book “North Country Spring.”
April 25, 1997 - Kent Nerburn reads a selection from "A Haunting Reverence."
April 28, 1997 - David Parker started with an interest in child labor in the United States, tracking kids in the many jobs they do here, from State Fair booths to fast food restaurants. But as photographer and physician, Parker found his focus shifting overseas, and he's compiled a photo essay documenting the far worse conditions for working kids in the Third World. Children reportedly make up 11-percent of the workforce in some Asian countries, 17-percent in Africa, and maybe 25-percent in Latin America. David Parker is a photographer and physician with the Minnesota Health Department. His photos of child labor have been displayed at the U.S.Capitol and Department of Labor, and will be published this summer in a book called "Stolen Dreams".
April 29, 1997 - MPR’s Karen-Louise Boothe reports on members of the Minnesota House debating for more than two hours the merits DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), a measure banning same-sex marriage. The roll call vote was preceeded by more than two hours of sometimes very personal and emotional testimony. In the end, representatives voted overwhelmingly to keep it as amended to the omnibus health and human services bill.
April 29, 1997 - State lawmakers on the House and Senate tax committees will be discuss proposals for financing a new Twins stadium…and It's a critical day for stadium supporters, because with less than three weeks left in the legislative session, they still have no politically viable plan to pay for a new ballpark.
April 29, 1997 - Federal Mediation over the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness ended without any settlement on the use of trucks to pull boats between lakes in the wilderness. But Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone may now support re-opening two of the former truck portages, based on a plan that was narrowly defeated in mediation. Minnesota Public Radio's Bob Kelleher reports from Duluth. The truck portages represent the deepest division among Minnesotans over the region's management. For decades, trucks pulled motorized boats between Boundary Waters lakes on which motors are allowed. But a Federal court closed the four portages to trucks based on what some consider an overly-narrow interpretation of the 1978 law which created the wilderness area. Wilderness advocates won their argument that trucks are inappropriate and th