December 23, 1996 - Midday presents a Voices of Minnesota program, highlighting conversations with businessman Fred Myers, who started a St. Paul company that employs chronic alcoholics; and Roberta Davis, one of Minnesota's foremost jazz vocalists.
December 24, 1996 -
December 24, 1996 - Small town merchants are facing increasing competition to keep retail dollars in their towns. Many small town residents drive to the Twin Cities or regional shopping hubs, such as Sioux Fall and Mankato. Small town retailers say bigger is not always better, and they're trying to get that message out to shoppers. But regional shopping hubs ARE attracting customers, somtimes from from as far as 150 miles away. Today we have a two part report on the regional competition for shoppers' dollars. We begin with Minnesota's Public Radio's Holly Nelson reporting on the southern Minnesota town of Le Sueur where shoppers are within easy driving distance of both the Twin Cities and Mankato.
December 26, 1996 - MPR’s Mary Losure created this report for National Public Radio detailing the efforts to save Native American language by teaching it to next generation. Losure interviews both language teachers and students at Nay Ah Shing school in Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.
December 26, 1996 - Birdwatchers across North and South America are out in numbers again this week and next, taking the annual bird census. It's a tradition that started in 1900 as a way to protest a different kind of tradition ... teams of hunters would compete to see how many bird and small animal species they could kill. The 97th annual count, sponsored by the National Audubon Society, began December 20th and runs through January Fifth, involves 45-thousand birders, and continues a valuable research tradition, allowing experts to trace bird populations and the condition of the environment in general. I called a few birdwatchers involved in the annual count, starting with Jim Pasch, who lives on the northern edge of the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. He and his fellow birdwatchers went out Saturday.
December 26, 1996 - A new study suggests defibrillators implanted in the chests of heart attack patients could save as many as nine-thousand lives over two years. The battery-powered devices fire automatically whenever they detect dangerously abnormal heartbeats. The report in the "New England Journal of Medicine" indicates they could cut the risk of death in half for the 65-thousand Americans who survive heart attacks every year. Critics say the study was financed by the defibrillator manufacturer -- St. Paul-based CPI/Guidant Corporation -- and that the device should be used only in survivors with the highest risk of death by cardiac arrest. In a moment, we'll talk about the ethics, but first we'll hear from someone who implants defibrillators.
December 26, 1996 - Norwest bank's top economist is predicting Minnesota's economy will slow in 1997. Sung Won Sohn issued his annual financial forcast today.
December 27, 1996 - President Clinton and a growing number of the nation's educators are calling for uniforms in public schools as a way to restore order to unruly classrooms. Supporters say uniforms improve learning and behavior. Opponents say a mandatory uniform policy can infringe on a childs right to public school education. There are only two public schools in Minnesota with uniforms, one in Minneapolis and one in Saint Paul. The Saint Paul school district recently adopted a policy allowing individual schools to adopt uniforms, if parents approve.
December 30, 1996 - If you're a legal alien in this country and you commit a crime, chances are greater than ever before you'll be deported. Tough new immigration laws passed by congress this year have expanded the category of crimes for which resident aliens can be deported, and have severely limited a judge's ability to grant any relief. The impact of the new laws is already being felt in Minnesota, and legal advocates are concerned the changes may do more harm than good in the long run.
December 30, 1996 - Changes in federal law that take effect January first make it illegal to delay or deny an adoption based on race. Those who lobbied for the change say it will help speed the process of finding permanent homes for black children... by allowing white families to adopt them more easily. Critics say removing race as a factor in adoption is naive and misguided.