June 8, 1998 - Minneapolis based Norwest corporation announced today it is merging with San Francisco based Wells Fargo and Company, and moving the headquarters to California. The 34 billion dollar deal creates the nation's 7th largest banking company. Minnesota Public Radio's Bill Catlin reports. In recent months many observers have expected a Minneapolis bank to announce a merger with Wells Fargo, but most speculation focused on Norwest's neighbor, US Bancorp. Norwest officials have been saying they felt no pressure to be part of a big merger, despite a wave of mega-deals this year in the banking and financial services industries. Still more surprising was the decision to put the new company's headquarters in San Francisco. The new Wells
June 9, 1998 - Midday presents a Mainstreet Radio special broadcast on what's being called the "New Midwestern Farm Crisis." The program contains reports on farming issues, including insurance, scab plant disease, government programs, global markets, and Freedom to Farm Act.
June 9, 1998 - This week on Minnesota Public Radio we are looking at what some are calling the new Midwestern Farm Crisis. Despite almost perfect growing conditions many farmers are facing financial hard times because of changing regulation and economic conditions. In today's Mainstreet Radio report Cara Hetland reports local farmers are selling to a global market where outside pressures such as the Asian and Russian financial crisis can have an impact on how they farm. --------------------------------------------------------- | D-CART ITEM:3381 | TIME:6:40 | OUTCUE: "...Minnesota Public Radio." --------------------------------------------------------- Anchor Outro: Tomorrow in the final part of our series, Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Gunderson reports on how U.S. agricultural policy has been designed more to keep food affordable than to keep farmers in business
June 9, 1998 - Norwest bank's proposed merger with Wells Fargo and move to San Francisco has lots of people wondering if the company's charitable giving in our region will decline. Norwest officials say it will not. The bank's Norwest foundation is one of the area's top charitable contributors. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson has more. When company's move, Jon Pratt says, the eyes and ears of their top executives quite naturally focus on charitable needs in their headquarters city. Pratt is executive director of the Council on Non-Profits, a Twin Cities advocacy group non profit organizations. He says Norwest's merger and move may mean the new company gives fewer dollars to Minnesota causes. audio . . . one of the distinctive features of minn
June 9, 1998 - U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigators have more evidence linking Malt-o-Meal's Northfield cereal plant to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened more than 200 people. Minnesota Public Radio's Eric Jansen has more: This much is certain: FDA investigators discovered salmonella bacteria in unopened boxes of Malt-o-Meal cereal produced at the company's Northfield plant. FDA spokesman Don Ayrd says the salmonella from the unopened boxes is the same strain that sickened hundreds throughout the Midwest and East Coast. "The odds of it being .... almost confirmation." :10 Ayrd says all that's left to do to be 100 percent sure is to perform what he calls a "fingerprinting" test:
June 9, 1998 - The news from farm country is not good. Prices are low and costs are high. The squeeze is reminiscent of the farm crisis 20 years ago. The response by farmers is to buy more land and equipment to raise more food. Getting bigger in order to sell more product, the argument goes, is the only way to survive low prices. But a handful of farmers are going in the opposite direction. They're farming smaller, and they are making a living. But it may not be a style of farming others can afford to follow. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson has more. A January wind dragging temperatures below zero did nothing to cool the anger of thousands of farm families gathered 13 years ago at the capitol in St. Paul.
June 9, 1998 - Wall St. today lost some interest in the merger of Norwest Corporation and Wells Fargo. The stocks of both companies declined in heavy trading. At the same time, Minnesotans are sorting out what it means to lose the headquarters of another large Minnesota corporation. Bill Catlin has this report. Norwest officials say it makes sense to go to California, which has nearly 4 times the new company's deposits as Minnesota. The move affects 830 corporate jobs, out of Norwest's Minnesota workforce of ten thousand. The Midwest banking operations will remain headquartered here. Bill Cooper, the head of TCF Financial says he was surprised that Norwest would agree
June 10, 1998 - Representatives from Northwest pilots union met face to face with the company for the first time since contract talks broke off at the end of May. A federal mediator ordered both sides to the bargaining table in Washington D.C. today to begin three days of talks. The contract disagreement has become very public of late, with the company taking out ads criticizing the pilots for rejecting their offer. The pilots are asking for forteen percent raises the first year, and five percent annual raises thereafter. Steve Flanagan is a Northwest pilot who wears a union cap as well. He says the negotiations are playing a large role in his personal life.
June 11, 1998 - Minneapolis officials say an environmental impact statement for expansion of the Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport is flawed. They'll work today on the city's official response, incorporating comments from a public hearing last night. As Minnesota Public Radio's Eric Jansen reports, Northwest Airlines' domination of the market was a key topic last night: City council member Dore Mead says among her chief criticisms of the Environmental Impact Statement is that its estimates of future airport usage about 600,000 flights per year by 2010 -- are, in her words, "way off base.": "Were asking them to admit theyre low we all know it.
June 12, 1998 - Federal Aviaton Administration officials confirmed today the agency is looking into allegations of deficiencies in Northwest's maintenance of DC-9 aircraft. Airline officials say the agency hasn't told them of any current investigation. The airline says allegations have been made, investigated and settled, and the F-A-A has raised no concerns about safety. Minnesota Public Radio's Bill Catlin reports. The investigation is the focus of a front page story in the Wall Street Journal, which notes that the airline has saved billions of dollars by upgrading elderly DC-9's instead of replacing them with newer aircraft. The article quotes an F.A.A. official saying the agency has received allegations that appear to have some credibility and th