December 29, 2003 - Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minneapolis and St. Paul have created a Web-based organizer for medical information. You can, for free, keep track of your family's medical conditions, immunizations, medications, insurance information, and more. You can enter, and access, the information from any Internet-connected computer. Jim Levin is a pediatric infectious disease consultant and medical director of Informatics for Childrens' Hospitals and Clinics in Minneapolis and St. Paul. He is creator of the Children's Medical Organizer. The idea behind the organizer, he says, is to reduce hassle and stress for parents.
December 30, 2003 - U.S. Agriculture officials say a holstein infected with mad cow disease was born four months before the U.S. and Canada began banning certain animal parts from cattle feed. Records from the Washington dairy farm where the cow last lived confirm that the animal was born in Canada before the restrictions took effect. Since the news of the infected cow was released last week, federal officials have recalled 10-thousand pounds of beef. While it's still not clear how consumers will react to the scare, some promoters of organic foods say there's a good alternative. Organic Valley is a Wisconsin-based, farmer-owned cooperative that produces a variety of organic products, including organic meat. Michael Levine is the president of The Organic Meat Company of Organic Valley, and he joins us now.
December 30, 2003 - Governor Pawlenty says the state's transportation system is in crisis, and is offering up toll lanes as one solution. The Pawlenty administration will soon seek bids from private entities to build toll lanes on congested corridors. Some legislators question whether the proposal will do much to solve the state's transportation problems. Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum reports.
December 30, 2003 - In Scotland, open source software advocate Robert Kerr has managed to persuade most public libraries to place on their shelves CD's of OpenOffice. That's a free software package akin to Microsoft Office, containing a word processor, spreadsheet, and other tools. The idea, says Kerr, is to get important software into the hands of people who are unable or unwilling to pay for expensive commercial equivalents.
December 30, 2003 - Metro area bus drivers have moved a step closer to a strike. The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005 last night Monday overwhelmingly rejected what the Metropolitan Council labeled its final contract offer. Union officials say their members can't afford the healthcare cost increases in the proposed contract. Minnesota Public Radio's Marisa Helms reports.
December 31, 2003 - Just days before a last-ditch round of contract talks, the Mesaba Airlines pilots' union has sued the company. The union says Mesaba mishandled hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement funds. The company has acknowledged making mistakes and says it is correcting them. But company officials called the lawsuit unnecessary and a distraction. Minnesota Public Radio's Bill Catlin reports.
December 31, 2003 - U.S cattle futures fell today for the fifth straight market session since last week's announcement that a cow in Washington has bovine spongiform encephalopathy, more commonly known as Mad Cow Disease. It's the first known case of mad cow in the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has implemented several safety measures to ensure beef carrying the deadly brain wasting illness out of the food supply. Researchers at the University of Minnesota and the Minneosota Health Department held a video conference today to discuss the new rules and address any concerns that cattlemen, veterinarians and consumers might have. Minnesota Public Radio's Tom Scheck reports.
December 31, 2003 - The new year is scheduled to bring completion of Minnesota's largest public works project. The $750 million Hiawatha line rail line from Minneapolis to Bloomington opens for full service next December. Partial service begins in April. A range of issues remain before riders get on board. One is educating drivers and pedestrians how to co-exist safely with light rail. Another is finding money for a downtown Minneapolis shuttle bus to move rail passengers around. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson reports.
January 1, 2004 - A last minute field goal and an interception allowed the University of Minnesota football team to pull out a thirty-one to thirty victory over Oregon in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, yesterday. The Gophers now have back-to-back bowl wins, having claimed the 2002 Music City Bowl in Nashville. Today, college football serves up its main course of bowls with five games on the schedule, and the college bowl season will finally wrap up on Sunday night with the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. For some die-hard football fans, it's the best week of the year. But for others, the abundance of bowl games has just made the college game more confusing. Minnesota Public Radio's William Wilcoxen reports.
January 6, 2004 -