Climate change, industry, parks, air and water quality are issues that are debated in congress, compete for funding and enpassion many Minnesotans.
December 27, 2002 - Young people at St. Mark A-M-E Church in Duluth are having some serious fun with religion. The small church has youth outreach programs that perform praise dances and offer a ministry of stepping and stomping for other young people all over the country. Mainstreet Radio's Stephanie Hemphill reports.
December 30, 2002 - Brainerd officials are trying to figure out what's causing a hole in the ice of North Long Lake. The hole is about than 21 hundred feet long and 400 feet wide. It was first discovered last February and reappeared again this year when the rest of the lake froze over. Dick Beeson is president of the Thirty Lakes Watershed district. He says the district is sending divers into the hole later this week to conduct tests. He says the hole could have been caused by a minor earthquake that opened up a hot spot more than a mile below the water's surface:
December 30, 2002 - Minnesota researchers are developing what could become the state's next cash crop. Russ Gesch is a research plant physiologist at the U-S-D-A Agricultural Research Service in Morris, and one of only a handful of people across the country working to create a domesticated version of the cuphea (coo-fee-ah) plant. The seeds of the cuphea produce a type of oil that's used in hundreds of everyday items, from toothpaste to detergent. Gesch says American companies now import coconut and palm oils to manufacture such household products. He believes the cuphea plant could eliminate the country's foreign dependence and shift business to the Midwest.
January 1, 2003 - Franklin Avenue in south Minneapolis has survived bouts with booze and drugs and appears to be on a path to recovery. The decades-long renewal picked up speed in 2002 with construction of a new housing project. And there are prospects several new businesses will open their doors this year. However, Franklin avenue's road to recovery is bumpy. A landmark business closed its doors yesterday, and future development is tied to the health of the economy. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson reports.
January 3, 2003 - Youth, alcohol and mild winter weather are factors contributing to a sharply higher number of road deaths in Minnesota. State safety officials say there's an eighteen percent increase in the state's traffic crash fatalities in 2002 from the year before. A surprising finding is most of the fatalities are on Minnesota's rural roads during daytime hours. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson reports.
January 8, 2003 - Nearly 300 workers at the Blandin paper mill in Grand Rapids lost their jobs today. That's more than a third of the workers at the plant. Blandin is owned by U-P-M Kymmene (KIH-muh-nee) of Finland. U-P-M announced this morning that it's shutting down two of the four production lines at the mill in Grand Rapids. Minnesota Public Radio's Chris Julin reports.
January 10, 2003 - Land may be forever but what grows on the land isn't. Thousands of acres of Minnesota farmland each year are being converted back to a natural state. Private land owners, non-profit groups and government are all part of the effort. Hunting organizations are especially active. One group, "Pheasants Forever", which started in Minnesota, has bought 85-thousand acres nationwide. Mainstreet Radio's Mark Steil reports. { Minnesota's best pheasant range is along its western flank. When settlers arrived more than a century ago this part of the state was treeless prairie. Most of the land now is farmed. But in Lincoln County on the South Dakota border one field is being returned to the wild.
January 10, 2003 - Pheasants Forever is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a meeting this weekend in the Twin Cities. Star Tribune outdoors writer Dennis Anderson launched the organization with a column he wrote in March, 1982 on the decline of the state's upland bird population. At the time, he was writing for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The organization now has over one hundred thousand members in 28 states and Canada. Anderson says it's difficult to assess the impact Pheasants Forever has had over the last two decades:
January 20, 2003 - MPR’s Annie Feidt reports on new technology that is helping resorts produce even better snow…and removing humans from the equation. Trollhaugen ski area is testing out an automated snow gun for the first time this year in efforts in working towards full automation.
January 24, 2003 - Talk about cold......windchill readings around Minnesota reached the -35 to -45 F mark on Thursday morning, the coldest readings since the new formula was initiated by the National Weather Service in November of 2001. But these pale in comparison to the values reported from the Mt. Washington Observatory elevation 6288 ft in New Hampshire on Wednesday this week.....they reported a 6 am EST temperature of -34 F with winds of 117 mph and gusts to 142 mph, giving a windchill of -93 degrees F.....not only far colder than us...but colder than any report from the South Pole as well