February 26, 1999 - St. Paul business leaders welcomed Governor Ventura into their midst today. Ventura offended some St. Paul residents and Irish-Americans this week by joking on the David Letterman show that drunk Irishmen must have designed the streets in St. Paul. But Mayor Norm Coleman calls Ventura a huge asset to the city.
February 26, 1999 - A Minnesota audience will be transported to the Alaskan wilds tomorrow night to experience the landscape and creatures of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A traveling show of music and photography called "Caribou Commons" is stopping in St. Paul to raise support for protecting the habitat of the porcupine caribou herd. Each year some 150-thousand Caribou migrate hundreds of miles from their wintering grounds in Canada to the Alaskan coastal plain. Environmentalists are fighting to protect the herd's calving ground from oil development. Yukon writer and photographer Ken Madsen created the Caribou Commons project.
February 26, 1999 - Many people have a hard time finding the humor in air travel, but for Rene Foss... it comes naturally. Foss is an aspiring actress living in New York who makes her real living as a flight attandent with Northwest Airlines. It's a job she landed after graduating from the University of Minnesota. Fourteen years later, her career provides more than a paycheck, it's also the source of her comic material for the cabaret show "Around The World in a Bad Mood" opening in Minneapolis this weekend.
February 26, 1999 - The biggest cross-country ski competition in North America gets underway in Hayward, Wisconsin this Saturday. The Birkibiener draws competitors from across the country and around the world. More than 6,500 skiers have already signed up to tackle the 52 kilometer course. Carl Swensen won last year's race, which went ahead despite dismal snow conditions. Swensen says this year the snow is good and the Birkie is shaping up to be a fast race.
February 26, 1999 - State legislators have an extra $282 Million dollars to work with before this fiscal year ends in June. The Finance Department today predicted the state's budget surplus will be that much bigger than previous estimates -- an increase economists attribute mainly to rising wages and increased income tax revenues for the state. The additional revenue raises the stakes in the tax relief negotiations between the House, Senate and Governor Ventura.
February 26, 1999 - A new study on attitudes towards housing and development confirms what many planning officials have long suspected: Residents in the Twin Cities area prefer single-family homes on large lots away from town, rather than living in the city.
February 26, 1999 - A push to pass tougher financial disclosure laws for state legislators and lobbyists may be dead this session. An ethics expert from Rutgers University says such laws rarely produce valuable information for the public, and infringe on the privacy of citizen legislators. A House committee killed a disclosure bill this week, and it faces an uphill battle in the Senate.
February 26, 1999 - There's a busy special election season ahead in Minneapolis . City council member Steve Minnesota is leaving his post to become commissioner of Public Service in the Ventura administration. The annoucement follows by a few months Mark Andrew's decision to leave his Hennepin County Commissioner job. Minnesota has been the lone voice of political dissent on the DFL controlled City Council. His departure opens up a council seat in the city's affluent 13th ward.
February 26, 1999 - Computer experts warn without precautions, the transition to the year two thousand could disrupt computer operations which could have a domino effect on the economy. Some estimates have big business globally spending as much as 500 BILLION dollars to prepare for Y2K. Now there are increasing efforts to help ensure small businesses without technology departments and budgets for consultants, are also protected.
March 1, 1999 - MPR’s Michael Khoo visits the Majestic Ballroom in Cottage Grove on the venue’s last night open. Khoo interviews ballroom dancer patrons as they kick up their heels one last time. For a quarter century, the Majestic has entertained the fancy footwork of those dancers with a taste for polkas, waltzes, and foxtrots.