November 25, 1998 - A group of Twin Cities high school students is launching an advertising campaign designed to convince kids not to smoke. Students from Mounds Park Academy in St. Paul hope their message will get through to young people since it's coming from their peers. Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum reports... A dozen or so students developed a poster in twelve different languages, a web site and a P-S-A for TV. In the video, children dressed in career clothes - a doctor, a construction worker, a dancer - are happily playing, until a pack of cigarettes crashes down in their midst... (nat - kids laughing, screech of cig pack, sound of heartbeat)
November 25, 1998 - The most recent Surgeon General's report find Native Americans have the highest adult smoking rates of any ethnic or minority group in the country. The report finds tobacco use among Native Americans has soared more than 40-percent at a time when it has levelled off among other racial groups. As a result, more Native Americans are dying of respiratory cancers than ever before. Health officials are alarmed but as Minnesota Public Radio's Elizabeth Stawicki reports, anti-tobacco programs take on new complexities for many Native Americans who've long viewed tobacco as a sacred gift: To get a sense of tobacco's place in indian culture one needs to look no further than a traditional pow wow. (sound of leader talking about of tobacco/creation)
November 30, 1998 - MPR’s Dan Olson reports on the varied opinions on the war on drugs…no where is the difference more striking than on the front lines. There's a rising tide of voices saying we're not winning the war on drugs so we should legalize all or most of them.
November 30, 1998 - The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear a dispute over where to store highly radioactive waste from the nation's nuclear power plants. Spent nuclear fuel is building up at power plants across the nation, including Nothern State's Power's Prairie Island nuclear plant. Minnesota Public Radio's Mary Losure reports. Utilities including NSP had hoped the case would force the Federal Department of Energy to meet a 1998 deadline to accept the spent nuclear fuel. The Supreme Court's decision lets stand a lower court ruling that said the DOE does not have to take the waste until the agency has a place to put it. The DOE's permanent storage site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada won't be ready un
December 2, 1998 - A former giant of the exercise equipment industry passed from local control this week. NordicTrack, which sold millions of dollars-worth of cross country-ski machines since the mid-eighties, has fallen foul of changes in US exercise habits. Minnesota Public Radio Sports Commentator Jay Wiener has this analysis... Minnesota Public Radio Sports Commentator Jay Wiener is on leave from the Star Tribune Newspaper to write a book on the politics of sports stadiums. Sun 28-MAY 07:43:20 MPR NewsPro Archive - Wed 04/11/2001
December 2, 1998 - Governor Arne Carlson has a little more than a month left in his term, and already tributes to his thirty years in public office are under way. The first took place in Minneapolis last night NARRATION: It wasn't a "retirement party"; it was a "salute" -- a salute featuring more than twelve hundred Carlson fans and kicked off by the University of Minnesota Marching Band. It was, for Governor Carlson, a chance to reflect on his term in office and wha
December 8, 1998 - MPR’s Lynette Nyman talks with Ilean Her, director of the state’s Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, about Hmong community leaders release of a proposal seeking state dollars to help Minnesota's South-East Asians population. Several recent tragedies in the Hmong community prompted the initiative which will be presented to the legislature. It calls for mental health, education, violence prevention, and self-sufficiency programs.
December 11, 1998 - U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone has all but announced he's running for President. The two-term Democrat says he's going to make the final decision over the holidays -- after he gets a chance to discuss it with his family. But in a speech to supporters and financial backers last night (THURS), Wellstone made it sound as though he's already embarked on the campaign trail. Minnesota Public Radio's Martin Kaste reports:
December 17, 1998 - A new housing development in Minneapolis' Phillips neighborhood will convert several landmark mansions into condominiums. Residents say the project is not gentrification that will push poor people out but instead is the beginning of a long awaited turn-around for the inner city neighborhood. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson reports. The wrecking ball has taken many of the mansions along Park avenue in the Phillips neighborhood. But a few remain, and Lutheran Social Services spokesman Bill Vanderwall says three near their headquarters building will become condominiums. The units will sell for $90,000 to $145,000. Vanderwalle says the housing and other projects in the works will change the face of the city's poorest neighborhood.
December 24, 1998 - Mainstreet Radio's Gretchen Lehmann reports on Wings of Mercy, a program based in St. Cloud that assists with the challenges of rural Minnesotans in finding medical care. A group of amateur pilots volunteer their time to fly rural low-income patients to hospitals in larger cities...and they do all their work for free.