July 14, 2014 - MPR Special Report presents an MPR News Investigation “Betrayed by Silence: A radio documentary,” which looks at clergy abuse, cover-up, and crisis in the Twin Cities Catholic Church as three archbishops hid the truth.
July 15, 2014 - On this Appetites segment, Tom Crann interviews Minnesota author Beth Dooley about the various food offerings of Hmong growers at farmers markets in the Twin Cities.
July 16, 2014 - MPR’s Brandt Williams reports on the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, played at Target Field for the first time. The American League All-Stars beat the National League last night 5-3, with a little help from Twins Glen Perkins and Kurt Suzuki.
July 23, 2014 - We air Kerri Miller's conversation with novelist Elizabeth Gilbert earlier this month at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul.Gilbert's latest book, "The Signature of All Things," is a sprawling tale of 19th century botanical exploration.Gilbert is best known for her 2006 memoir "Eat Pray Love," which chronicled her journey alone around the world, looking for solace after a difficult divorce. The book was an international bestseller, translated into over thirty languages, with over 10 million copies sold worldwide.In 2010, "Eat Pray Love" was made into a film starring Julia Roberts. The book became so popular that Time Magazine named Gilbert as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.This is the 15th season of Talking Volumes.
July 30, 2014 - The Daily Circuit’s Tom Weber talks with U.S. Representative Tim Walz, who represents Minnesota's 1st District and sits on the House Veterans Affairs committee, about what the VA needs to change and whether a $17 billion fix from Congress can do the job. The two also discuss the latest rules governing the safety of oil trains. 50 oil trains a week pass through Minnesota.
July 31, 2014 - Faced with growing calls for his resignation for his handling of a clergy sex abuse scandal, Archbishop John Nienstedt said Wednesday that he has no plans to leave his position as head of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis . In his first interview with MPR News since the scandal broke last September, Nienstedt defended his decisions and said some have tried to discredit him with rumors of sexual misconduct. For months, Nienstedt has told his colleagues at the chancery in St. Paul that he is "not a quitter." On Wednesday, he insisted that he has no plans to resign, but conceded that his image has suffered in the past year as Catholics reacted to MPR News reports that Nienstedt and other bishops had protected priests accused of sexually abusing children.
July 31, 2014 - On this episode of Minnesota Sounds and Voices, MPR’s Dan Olson talks with Chue Vang about his family’s experience fleeing Laos and coming to the U.S. as refugees. Today, he aims to honor the opportunities found in his adopted home and a late brother with a new scholarship for Hmong students.
August 5, 2014 - In her new novel, "Everything I Never Told You," novelist Celeste Ng quickly plunges readers into the depths of a family tragedy.Late one night, after the Lee family spends a seemingly normal evening filled with the tiny joys of parents and children, 16-year-old Lydia in a pond near the family home. No one in her family, the author tells her readers, will remember their fleeting moments of happiness."Instead they will dissect this last evening for years to come," Ng writes. "What did they miss that they should have seen? What small gesture forgotten might have changed everything? They will pick it down to the bones wondering how this had all gone so wrong, and they will never be sure."In "Everything I Never Told You" Ng explores misery of losing a child, while also using uses the story to examine the challenges of a mixed family in the Midwest during the 1970s, a time when interracial marriages and their offspring made attracted unwelcome and sometimes hostile attention. She will read from the novel at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Magers and Quinn Bookstore in Minneapolis.Ng said the book grew out of a story her husband told her about a little girl he knew who nearly drowned when she fell in a lake. The story touched Ng because of her own fears of the water, and she began writing about the implications for the family. As she wrote, the story developed and became about a lot more.In writing the novel, Ng, 33, began drawing on her own background as an Asian-American who grew up in Pittsburgh and in the Shaker Heights, Ohio, area near Cleveland. But she decided to set the story in the 1970s. "That seemed like a very poignant era to me," Ng said. "For her to see her daughter have a lot of opportunities that for her had maybe now passed."
August 5, 2014 - John Thavis: Former bureau chief for the Catholic News Service. Twin Cities Archbishop John Neinstedt said last week he has no plans to resign amid calls that he do so. In his first broadcast interview since a series of MPR news reports about the scandal launched nearly a year ago, Neinstedt also said he had not discussed resigning with higher-ranking Vatican officials. The MPR series also includes reporting about how previous St. Paul and Minneapolis archbishops addressed the scandal. It comes at a time when, from the Vatican's perspective, Pope Francis recently met for the first time as pontiff with victims of clergy sex abuse, begged their forgiveness and vowed to hold bishops accountable. A New York Times editorial recently connected those two stories, arguing the pope should see through on that vow by looking first at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. But in a church with so much hierarchy, how will bishop accountability play out in Rome? John Thavis, a long-time Vatican reporter, observer and Minnesota native, joins The Daily Circuit.
August 19, 2014 - With the announcement of author Louise Erdrich winning National Book Award for book “The Round House,” The Daily Circuit presents a rebroadcast of a 2012 interview with Erdrich about her book. The novel tells the story of a crime on a North Dakota reservation in 1988.