June 5, 1998 - St. Paul will kick off the summer party season this Sunday with the annual Grand Old Day. The street festival is the largest one-day festival in the upper midwest and includes a parade, a race, multiple concert stages and all the food booths one could wish for. The event started 25 years ago when some Grand Avenue merchants came up with the idea of hosting a party to bring more people to their stores. Billie Young was a shopkeeper at the time. She's since sold the store and written a book about the street called "Grand Avenue: The Renaissance of an Urban Street." Young says the event had a modest beginning: Billie Young is the author of "Grand Avenue: The Renaissance of an
June 8, 1998 - MPR's Senior Business and Economics Editor Chris Farrell talks about the banking industry's latest merger, Norwest Corporation of Mpls, and Wells Fargo of San Francisco. It's a 34-billion-dollar deal and follows on the heels of the First Bank-US BankCorp takeover. Farrell also answers listener questions.
June 8, 1998 - This spring has been a once in a lifetime experience for Minnesota farmers. The weather has been almost perfect. Crops were planted so early the old rhyme "knee high by the fourth of July" could be a huge understatement. But the good news from the fields is not matched at the market place. In fact U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman will be in Minnesota and North Dakota today (monday 6/8) to talk with farmers about their economic problems. The price farmers receive for their corn, soybeans, and wheat are low and headed lower. American farmers are producing more than this nation or the world can use. The problems come as a historic change in the federal government's role in agriculture is about to take place. Two years ago congress passed landmark legislation known as "freedom to farm." It will end most federal farm support payments after 2002. With the current downturn, farmers wonder if the disappearance of the federal safety net will cause a wave of farm consolidations and bankruptcies during the next decade. In the first of a series of reports on what some are calling the new midwestern farm crisis, Mainstreet Radio's Mark Steil reports on concerns raised by "freedom to farm:"
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