March 23, 1999 - On a 77-to-51 vote, the Minnesota House has passed a bill allowing voters to propose new laws and repeal existing ones. Supporters say giving citizens the power of initiative and referendum - as 24 states have done - will increase voter participation, but the issue faces strong opposition in the D-F-L-controlled Senate.
March 23, 1999 - Just about every where you go in Minnesota there's a shortage of workers, with one exception - Minnesota's prison system. Thousands of able-bodied inmates live inside state prison walls. 830 work for Minnesota's taxpayer supported prison industries. And Corrections officials want to create more jobs. They say prisoners don't make trouble when they're working. And the prison system also needs to meet a state mandate to make prison industries self supporting.
March 23, 1999 - A plan to build a transit hub in south Minneapolis gets another public hearing tonight. Metro Transit wants to create a place where riders can converge to board freeway express buses headed to either downtown Minneapolis or to the suburbs. Proponents say the transit hub is part of a plan to help slow the growth of freeway congestion. Opponents object to the noise and disruption a transit hub will cause in their neighborhood.
March 23, 1999 - Minnesota is one of the few states in the nation with a seatbelt gag rule. That rule bans information about whether a person was wearing a seatbelt as evidence of fault in personal injury lawsuits or in lawsuits against automakers. Some opponents say the law is outdated and now penalizes as many people as it was designed to protect.
March 23, 1999 - Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch is suing American Family Mutual Insurance for consumer fraud and deceptive advertising. Hatch says the Wisconsin-based company failed to fully reimburse customers for damage sustained by last year's storms.
March 24, 1999 - The Brooklyn Park City Council has approved an outdoor amphitheater for the Minnesota Orchestra. The decision was welcomed by Orchestra officials, but the project faced strong opposition from many area residents who fear the venue will host noisy pop music acts.
March 24, 1999 - The National Transportation Safety Board has begun its investigation into the crash of Cirrus Design's SR 20. The accident came as Cirrus was poised to begin customer deliveries of the aircraft, and the Duluth-based company was moving toward full-scale production. Now, Cirrus and federal authorities will be intensely scrutinizing the design and production process of the company's flagship airplane, with investors and customers looking on.
March 24, 1999 - The United States Supreme Court today ended one of Minnesota's most contentious disputes by ruling in favor of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe's right to spearfish and gillnet on the state's premier walleye lake, Lake Mille Lacs. By a vote of 5-to-4, the High Court ruled the Band has retained the right to hunt and fish, free from state regulation on 13-million acres of land it sold to the government more than 160 years ago. Minnesota Public Radio's Elizabeth Stawicki reports on this landmark decision.
March 25, 1999 - The Minnesota House has voted 94 to 37 for a hunting and trapping season for the gray wolf once the animal comes off the endangered species list. Members approved the bill at the urging of Northern Minnesota legislators who said wolves in their districts are coming into increasing conflict with people. Minnesota wolves are expected to be removed from federal protection sometime in the year 2000.
March 25, 1999 - You may not know his name, but you probably know his work. Ralph Rapson has put his mark on the Twin Cities as only an architect can -- in the buildings many of us see and live with nearly every day... the Guthrie Theater, the Cedar West highrise apartments, and many houses for people of modest and not so modest means. Perhaps most importantly -- he was head of the University of Minnesota school of architecture for 30 years --- educating the architects of the future. And now opening this weekend the first major retrospective on Rapson career along with a new book on his life and work.